Jacob Hawke, a documentary photographer, returns to his long forsaken West Virginia hometown roots to document the activities of a Christian serpent handling church, of which his father is pastor. Jacob, a non-believer, is caught in an emotional vortex consisting of his hatred for his father (whom he abandoned after his mother was killed in a serpent-handling incident) and his growing attraction to Minnie, an enigmatic member of the Signs Following Church. Jacob is slowly lured by the strength of faith demonstrated by the community and must come to terms with his relationship with his father and make a crucial decision about his future.

The National Geographic Channel’s miniseries “Snake Salvation” resurrected a vested interest with the heavily documented practices of signs-following believers in central Appalachia. The current body of scholarship surrounding these congregations focuses mostly on oral history narratives and explanations of religious fundamentalism; a critical analysis of the discourse shared by these congregation members is noticeably absent. This thesis explores selected interviews with George Hensley, Andrew Hamblin, Jamie Coots, and Alfred Ball through the interdisciplinary application of discourse analysis paired with social disclosure theory to unveil the underlying struggles with power and personal beliefs expressed by each pastor. The research performed throughout this study spans interviews collected and published from the 1940s to 2014. Through a discourse analysis performed on these interviews coupled with support from sociological and communicative theoretical frameworks, this study looks to highlight struggles with power and authenticity present for signs-following pastors.