Letter: A Response to a Kes Story

I am submitting this response regarding an article written by Kes - “Be Careful Whose Snake You Are Picking Up” in a recent submission in The McKenzie Banner under his column “Hunker Down With Kes” in the February 24, 2026 issue.  In the article, he recollected being at a Primitive Baptist church where they were handling snakes in church worship.  That portion of the article was a funny story - unless you attend a Primitive Baptist Church.

I am the son of a Primitive Baptist minister.  I am the grandson of a Primitive Baptist minister.  I pastored New Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Lexington, Tenn. for just shy of 24 years. 

I currently pastor at Union Primitive Baptist Church in McKenzie, Tenn. and have been there just over one year.  As a child, my father pastored Wilmington Primitive Baptist Church in Wilmington, Delaware but he was from Mississippi. 

He traveled extensively among the Primitive Baptists from Pennsylvania to Florida to Texas and all the states in between and, of course, we were with him for most of his trips. 

As a Primitive Baptist minister myself, I have also traveled to hold meetings, and also to attend meetings all over this country, including Nevada, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, and of course, West, Middle, and East Tennessee, and in the countries of Kenya and Tanzania in Africa.  In all my travels among the Primitive Baptists as a child, and as a minister, I have never witnessed, nor ever even heard of a snake being used in worship, nor in any way associated with Primitive Baptist church gatherings or functions.  In reading various church history books, covering dates before the 1800s to present, there is no mention of any Primitive (or Regular, Particular, Old School, etc.) Baptist church using snakes in worship.

The Primitive Baptists are Bible-believing people who gather to worship Jesus Christ because of His finished work of redemption, and to learn how to conduct our lives in discipleship according to the principles of the Kingdom of God.  Our worship services are family – integrated and include acapella singing, praying and preaching messages from the word of God, our only rule of faith and practice, which does not include snakes in any way, form or fashion.

Historically and Respectfully,
Elder Paul Blair, Pastor
Union Primitive Baptist Church
McKenzie, Tenn.

From Hunker Down with Kes, “Be Careful Whose Snake You Are Picking Up”, published February 24, 2026, “Except for the snakes. We were at a Primitive Baptist Church in the Appalachian Mountains in East Tennessee when I was in college. I found out quickly they are no kin to Southern Baptist when they brought out the rattlesnakes. Those things were hissing, twirling, craning their necks…and what I took to be a deacon was handing them out to be passed down the rows! I never even stuck my hand up. When the lady next to me turned and extended our snake, I said as humbly as I knew how, ‘Ma’am, there is not a greedy bone in my body. You just give my snake to your sister-in-law sitting behind us.’”