Tennessee Pastor Disputes Wildlife Possession Charge by State JACKSBORO, Tenn. - In a mix of old-time religion, modern media and Tennessee law, a 22-year-old preacher who has become a reality television star because of his experience in handling poisonous snakes pleaded not guilty on Friday to illegally keeping dozens of them that he and his congregants routinely touch during worship services. Andrew Hamblin, pastor of the Tabernacle Church of God in nearby LaFollette and a star of "Snake Salvation," a recent series on the National Geographic Channel, said he hoped to turn the case against him in Campbell County General Sessions Court into a new front in the battle for religious liberty. "This ain't no longer just a fight for snake handling," Mr. Hamblin, the father of five, told a group of supporters wearing red - to symbolize the blood of Christ - before his arraignment on a misdemeanor wildlife possession charge. This is a fight for freedom of religion. As Mr. Hamblin, holding a Bible, spoke from the third step of the Campbell County Courthouse, several women cried and shook. Members of Mr. Hamblin's two-story brick church, which sits along a gravel road, have made no secret of their status as one of the country's estimated 125 snake-handling congregations. It came as little surprise when Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials showed up on Nov. 7. During the raid, the officers seized about 50 snakes from the church's Snake Room, including copperheads, timber rattlesnakes and cottonmouths, and cited Mr. Hamblin on one count carrying a possible punishment of a $2,500 fine and nearly a year in prison. Mr. Hamblin, who is to return to court next month, has not been charged with violating Tennessee's 1947 ban on snake handling. "We don't allow anybody other than a permitted individual to possess venomous snakes," said Matthew Cameron, a spokesman for the wildlife agency. We don't view him as any different from anyone else in the general public who has a king cobra in his room. And although church members say Mr. Hamblin takes care to keep the snakes secure, the chief prosecutor for Campbell County, a rural area just north of Knoxville, has described them as a "significant public safety hazard." But to Mr. Hamblin and his supporters, the case is little more than state-instigated discrimination against a religious practice that has been present in East Tennessee for more than a century. "When those officers entered the house of God, that cooked it with me," said James Slusher, who attends Mr. Hamblin's church but said he does not handle snakes. Mr. Hamblin's legal troubles have attracted widespread attention in Campbell County, and they have revived a longstanding debate here about whether the Constitution offers protections for Christians who, as the Gospel of Mark puts it, "pick up snakes with their hands." The Tennessee Supreme Court said nearly 40 years ago that it did not. "Tennessee has the right to guard against the unnecessary creation of widows and orphans," the court said in its opinion, which also described one snake-handling congregation as "to say the least, unconventional and out of harmony with contemporary customs, mores and notions of morality." But with the rise of the Internet and a dizzying array of cable channels, Mr. Hamblin and other young preachers who routinely handle snakes have sought to explain their practices, even as their traditions earned unfavorable headlines after the death of a West Virginia minister last year. Mr. Hamblin, who acknowledges that most snake handlers try to remain in the shadows, said he was merely opening his church to all prospective believers. But others suspect different, more strategic motives. "I think this younger group of people is just openly defiant of the law and wants to get the law and regulations changed," said Ralph Hood, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who has studied snake handling. They're using modern technologies to support what they see as an old-time religion. And Mr. Hamblin argues that he is as much a Christian as any of this region's many Baptists or Methodists. "Just because I take up serpents doesn't make me no more or no less a Christian than anybody else in this room," Mr. Hamblin said during an interview on Thursday night in his sanctuary, which includes a large photograph of him holding up a snake. Snake handling isn't going to get me into heaven. The blood of Jesus Christ is what is going to get me into heaven. Whether the transparency, bravado or legal tactics of Mr. Hamblin will lead to a new precedent or a groundswell of public opinion remains an open question. But legal scholars from outside Tennessee said Mr. Hamblin could mount a credible defense, especially because the state allows some entities, like zoos, to possess snakes. "It all really comes down to whether or not there are exceptions for other reasons, and that's really the key factor," said James A. Sonne, the director of the Religious Liberty Clinic at Stanford Law School. The devil is going to be in the details. Mr. Hamblin, who sat at his church for hours on Thursday as supporters brought in petitions endorsing his battle, said he was prepared to take his case to the federal appellate courts. Although the matter could take years to resolve, Mr. Hamblin and his backers said they would remain unbowed. "If they take him to jail, I'll go to jail with him," said Bucky Rouse, a former embalmer who is now an interior designer. This is something we believe in.