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Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake-Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington
iceangel9's review
4.0
When a snake handling preacher comes to trial for trying to murder his wife, Covington heads South to cover the trial. He becomes intrigued by the religion of snake handling and finds himself drawn into their lives and religion as he researches their faith. A fascinating look at this religious sect, told in a fair yet in-depth way.
darwin8u's review
4.0
An amazing narrative of faith, redemption, fundamentalism and the search for God and family in the Appalachian South. Oh and snakes, did I mention there is lots and lots of snakes? Covington approaches his subject (Holiness, snake-handling mountain churches) with a love and empathy that makes the differences between ALL the families of belief seem at once dangerous and large while simultaneously delicate and beautiful.
hagiasophia's review
5.0
A wonderfully written memoir and examination of snake-handling. Covington evokes the spirit of these people perfectly and respectfully, but also doesn't look away from the difficult politics of snake-handling. A fast read that sticks with you.
raehink's review
4.0
I was excited to find a copy of this book in a used bookstore. It's been on my "to read" mental list ever since it was first published back in 1995.
The author, who is a journalist, starts out trying to tell an objective story about snake-handling religions in Tennessee. But as he delves deeper into their lives and beliefs, he begins to find out a lot about his own heritage and family. That fact alone is what made the book so interesting for me (although it is the very thing that many readers complain about in reviews). I loved that this became almost a memoir and certainly a family history account.
I enjoyed learning about the snakes and the handlers and their faith beliefs. Some of my own people fit into this story -- coming from the British Isles around the same time as the handlers' ancestors and it is always helpful to know how religious beliefs fit into a historical context. I now understand the commonalities between Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals and snake-handlers. I never would have known they were connected in any way.
A most interesting read. I learned a lot. It's a keeper.
Some preachers didn't take the Holiness prescriptions about dress quite as seriously as others. Charles McGlocklin's theory was simple: "You've got to catch the fish before you clean them." (71)
When I told Carl Porter that I might have run across some handlers in my family tree, he seemed amused, but not surprised. "Who knows but that God sent you up here to write about Glenn's trial so you could find out that very thing?" he said. (131)
My journey with the snake handlers had become not so much a linear progression through time as a falling through levels of platitude toward some hard understanding of who I was. I did not know where or when I would arrive at my destination. All I knew for certain was that snakes would be waiting for me there. (132)
"Every time you go through one spiritual door," Charles McGlocklin said, "there will be another to go through. Every time you go through one, you'll get stronger, you're led by the Spirit more, the Spirit can reveal things to you and let you know more and more, and the more it can trust you with, the more it will let you have." (178)
I don't believe it is a conceit to think you are being led by the Spirit. It may be a conceit to say such a thing publicly. But if you accept the idea of a universe set into motion by an intelligent hand, then it seems to me you need to consider the possibility that the hand may still be at work in its movement. Things happen. But chance and coincidence don't mean much to me anymore...I'd learned not to dismiss anything as meaningless. Mystery, I'd read somewhere, is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend. (203)
On Sand Mountain, the snake-handling Millers and Mitchells and Hatfields were all tangled up together by marriage. The snake-handling congregations, widely separated by geography, often seem to constitute a series of extended families. Scholars call them "stem families." The Elkins in West Virginia, the Saylors in Kentucky, the Greggs in Tennessee, and the Mitchells and Summerfords in Alabama. (205)
The author, who is a journalist, starts out trying to tell an objective story about snake-handling religions in Tennessee. But as he delves deeper into their lives and beliefs, he begins to find out a lot about his own heritage and family. That fact alone is what made the book so interesting for me (although it is the very thing that many readers complain about in reviews). I loved that this became almost a memoir and certainly a family history account.
I enjoyed learning about the snakes and the handlers and their faith beliefs. Some of my own people fit into this story -- coming from the British Isles around the same time as the handlers' ancestors and it is always helpful to know how religious beliefs fit into a historical context. I now understand the commonalities between Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals and snake-handlers. I never would have known they were connected in any way.
A most interesting read. I learned a lot. It's a keeper.
Some preachers didn't take the Holiness prescriptions about dress quite as seriously as others. Charles McGlocklin's theory was simple: "You've got to catch the fish before you clean them." (71)
When I told Carl Porter that I might have run across some handlers in my family tree, he seemed amused, but not surprised. "Who knows but that God sent you up here to write about Glenn's trial so you could find out that very thing?" he said. (131)
My journey with the snake handlers had become not so much a linear progression through time as a falling through levels of platitude toward some hard understanding of who I was. I did not know where or when I would arrive at my destination. All I knew for certain was that snakes would be waiting for me there. (132)
"Every time you go through one spiritual door," Charles McGlocklin said, "there will be another to go through. Every time you go through one, you'll get stronger, you're led by the Spirit more, the Spirit can reveal things to you and let you know more and more, and the more it can trust you with, the more it will let you have." (178)
I don't believe it is a conceit to think you are being led by the Spirit. It may be a conceit to say such a thing publicly. But if you accept the idea of a universe set into motion by an intelligent hand, then it seems to me you need to consider the possibility that the hand may still be at work in its movement. Things happen. But chance and coincidence don't mean much to me anymore...I'd learned not to dismiss anything as meaningless. Mystery, I'd read somewhere, is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend. (203)
On Sand Mountain, the snake-handling Millers and Mitchells and Hatfields were all tangled up together by marriage. The snake-handling congregations, widely separated by geography, often seem to constitute a series of extended families. Scholars call them "stem families." The Elkins in West Virginia, the Saylors in Kentucky, the Greggs in Tennessee, and the Mitchells and Summerfords in Alabama. (205)
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