George Went Hensley was an American Pentecostal minister best known for popularizing the practice of snake handling. A native of rural Appalachia, he experienced a religious conversion around 1910. He traveled through the Southeastern United States, teaching a form of PentECostalism that emphasized strict personal holiness and frequent contact with venomous snakes. In 1955, while conducting a service in Florida, he was bitten by a snake and became violently ill. He refused to seek medical attention and died the following day.
About George Went Hensley in brief
George Went Hensley was an American Pentecostal minister best known for popularizing the practice of snake handling. A native of rural Appalachia, he experienced a religious conversion around 1910. Following his conversion, he traveled through the Southeastern United States, teaching a form of PentECostalism that emphasized strict personal holiness and frequent contact with venomous snakes. He was arrested for violating laws against snake handling at least twice. In 1955, while conducting a service in Florida, he was bitten by a snake and became violently ill. He refused to seek medical attention and died the following day. Despite his personal failings, he convinced many residents of Appalachia that snake handling was commanded by God, and his followers continued the practice after his death. His supporters later asserted that he broke out of the revival by holding snake-handling services in parts of rural Tennessee and Kentucky, and that he also claimed to have seen a snake while walking on the hill and told the congregation to prove their salvation by holding the snake in his hand. He is generally credited with spreading the custom in the U.S. Although snake handling developed independently in several Pentacostal ministries, he is generallyredited with spreading it in the S southeastern United States. He died in 1955, after having survived more than 400 bites. He fathered 13 children. He had many conflicts with his family members because of his drunkenness, frequent travels, and inability to earn a steady income.
He married four times and fathered thirteen children. His family lived in Tennessee in Hawkins County and Loudon County in the 1880s. He told his children he was from West Virginia and that his family’s roots were in Pennsylvania, but historian David Kimbrough argues he was born in Tennessee. He worked in local ore mines, helped in his brother-in-law’s lumber business, and was involved in making moonshine, a common practice in the region. His mother and sisters were very religious, and he was reared a Baptist. He left the Baptist church in 1901, the year he married Amanda Winniger, and moved to her brother’s 400-acre farm in Ooltewah, where they lived in a shack. He later moved to Ohio, where he held revival services, though he and his family rarely stayed long in one location. He became fixated on a passage in the Gospel of Mark: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name… They shall take up serpents”. He proposed that Christians might take up serpent without injury. He also proposed that with this memory, they might have salvation and withdrew to a nearby hill to pray and seek God’s will and seek his will. He said that he knelt in prayer, then brought it to his church and told his congregation to do the same. He claimed that he had been bitten by many snakes without ill effect, and toward the end of his career, he estimated that he’d survived over 400 bites. His first experience with snake handling occurred between 1908 and 1914.
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This page is based on the article George Went Hensley published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
