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When CBS approached Martha Williamson to produce "a show about angels," she saw an opportunity to transform people's perceptions of angels from that of a novelty to a spiritual reality. During its nine-year run, from 1994-2003, Touched by an Angel was the top-rated show on CBS and earned multiple award nominations, from the Golden Globes to the GLAAD Media Awards. Looking back, she says the show's unflinching portrayal of faith "forced a spiritual conversation" that is still taking place on network television.

Last week, CBS DVD and Paramount Home Entertainment released two best-of DVDs, centered on the themes of "Hope" and "Holiday." Each disc features four episodes, along with new introductions by Williamson that speak to the episode's themes and recall her production memories.

Williamson spoke with Christianity Today about the show's portrayal of faith, its impact, and its legacy.

Why do you think people are so drawn to this idea of angels walking among us?

I think that angels do walk among us, and if you have a sense of that, you want somebody to tell you that you're not crazy. There's a saying that each of us has a God-shaped void, and when someone finally understands that space in your heart was made for God to dwell, then it's a great relief. With Touched by an Angel, we always tried to make it about God. We never said it was a show about angels; the angels are there to point us to God.

People want to know that God is there. I have met atheists who simply decided to become atheists because they didn't want to be disappointed. The show received hundreds of thousands of letters over nine years, and people didn't write to the angels as much as they wrote to the message. They said, "Whoever's writing this message, please keep sending it out." They'd write, "It encouraged me, it changed my life, it lifted me up. I wanted to kill myself, and decided not to once I heard that God loves me, that he exists and wants to be part of my life." That was always the message that we put out there, and we tried to put it out there from a Judeo-Christian, biblical point of view.

Martha Williamson

How did you approach the portrayal of faith on the show?

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith was an interesting word on our show because we need to have faith in things we cannot see but we had a one hour show every week where we had witnesses to God. You saw angels light up and say, "I am an angel from God." At that point, you don't need faith; you need the courage to accept what you now know is true.

CBS did not say to me, "We want a show about faith, or about God." CBS said, "We want to do a show about angels." I said, "If you want me to do a show about angels, it has to be biblically accurate. That means that angels are not going to be recycled dead people; we're not going to have them wiggling their noses or popping in and out or messing with people's lives. They are there to do one thing, and that is to perform God's will—to bring healing, to bring messages, to sometimes bring correction. All the things the Bible says that angels do, that's what the angels will do. And we're not going to ask them to do more."

At that point, CBS only had four weeks to put this new show together, instead of the usual nine months, so they were ready to do just about anything. As a result, I did have absolute control over the message. We protected that every single week. The message never changed from day one.

On the show, there is a lot of talk about faith and hope and God. As far as pointing people to Jesus Christ, how did you approach that?

We took a lot of flak from both sides, from the people who said, "You're talking too much about God and it's sounding too Christian." We got flak from Christians and Christian leaders who said, "You're not talking about Jesus." My answer to that: I am a television writer who happens to be a Christian who was hired to do a show about angels, and trust me, it could be a lot worse than it is. We did not use the name of Jesus, but we used the words of Jesus, and the Word of God will never return void. We used the heart of Jesus. We used the message of Jesus. And on the very, very last episode, those people who saw the finale, there is to this day discussion as to who was the person who escaped from that prison and said, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

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