Death from snake handling

There is a small group of Christians who take the Bible literally and interpret a passage from the very last chapter of Mark (16:17-18) that reads: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” as a test of faith and handled deadly snakes to show that they are indeed true believers. [Read more…]

What happens when the apocalypse doesn’t?

I was curious about what happened to all those people who believed in Harold Camping’s prediction that the rapture would occur in 2011. Tom Bartlett followed and interviewed a group of Camping followers before the predicted date and one year later. He found that “you don’t have to be nuts to believe something crazy” and that they had an incredible level of certainty that the world was going to end. [Read more…]

Codifying Bible-based marriage into law

We hear a lot from politicians about how we must protect traditional, Bible-based marriage against those who would change its definition to allow same-sex couples. Oddly enough, very few seem to be willing to fully embrace traditional marriage in its most comprehensive form, opting instead for such limited legal actions as restricting it to between one man and one woman. [Read more…]