When Evil Smiles: What Touched by an Angel Warned Us About in 1995 — and Why It Still Matters Now

In 1995, nearly three decades ago, the television series Touched by an Angel aired an episode that now feels less like entertainment and more like prophecy.

The episode is titled “The Last Temptation of Andrew” (Season 1), first broadcast in 1995.

At the time, it was understood as a moral story — a cautionary tale about hate, deception, and the seduction of power.

Today, 30 years later, it feels like a warning we failed to heed.

The Episode They Thought Was Fiction

In “The Last Temptation of Andrew,” evil does not appear as chaos or madness. It appears as respectability.

The antagonist is a charismatic city councilman — well dressed, soft-spoken, confident, and reassuring. He smiles easily. He speaks about “values,” “community,” and “patriotism.” He runs a white supremacist organization out of a place called Patriots Hall, deliberately cloaking hatred in the language of national pride.

He is not frightening at first glance. That is precisely why he is dangerous.

The episode makes a devastatingly clear point:

The most dangerous evil is the kind that feels reasonable.

This man doesn’t seize power through violence. He earns trust. He organizes. He normalizes. He persuades people that cruelty is responsibility and exclusion is protection.

And because he smiles — because he sounds calm and authoritative — people believe him.

Thirty Years Later: Why This Feels So Familiar

Watching this episode now, it is impossible not to recognize the parallel to Donald Trump.

Not because Trump mirrors every detail — but because the structure is identical.

Like the city councilman in the episode:

• He frames himself as the only one who can restore order

• He presents fear as realism and cruelty as strength

• He fuses nationalism with moral righteousness

• He portrays entire groups of people as threats to the nation

• He claims to be a man of peace while waging war — not with bombs, but with language

In the show, the Devil doesn’t shout. In real life, authoritarianism doesn’t always need to either.

What matters is permission — permission to dehumanize, to exclude, to punish.

These Stories Are Timeless for a Reason

Touched by an Angel was not trying to predict a specific leader or moment in history. It was doing something far more important:

It was teaching us how evil actually works.

That is why the story still resonates nearly 30 years later.

These stories are timeless because:

• Authoritarianism repeats itself

• Fear is recycled across generations

• The human psyche is vulnerable to certainty during chaos

Every age believes this time will be different. History tells us it never is.

The Smiling Face of Catastrophe — A Pattern We Know Too Well

History is filled with figures who rose through charisma, reassurance, and promises of restoration — only to unleash horrors once trust was secured.

A short and sobering list:

• Adolf Hitler — charismatic, persuasive, and “reasonable” to many before genocide

• Benito Mussolini — promised order and revival, delivered fascism and war

• Joseph Stalin — spoke as a man of the people, ruled through terror

• Pol Pot — sold purity and renewal, annihilated millions

In every case:

• People did not believe the warnings

• Critics were dismissed as alarmists

• Institutions were assumed to be strong enough

• The truth was only accepted after it was irreversible

“They Didn’t Believe It Either”

This is the most chilling truth of all:

People in the past did not believe it would happen — until it did.

They believed the leader would stop short. They believed the courts would intervene. They believed “it can’t happen here.”

But authoritarianism does not arrive all at once. It advances one moral concession at a time.

One group dehumanized. One lie normalized. One law rewritten. One silence justified.

By the time people realize what they are living under, the door has already closed.

The Spiritual Warning Beneath the Story

What Touched by an Angel understood — and what history confirms — is that this is not merely political.

It is spiritual.

In the episode, evil is not defeated through force or exposure. It is defeated through refusal. A prayer is spoken asking God not to fight evil, but to remove it.

Evil cannot survive once it is named and no longer welcomed.

That is the warning these stories were meant to give us.

Why This Moment Matters Now

We are not watching fiction. We are not debating hypotheticals.

We are living inside a moment history has seen before.

The rise of authoritarianism is real. The erosion of democracy is real. The targeting of vulnerable communities is real.

And the danger is not coming with a snarl — it is coming with a smile.

Final Word

Stories like Touched by an Angel endure because they are warnings, not entertainment.

They exist to tell us what history will look like before it is written.

If we wait until the horrors are undeniable, we will have waited too long.

We must not let that happen again.

Not thirty years later. Not now. Not ever.

Rev. Paula Josephine Sadler

An Open Letter to Martha Williamson-Touched by an Angel & Moon water productions

Dear God I Release this to you, may this find its way to Martha, Dear Angels thank you for your help. I believe in Miracles...

1/25/2026

Dear Martha Williamson,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing with deep gratitude to thank you for your vision, your courage, and the enduring spiritual power of Touched by an Angel, and especially for the episode “In the Name of God” (Season 2, Episode 6), which first aired on October 28, 1995, written by John Masius and yourself.

I remember watching Touched by an Angel when it originally aired in the 1990s. At the time, it felt comforting, meaningful, and quietly powerful. Recently, I felt prompted—almost guided—to begin watching the series again. I did not expect how deeply it would meet me where I am now.

Nearly thirty years later, this episode does not feel dated. It feels prophetic.

“In the Name of God” confronts something many stories avoid: the way hatred cloaks itself in righteousness, how evil rarely arrives screaming, and how it so often wears the face of respectability. The portrayal of a white supremacist movement led by a charismatic figure embedded in civic life—while claiming moral authority—remains one of the most truthful depictions I have ever seen on television.

What struck me most is that the danger in this story does not come from chaos, but from legitimacy. From calm voices. From smiles. From appeals to patriotism, morality, and order. You captured a timeless spiritual truth: that the greatest threat to humanity is not disorder, but cruelty normalized and sanctified.

I wanted to share a bit about myself, because your work is actively sustaining my own spiritual path and creative work today. I am the Founding Minister of Universal Rainbow Faith, a spiritual community devoted to unconditional love, sacred truth, and the dignity of every human being. My life and ministry are shaped by lived spiritual experiences—encounters with intuition, angels, guidance, and what I can only describe as real miracles.

After the events of 9/11, I was moved to write The Nature of Miracles, a book born out of grief, fear, and a deep longing to understand how light continues to break through even humanity’s darkest moments. More recently, I completed The Garden and the Flame, which explores history, power, empire, and what I believe is an unfolding spiritual battle within the soul of humanity itself.

This work is not easy. There are moments when it feels overwhelming—too big, too heavy, too hard. There are times when I find myself praying not for answers, but simply asking, What can I do? How can I help? And sometimes, How do I keep going?

Watching Touched by an Angel again has reminded me to pause, to pray, and to ask for help—not only for myself, but for others. Your stories gently return me to the truth that when the world feels unbearable, when the suffering feels too vast to hold, God is still present.

That we are not alone.

I believe we are living through a profound struggle between good and evil—not in a symbolic sense, but in a deeply human and spiritual one. A battle between love and fear, truth and deception, light and darkness. A war not just over nations or systems, but over the human heart and psyche.

My greatest hope is to be a living demonstration of unconditional love through my words, my thoughts, and my actions—and that, in doing so, even one life might be touched, comforted, or given hope.

Many episodes of Touched by an Angel have moved me to tears. I love the message that God loves us—without condition, without exception. I know that God loves me, and I have needed that reassurance deeply in these difficult times, during what I believe is a kind of dark night of the soul for the United States and for the world.

Your work feels like a hand reaching through time, reminding us that truth matters, love matters, and that evil only survives when it is welcomed, unnamed, or left unchallenged. Stories like “In the Name of God” endure because they are not merely entertainment—they are spiritual companions and warnings, offered with compassion and faith.

Thank you for trusting audiences with moral depth. Thank you for believing that stories can heal as well as warn. And thank you for creating a body of work that continues to comfort, challenge, and illuminate hearts decades later.

With deep respect and gratitude,

Paula Josephine Sadler

Founding Minister, Universal Rainbow Faith

Author of The Nature of Miracles and The Garden and the Flame