Holiness Camp Meeting

How many snakes were handled?

 

I live in Southern Ohio, about 35 miles from Jolo, WV, the snake-handling capital of the world. Believe it or not, that's NOT a primitive little town, reminiscent of Hooterville, etc.

Snake handlers ignore Scripture which says, "Don't dare the Lord your God". When Paul was bitten by the viper on Malta, it was NOT on purpose. He was gathering firewood in the dark.

I have visited Jolo several & found out several things about them. (Most of the townspeople are skeptical about their motives.)The snake handlers generally try to hedge their bets. They often use timber rattlers, which are less-aggressive than their diamondback cousins, but still fairly-lsrge & impressive-looking. The snakes are generally fed the night before a service, which makes them calm, & are kept overnight in a cool (not cold) place, which makes them lethargic, & they often welcome a warm hand upon them. (And they call that "faith" ???)

First, last, & only holiness service I attended, started out like a normal church service. But the preacher became more strident, & people started throwing their hands in the air, rising to their feet, hollering, & acting crazy. Many went to the floor & began cutting dust angels. all hollering & carrying on, while the preacher screeched uncontrollably. I thought I'd accidentally entered a funny farm!

I was unsaved then, but I still wondered, & STILL wonder, HOW THIS WAS WORSHIPPING & HONORING GOD ? ?

 

I used to devour A.W. Tozer books. He had valuable thoughts for believers.

 

And yet...Tozer was very flawed in his relationship with his family. One report says his boys urinated on his grave when he died. And his wife seemed thrilled he was dead.

"For what it is, namely a life narrative, A Passion for God was a worthwhile read.

And yet, Dorsett exposes a fundamental contradiction in Tozer’s character that raises all sorts of questions about holy zeal and its effect on the whole of life. The contradiction could be summed up: how did Tozer reconcile his passionate longing for communion with the Triune God with his failure to love passionately his wife and children? Perhaps the most damning statement in the book was from his wife, after she remarried subsequent to his death: “I have never been happier in my life,” Ada Ceclia Tozer Odam observed, “Aiden [Tozer] loved Jesus Christ, but Leonard Odam loves me” (160).

Now, certainly all human beings have flaws; that is not the point here. Rather, the point that Dorsett failed to explore adequately is how Tozer reconciled his pursuit of God with his failure to pursue his wife. This reconciliation–or failure to reconcile–should have raised questions about Tozer’s mystic approach and prophetic denunciation of the church and nuanced the value of his teaching on the Christian life. After all, if his piety could spend several hours in prayer and also rationalize his failure at home, then it should raise questions about his approach to piety.

Then again, we all live divided lives. And thankfully, God used his Word as proclaimed through Tozer to bring Leonard Odam himself and hundreds of others to a saving knowledge of Christ. When God promises that his Word will not return to him empty (Isaiah 55:11), it gives all of his servants hope that the working is from God, not from ourselves (Col. 1:28-29). After all, God is able to use clay pots (2 Cor 4:7): he used A. W. Tozer with this glaring personal contradiction and he can use you and me."

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/tozers-contradiction-and-his-approach_08/

 

Gotta wonder about Tozer's actual devotion to Jesus, as a Christian's most-important relationship, after that with Jesus, is with his/her own family. A good spouse & children are God's greatest physical gifts to a person.