Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A timber rattlesnake, seen during a Pentecostal serpent handlers service at the House of the Lord Jesus church in Squire, West ...

Pentecostal congregants who take the Gospel of Mark literally and “pick up snakes with their hands” believe God will protect them, but does the United States Constitution? Earlier this month, ...

A pale yellow church sits perched atop a hillside above a swift creek in Squire, West Virginia. Three wooden crosses are nailed to the side of the church with a purple sash draped over the middle. A ...

In autumn last year, I contacted Chris Wolford, the 52-year-old pastor of the House of the Lord Jesus in the village of Squire, West Virginia, to see if, as I had read, it was really the last church ...

JOLO, W.Va. — “When I die, I wanna snake-bit die.” Dewey Chafin’s voice is soft as gauze, but the sentiment is hammered iron. You can’t doubt a man’s sincerity when he’s standing at a pulpit in shirt ...

THIS is the moment a serpent-handling preacher is bitten by a poisonous rattlesnake and almost dies in front of his congregation. Pastor Chris Wolford was preaching at his church in West Virginia when ...

Snake handling, a religious rite involving poisoning snakes practiced in a small number of Christian communities in the U.S., is at the heart of the new true crime documentary “Alabama Snake.” The HBO ...