The Age of Knowledge has made way for an era of mindless consumption. Streaming has allowed the old, the young and the barely functioning toddler to binge watch at an accessible and frightening high rate. Videos are everywhere, teasers are sprouting from every social media platform and series are constantly being thrown into our feed and simultaneously added onto our queue equally as fast.

We find ourselves grappling for more and entertainment has cost us little to none since online streaming platforms have entered the scene, but what we watch and what we see can speak volumes into what the world deems to be true.

God cannot save you.

We find this throughout AMC’s Preacher where God has quite literally abandoned His post in Heaven and gone missing. Our main protagonist, Jesse Custer, and his unlikely cohort of saviors consist of a vampire, Cassidy, who fights the seduction of cocaine over the sweet fragrance of fresh blood, and Custer’s longtime lover, Tulip, a criminal, assassin and smart mouth who can, quite frankly, do bad all by herself.

Together they embark on a journey to find God, snap some sense into Him or die trying. God is not one to be found easily;  however, and has proven to be an irresponsible jokester who is the physical embodiment of a ‘let-down.’

Flip on over to American Gods showing on Starz and you’ll find that the Old Gods of ancient civilizations and myths to be quite alive and kickin’…for now. These deities exist and flourish when mere mortals worship, pray and sacrifice at their feet. Once forgotten, they fade into cramped city slums or barren rural towns that lose their place on Google maps. The New Gods of technology and social media are ready to wage war and be rid of the dying breed that clouds their edgy and modern space. God or gods are simply powerful when humans give them significance; their rise and downfall are completely contingent upon the faith of those who have created them into existence.

God cannot do it alone.

Fed to us by witty dialogue, captivating story line or enchanting cinematography we have become recipients of an incompetent God. The message of a Godless universe or a limited omniscient being pulls at some very real fears tangled deep within our hearts. It’s why we crave it, why we itch for a glimpse of the upcoming season or get drawn to its production of danger, doubt and dare I say it…doom?

This is where it counts.

Let us not forget to go back to the source. Back to the book that says God has already saved. He does not need us, minions or other divine beings in order to accomplish the impossible. Amidst the chatter and background noise of the incompetent God, there is a shield we must hold fast to. There is an armor we cannot remove.

God did leave Heaven, but only so that He could be born with skin that can bleed, hands that can be nailed, eyes that could weep for the dying and the loss and a heart that could be broken by the ones who would betray. He left not to forsake, but to forgive. The cost of Him leaving the throne allowed us to take a seat.

Our prayers do not elevate Him, our worship does not nurture Him into a deity that becomes stronger than who He was before. God cannot be added to or subtracted. In all His glory, God does not need us and God can do it alone, but He chooses to use us.

Us who are feeble and weak hearted and never true to our word. The very people who would rather see Him die than elevated, He chooses us and will choose us again and again and again.

Back to the book, back to the God we know and not the one we see on screen.