Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia
For New York Times reporter Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignmentcovering the trial of an Alabama pastor convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakeswould evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of...
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For New York Times reporter Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignmentcovering the trial of an Alabama pastor convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakeswould evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of unshakable faith: the world of holiness snake handling.Set in the heart of Appalachia, Salvation on Sand Mountain is Covington’s unsurpassed and chillingly captivating exploration of the nature, power, and extremity of faithan exploration that gradually turns inward, until Covington finds himself taking up the snakes.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780306818363 (0306818361)
ASIN: 306818361
Publish date: August 11th 2009
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Pages no: 288
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Autobiography,
Memoir,
Writing,
History,
Book Club,
American,
Journalism,
Religion,
Biography Memoir,
Christianity,
Southern,
Theology
What was originally intended to be a meditation on the trial of a Holiness pastor, Glenn Summerford, who was convicted of using snakes to kill his wife morphed into a rather bizarre memoir that follows the spiritual development (?) or devolution of an erstwhile Methodist to snake-handling Holiness ...
An intense true story about a journalist who researched snake-handling Christians in the North Georgia mountains and got so swept up in their charismatic movement that he joined them for a time. Reminds you that at its core religion is not an intellectual process, but an emotional one. Religion is...
I love a book about odd religious beliefs, so a group that practices snake-handling is right up my alley. Covington does a great job, taking time to get to know the people he writes about, taking the time to really understand them. I'm not going to join, but I did finish feeling as though I'd lear...
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