Another new show, this one not officially airing until Sept. 30 (though you can stream it live on CBS’ site), makes its connection to faith even more explicit.
God Friended Me introduces us to Miles Finer (Brandon Michael Hall), a young atheist who tells the world, through his fledgling podcast, that “There is no God and that is OK.” But he’s forced to re-evaluate his non-beliefs when he receives a Facebook friend request from the Almighty Himself—or someone pretending to be Him.
Certainly, it’ll take a lot more than a little contact through social media to cause a reversal in Miles’ views on faith. He left his own for what would seem to be good reasons—even though it broke his father’s heart.
“I’ve devoted my life to God, and you spread the notion that God doesn’t exist!” Arthur Finer, a pastor, tells him in the pilot episode. “You are taking away people’s hope.”
“And you’re lying to them,” Miles responds.
But God (or “God”) doesn’t use his Facebook page to just post pictures of the pearly gates. He uses Miles to help people, and, as we saw in Manifest, to show Miles how mysteriously connected we all are. “There’s something greater at work here,” his friend, journalist Cara Bloom, says, “some grand design [that unites] us all.”
By the end of the episode, a few cracks in Miles’ atheism begin to show.
“In these crazy times we live in, we owe it to ourselves to ask the tough questions, and open our minds to a new way of seeing the world,” he tells his listeners. “A place where we can find our place again.”
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