You Will Not Surely Die”

The Pentecostal Aesthetics and Ethics of Serpent Handling

Bibliographic Data

ID14760593
AuthorsMichael Austin Kamenicky (corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume52
Issue2
Pages189-208
Publication date2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jore.12469
OpenAlexW4392196811
LanguageEN
References cited13

This paper is an aesthetic analysis of the practice of serpent handling by Christians in the Appalachian region of the United States. The purpose of this analysis is to understand serpent handling's aesthetic relationship to the Pentecostal tradition and exposit the implications of this relationship for the practice's legal status. The first section examines the history and defining characteristics of serpent handling and introduces the controversial problem of whether the practice can be categorized within the Pentecostal movement. The second section argues that serpent handling can be understood as belonging within the broader global Pentecostal tradition through engagement with the Pentecostal aesthetics of Nimi Wariboko. The final section concludes that if serpent handling is legible according to the aesthetic norms of Pentecostalism, a now broadly tolerated religious tradition in the United States, then this necessitates a wholesale reconsideration of antiserpent handling legislation

Aesthetics · Legislation · Political science · Serpent (symbolism · Sociology · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Law · Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy

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