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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 09:05, 26 February 2012 [1].

George Went Hensley

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George Went Hensley (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominators: Mark Arsten & Astynax

George Went Hensley is one of the more quixotic figures of Appalachian Christianity, whose windmills eventually proved to be his undoing. As the lead says, he "emphasized strict personal holiness and frequent contact with poisonous snakes". He wasn't always very good with the first part, but he kept up the snake handling until he died, of snakebite. The article has been reviewed by MathewTownsend and Allens and I think that this is a neutral and comprehensive treatment of Hensley's life, several scholarly biographies were consulted and I don't think there are any major sources missing. I've had a few people look at the prose, but there may be some small issues that slipped by. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Just a few quick ones from a brief glance at the article...

Comment, prose, 1a: prose issue in the lead, I stopped there:

  • Hensley continued to minister and established churches, ...

... change in tense, confusing, cumbersome. Finding this in the lead suggests the prose throughout will need a close look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. I'm not sure that criteria 1b, 1c are met. A quick lit search turned up a few sources that haven't been used in the article. Sasata (talk) 17:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Title: George Went Hensley: A biographical note
Authors: Burton T; Speer E
Source: Appalachian Journal Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Pages: 346-348 Published: SUM 2003
Title: They Shall Take up Serpents: Psychology of the Southern Snake-Handling Cult
Author: LaBarre, W
Publisher: New York: Shocken Books. 1969
Title: Differential Maintenance and Growth of Religious Organizations Based upon High-Cost Behaviors: Serpent Handling within the Church of God
Author: W. Paul Williamson, Ralph W. Hood, Jr.
Source: Review of Religious Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (Dec., 2004), pp. 150-168. JSTOR 3512230
Title: They Don't Have to Live by the Old Traditions": Saintly Men, Sinner Women, and an Appalachian Pentecostal Revival
Author: Shaunna L. Scott
Source: American Ethnologist Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 227-244. JSTOR 645887
  • Thanks for taking a look, here are my thoughts on the sources: the American Ethnologist only contains a couple brief mentions, nothing new there. Almost all of the information in the Review of Religious Research research was incorporated into the later book by Williamson & Hood that I used in the article, I added a couple small details from the article though. I don't have access to the three page note by Burton/Speer at the moment, but I know where I can grab a copy and will be able to look it over in the next few days. I had noticed the Labarre book but chose not to use it in the article. Williamson & Hood discuss Labarre (who published a few decades before the main sources I used) a bit in their book and criticize the factual accuracy of some of his claims [2] and the quality of his research [3]. Based on their comments about his scholarship I doubted whether he qualified as a high quality reliable source and left him out for that reason. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, fair enough. These two reviews (JSTOR 3510088, JSTOR 538543), however, appear to be favorable (the latter in particular commends the scholarship), though they are older, and will not take into account later findings. For balance, I checked some reviews of other books used as sources. This JSTOR 1466122 review finds some issues with Burton 1993. This review JSTOR 40583423 praises Kimbrough 1995 (you're using the 2002 edition), but also reveals there's another unused source: "Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia" (1996). This JSTOR 659613 detailed review has certain reservations about Hood & Williamson 2008. I myself have no opinion about the merit of these publications, I'm just presenting information. Also, a review on Kimbrough 1995 (JSTOR 2945631) mentions that there's a fictional account, Saving Grace (1995) that might be worth a mention. (p.s. let me know if you'd like any of these jstor articles emailed to you, including Burton/Speer discussed above.) Sasata (talk) 03:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very interesting, thanks for the digging. I definitely would be interested in looking into those JSTOR book reviews, if you wouldn't mind emailing them. Salvation on Sand Mountain was actually used as a source in an older version of this article, it focuses more on snake handling in the 1980s and 1990s and just mentions Hensley a few times as background. Saving Grace probably will be worth a mention too once I see the source. On a mostly-related note Guncrazy was the first time I saw anything about snake handling, it contains a very Hensley-esque character. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alright, I removed one of the claims in the article after seeing that a couple of the reviews criticized it. Otherwise, I think the article's sourcing is on pretty solid ground now. Mark Arsten (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Wow, Mark, you weren't kidding. That was even more entertaining than Carrie Nation (you and Asyntax should work on that one next – it could really use an overhaul). I did some fussy cleanup, and I also have a few general suggestions:

  • The lead is a bit too long and gets tedious with all the details of Hensley's weddings and divorces. I think it might be worthwhile to condense the references to Hensley's many failed marriages to just one or two sentences about his, erm, relationship struggles.
  • Similarly, I think personal life should also be teased out of snake handling and church history and moved to a new, separate section (just looking at the section headers, it's clear the article is too top-heavy). The concluding paragraph implies an ironic juxtaposition between Hensley's public sanctimoniousness and his private failings as a husband and father, but I don't think it really comes across in the body of the article as well as it could, since it's all sort of mixed together. I'd be happy to start a little mockup in my userspace if you'd find that helpful.
  • Do we really need to know the exact measurements of the lard can that housed the fatal python? :)
  • Last sentence doesn't make sense – media coverage of Hensley's death by snakebite prompted churches to include snake handling in their services? There's probably a better way of phrasing it to make it sound less schadenfreude-y, though I can't think of it at the moment.

Thanks for the fun read, and good luck with the rest of the FA process! Accedietalk to me 21:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments: Sorry I missed this earlier, but:
    • I'm doing some further copyediting; hope I'm making things better, not worse... I'm not seeing the prose issues earlier commented on, just a few minor things.
    • Was the "Pineville Church of God" actually part of the "mainline" Church of God that he had been a minister in, or the "Church of God with Signs Following"?
    • The "Final Years" subsection under "Ministry" should probably not have each paragraph introduced by talking about his marriages, but I'm not sure how else it could be put... There's also some duplication between that and the last two paragraphs of the "Personal Life" section that could use some rephrasing.
    • What's the citation for "One of their children claimed that the separation occurred after an incident in which Hensley became drunk and fought a neighbor" in the "Personal Life" section?
    • In the second paragraph of the "Personal Life" section, "Pineville with their four children" is mentioned, while he is said to have had five children by her; did he have another with her in Pineville?
    • Under "Personal Life": "In the mid-1950s, they moved to Athens, Georgia" but he died in 1955. Shouldn't this be "early-to-mid 1950s"?
    • "procuring a 5-foot (1.5 m) rattlesnake from a local zoo" under "Death" - I'm guessing this was a commercial zoo, and he bought it, or is there no data on this?
    • Under "Legacy", one (remaining?) tense problem: "Practitioners of snake handling continued to view Hensley as a great man, and his personal failings have sometimes been dismissed as slanderous fabrications" - is it "continue", or "had sometimes been dismissed"?
  • I have to consider the above pretty minor, however. Allens (talk) 01:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Very interesting article. I am not quite certain that the article is prose-wise quite up to FA standards, but I'll try to point out a few things. More later, but here's what I see in the lede:
Lede:
  • " and then came to believe" omit "then". Consider "; he then came to believe" I think it's more effective but it's a close call and just me.
    While I understand not that much is known, consider beginning the second paragraph with a sentence about Hensley's pre-1910 life?
    "Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)" I am sure this is the name of the article; unless the parentheses are included in the formal name of the church, consider "[[Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee|Church of God]] of [[Cleveland, Tennessee|Cleveland]], [[Tennessee]]"
    " and inability to make a living" This is problematical because neither his alcohol abuse not his failure to bring home the bacon have been foreshadowed. Can you state these things, and then maybe "because of this (these?), his wife divorced him in 1922."
    "Soon after" Omit phrase and instead have a paragraph break here.
    I would mention the state where he was arrested in the sentence where you mention his arrest. Then you can say "state authorities" in the next sentence, assuming it is Tennessee.
    Did the snake biting or the claims take place in his last years? It's unclear. Possibly both ...
    "Nevertheless, family members recalled occasions when he seemed close to death. " Strongly suggest omitting. There is no need to put anything between the claim of being bitten without ill effect and the rather dramatic proof of the opposite.
    "His frequent travels and inability to earn a consistent income were cited as reasons for his three divorces." Cannot the two recitations of the grounds for divorce in the lede be combined into one?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: Thanks for your comments. Mark Arsten has already addressed most of your points. However, the phrase "Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)" is the normal way to introduce this denomination in both references and in lectures/conversations. "Church of God of Cleveland Tennessee" is unnecessarily imprecise. • Astynax talk 18:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reply #2: Hi Wehwalt, I appreciate that you took the time to comment on this. Thanks for the lead comments, I've tried to implement the fixes you suggested--other than the style of the denomination name they all look like improvements to me. I had a bit of difficulty with the fourth bullet point though, hope my changes worked there. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source and images - spotchecks not done, no comment on source comprehensiveness. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Knoxville is in Tennessee, as is implied by University of Tennessee, but for people not aware of the names of US states (quite reasonable if the person is from & in, for instance, Australia; I wouldn't recognize the names of some Australian states...), I've put in Knoxville, Tennessee in the reference. Allens (talk) 19:04, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: Actually, the article on the photographer looks to be incorrect or incomplete, according to the NARA information for this picture, which says he was working for the "Department of the Interior. Solid Fuels Administration For War. (04/19/1943 - 06/30/1947)" - click on the number in the NARA credit. (The Solid Fuels Administration would apparently be taking care of coal as a fuel for wartime.) Allens (talk) 19:12, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reply #3: Alright, I alphabetized that HH&W reference in the bibliography and Allens got the location (Thanks Allens), so I think that's solved. I agree with Allens on the picture's copyright, it looks like the error on Lee's bio was fixed, as well. (Thanks Matthew!) Mark Arsten (talk) 22:42, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: In advance of a fuller review (which may take a few days), can I raise two points:_

  • In the lead, first paragraph: "he came to believe that the New Testament commanded all Christians to handle poisonous snakes." This sounds somewhat random; I think you should add: "on the basis of a literal interpretation of scripture, he came to believe..." etc
  • In the "Ministry" section is it possible to direct the reader at this point to the wording of Mark 16:18, which appears in a window in the "Theology" section? An understanding of the content of that verse would help at this stage.
  • Is there any evidence that he took literally the other parts of the verse? For instance, did he drink poisons, or practise faith-healing? The answers may be in the parts of the texts I haven't read, but at this point I would argue: if not, why not? Brianboulton (talk) 18:41, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hey, thanks for taking a look at the article. I made the first two changes that you suggested. As for the third, yes, there is evidence that he practiced Faith Healing and poison drinking, though oddly enough I had left that out of the article. I put the info into the body, but didn't change the lead at all. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comments - After 23 days and no support for promotion, I think this candidate would benefit from being archived and brought back later after further work has been done. Graham Colm (talk) 09:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


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