Sarah Ryan stands on the edge of adulthood with a stark contrast between the woman she is becoming and the woman her fundamentalist pastor father would have her be. When her budding independence invites demonic possession, Sarah will face a battle for her soul.

SYNOPSIS:

Sarah Ryan, 17-year-old black woman coming of age in Charleston, SC, finds herself where most emerging adults do… trying to figure out what kind of person she wants to be. But her choices are starkly different from most. Her father, Jefferson Ryan Jr. leads a modern, black church in Charleston, SC. He preaches the fire, brimstone, and Christian Nationalism of modern evangelism, and he commands demons. With his assistant pastors, his custom red Bible, a leather whip, and showmanship, the fiery pastor casts demons from his flock – even though it nearly kills the people he helps. He maintains a rigid home hierarchy with husband directly below God, then submissive wife (Lilian), then obedient child as his understood divine order.

Historically, Sarah has been her father’s dutiful pride and joy, but she is also well-read and desires a life beyond the glamor of mega-church leadership. While her father’s ideology builds upon his white father’s belief system, her black grandmother, Rosaleigh Ryan, leans more on her Gullah/Geechee community for spiritual guidance. This has created a gulf between Sarah’s immediate family and a grandmother she loves deeply.

Sarah reaches a turning point. While her father is wealthy and highly influential in her life, Sarah nears the end of her high school career. With rebellious, somewhat black revolutionary, friends around her, she finds more value in the idealism of liberation than in following the fixed footsteps of her authoritarian father.

As she separates herself from her father and his church, Sarah suffers terrifying events. Noises. Shadowy figures. Outbursts.

Lilian Ryan honors her husband but seeks “worldly” solutions first. Doctors. Psychiatrists. None of these

offer answers.

Rosaleigh introduces Sarah and her friends to Anyika, an old friend and Pastor in a very old, low-country church. Sarah witnesses a shout ring in a praise house and is introduced to a new style of worship that merges West African, Islamic, and Christian traditions. Anyika sees a shadow hanging over Sarah and warns her of dangers to her soul. She tells her to seek the guidance of the ancestors (souls live on with God after death while our spirits remain as guides for our descendants).

The demonic presence attacks and kills Rosaleigh. Through the mourning and the unraveling of reality around her, Sarah finds herself increasingly under her father’s sway. He pulls her into the church, but things go awry after he forces her to participate in a mass baptism. The event involves Jefferson and his co-pastors assembly-line baptizing their congregants in four above-ground swimming pools in the church’s parking lot, but when Sarah’s head dips below the water, the pool explodes.

Certain his daughter is possessed, Jefferson and his cohorts lock her in the exorcism chair and begin the dangerous ceremony. The madness intensifies, but the demon isn’t driven out. Jefferson excuses the other pastors to face his daughter’s demon alone. As the whip cracks and the possessed woman screams, they exit.

Anyika, Sarah’s friends, and a few of Anyika’s congregation try to enter the church to safe Sarah, but the pastors won’t allow them in until Lilian pushes them aside. Sarah is her daughter, too. They enter the sanctuary to find Jefferson madly beating the demon out of his daughter… but Anyika sees the true nature of the dark spirit. They form a shout ring around Sarah to protect her and Anyika takes her stance…

against Jefferson.

The demon has always been within Jefferson. By attacking members of the congregation, it has increased the flock’s faith in their shepherd, and it will commit the ultimate sacrifice by killing Jefferson’s own daughter – a sacrifice consistent with God’s own. Faith in Ryan will be unshakeable. Anyika drives the demon out, but not without destroying the church and the failed pastor.

Moving day: Sarah and Lilian have left the large house bought with the church’s money and are unpacking. As Lilian unboxes the rather large library the family has, she pulls out Jefferson’s red Bible. As Sarah leaves to join her friends, Lilian tosses the Bible into an empty box and tosses it out with the others.

SHOUT RINGS