page_title: George Went Hensley
section_title: Ministry in Tennessee and final years
hierarchical_section_title: George Went Hensley / Ministry / Ministry in Tennessee and final years
caption_attribution_description: English: Handling serpents at the Pentecostal Church of God. Lejunior, Harlan County, Kentucky. Company funds have not been used in this church and it is not on company property. Most of the members are coal miners and their families. The pastor Eli Sanders, who is standing at the right died from a snake bite suffered during the ritual use of snakes in September 1958
context_page_description: George Went Hensley was an American Pentecostal minister best known for popularizing the practice of snake handling. A native of rural Appalachia, Hensley experienced a religious conversion around 1910: on the basis of his interpretation of scripture, he came to believe that the New Testament commanded all Christians to handle venomous snakes.
  Hensley was part of a large family that had moved between Tennessee and Virginia, before settling in Tennessee shortly after his birth. 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. Although illiterate, he became a licensed minister of the Church of God in 1915. After traveling through Tennessee for several years conducting Church of God-sanctioned services, he resigned from the denomination in 1922. Hensley was married four times and fathered thirteen children. He had many conflicts with his family members because of his drunkenness, frequent travels, and inability to earn steady income, factors cited by his first three wives as reasons for their divorces.
context_section_description: Hensley lived in Tennessee until at least late 1941. He then moved to Evansville, Indiana, after separating from Irene. After a brief stay in Pineville, Hensley returned to Ooltewah in 1943. There he stayed with family members and held religious services. Snake handling had lost popularity since the late 1920s and groups that promoted nontrinitarianism had become popular. Various churches in the area barred those who practiced snake handling from membership.
  In 1943, Raymond Hayes, a young adherent of Hensley's teachings, arrived in the Ooltewah area and began successfully preaching about snake handling. Hensley and Hayes started a church together in 1945, which they named the "Dolly Pond Church of God with Signs Following". Later in 1945, a member of the church was bitten by a snake and died. The members of the church continued to handle snakes at services, including at the funeral of the man who died from snakebite. The man's death was viewed as ordained by God to test the faith of the congregants, and to demonstrate to non-believers that the snakes they handled were, in fact, dangerous. That year, Hensley was arrested for snake handling in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was given a $50 fine, which he refused to pay even when threatened with a workhouse sentence. He was released after members of his church appealed to authorities.
  Hensley continued to travel around Tennessee, receiving a mixed reception from those who were aware of his past. Some who knew him were willing to forgive him and welcome him back in a ministerial role, but he remained estranged from most of his family. His son Roscoe saw him preach in 1944. The younger Hensley was also a pastor by then, but had never seen his father conduct a service.
  In 1946, Hensley married for the third time, but his wife, Inez Hutcheson, left him after less than a year of marriage. After their separation, Hensley began to preach in Chattanooga. During services, he began asserting that he had been miraculously healed after being paralyzed for a year following a coal-mining accident. Kimbrough disputes his claim, noting that there is no one-year gap in the records of Hensley moving or actively ministering. Hensley continued to live in Chattanooga until the early 1950s; he moved to Athens, Georgia, in the early to mid-1950s.
caption: Snake handling service held in Lejunior, Harlan County, Kentucky at the Pentecostal Church of God, September 15, 1946 (National Archives and Records Administration, photo by Russell Lee)
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