After seeing the preliminary pilot episode, however, Knauf and the producers realized there was no room for the character to grow in a television series. They demoted Brother Justin to an ordinary Christian minister in a little town, but when Brother Justin's affiliation needed to be decided, Knauf contested plans to make him a Catholic priest; he rather settled on the Methodist denomination, which he perceived as significantly less suspicious and controversial.[1][2] Although Brother Justin shares traits with Father Coughlin, an Irish Catholic priest who broadcast his sermons over the radio in the 1930s, the writers never tried to retell that particular story.[24]