Pastor dances with same snake that killed his dad days ago, vows to keep handling snakes (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Pastor dances with same snake that
killed his dad days ago, vows to keep
handling snakes (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
A week after his father died from a rattlesnake bite after
refusing medical attention, reality star Cody Coots reportedly
danced with and held the very snake that killed his dad,
vowing to follow in the older man’s footsteps to not seek
treatment even if he gets bitten.
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According to TMZ, the rattlesnake that killed Coots’ father, Jamie Coots,
“made an encore appearance Saturday night” at the Full Gospel
Tabernacle in Jesus Name church in Middlesboro, Ky., where the elder
Coots served as pastor until his sudden death.
In a video posted by the news site, Cody Coots, who has reportedly taken
the helm at the Middlesboro church, is seen holding the snake with his
bare hands and dancing with it. (Watch the clip above.)
Earlier this week, Coots told NBC-affiliate WBIR-TV that he will be
continuing his father’s ministry and snake-handling.
“For me to step down on those things that [my dad] taught me, I don’t
know if he would come back out of his grave and slap me clean across
the face,” he said. “That’s how much he believed in it. I mean he was that
strong in it. He believed in it enough he died for it, so I won’t step down
for anyone.”
That, it seems, also includes mimicking his dad’s decision to refuse
medical attention if he happens to be bitten by a poisonous snake.
“I will lay right there and say to everyone, it’s God’s will. It’s good
enough to live by, and good enough to die by,” Coots told TMZ .
Jamie Coots, who starred in the National Geographic reality series “Snake
Salvation,” died a week ago after being attacked by a rattlesnake during a
church service. According to the AP, emergency personnel had tried to
attend to Coots but he refused treatment.
The elder Coots was a believer in particular Bible passages that suggests
that poisonous snakebites don’t harm those who are anointed by God.
“We literally believe they want us to take up snakes,” he told the AP last
year. “We’ve been serpent handling for the past 20 or 21 years.”
Though the theology of Coots and his son may strike some as extreme, a
few have defended their beliefs. Earlier this week, for example, Jeffrey
Weiss of the Religious News Service wrote an op-ed explaining why
Coots’ actions may actually be “not all that strange.”
‘Snake Salvation’ Church — Deadly Rattler Back in Church for Round 2
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“To most people, these [Bible passages] seem like a crazy justification to
handle deadly serpents. But I evaluate these kinds of claims through
Weiss’ Law of Religious Relativism: Any religion is, by definition, crazy to
a nonbeliever,” he wrote. “Is it crazier to believe that the creator of the
universe had a son who is somehow also him and required that son to be
tortured to death and resurrected to allow his creations to escape the
consequences of sin — or that he would protect his faithful believers from
the effects of snake venom?”