'Preacher' TV series 'clearly a silly counterfeit' of spirituality, says pastor

TV network AMC premiered "Preacher" this month and it has gotten a reaction from a Christian pastor in New Zealand, where it is shown on Lightbox.

"They don't make a counterfeit of something that isn't genuine or real," said Baptist pastor Brian Winslade after watching the trailer, as quoted by Stuff. "It's clearly a silly counterfeit of what spirituality and Christian faith actually is."

In the trailer, a boy asks Jesse Custer, the town's new preacher, to hurt his abusive father -- because he heard from people that before he became a preacher, he "did things." Custer gives the kid a big picture of violence and tells him how it escalates. Later, Custer is seen taking down a man and breaking his arm, after which the preacher ends up behind bars.

Pastor Winslade does not think the show is real threat for Christianity as it could, in some way, make people want to find genuine faith.

"I see no threat to the reality of Christian faith or the church," he said.

The supernatural black comedy, adapted from a comic book series of the same title, centers on Custer, a man with a dark past who returns to his hometown to fulfill his late father's wishes that he take over his church. Custer soon questions his faith and contemplates leaving the service. Meanwhile, an alien entity arrives on Earth and tries to inhabit the body of an African preacher but the body subsequently explodes. The same thing happens elsewhere. The entity then inhabits Custer's body and gives him a special power, and he later decides not to leave the church anymore. According to AMC, he and his allies "are thrust into a crazy world populated by a cast of characters from Heaven, Hell and everywhere in between."

In the synopsis on Zap2It, "Preacher" season 1 episode 2 titled "See" will show Custer trying to be a good preacher while a pair of something mysterious goes after him. It will air on AMC on June 5.