KASPARS OZOLINS
The hit streaming series The Chosen has been described as the most successful crowdfunded TV series of all time. Tens of millions of dollars from thousands of donors helped to launch the series in 2018, and it is currently on its third season, having been watched at least in part by over three hundred million viewers. Created by filmmaker Dallas Jenkins, it stars Roman Catholic Jonathan Roumie as Jesus and has received praise from many unlikely sources, including numerous secular media outfits. Well-known and influential evangelicals such as Mike Huckabee, Kirk Cameron, and Greg Laurie have interviewed the cast and filmmakers and given rave reviews to the show.
There have also been critics, however, especially concerned evangelicals who have noted that the film series takes liberties with the biblical gospel accounts, even as it inserts much extra material invented by the filmmakers. Other criticism has focused around some of the series’ production links with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism). Parts of season two were filmed at a replica Mormon Jerusalem set in Utah, and one of the main distributors of the series is a company owned by two devout Mormon businessmen. Filmmaker Dallas Jenkins has responded to these criticisms, rejecting the allegation that the show has been produced by Mormons. He also tried to clarify his stance on the LDS church, claiming that it is not his place to determine whether or not any true believers in Christ can be found in Mormonism. In a Facebook post, Jenkins stated, “I’m pointing people towards Jesus. And I’ll let the Holy Spirit and the discipleship of the local church do the job of nuancing all of those kinds of large-scale or even small-scale disagreements.”
According to Jenkins, four guiding principles govern the filming of The Chosen:
- “People of all faiths, backgrounds and beliefs work on the show. Counting the cast, crew, marketing and distribution teams, there are more than 200 people involved with The Chosen. As long as the content itself is faithful, we’re less demanding with those who help deliver it.”
- The main source material for the show is the New Testament gospels. “There is a lot of prayer involved,” Jenkins said. His script is examined by experts in various fields in order to maintain “biblical, historical and cultural accuracy.”
- The show does not stem from an particular religious tradition; rather, it claims to be based on the gospel narratives and historical accounts.
- There is no effort to please or to seek the approval of one person, group or critics. “The only one I’m seeking the approval of is God,” Jenkins said. “You don’t have to agree with some of my decisions or some of the decisions of our team, but as a viewer, you should at least know that these decisions were taken very seriously.”
These principles seem sound to most, and the series has clearly been a hit, both among secular media, as well as reputable Christian sources. In that light, I tread carefully in my criticisms of the show, though hopefully in a manner that is faithful to the Word of God and sensitive to those who strongly identify with The Chosen.
The Mormon Connection
At the outset (and here is where I want to offer some perspective as a former Seventh-day Adventist), what is striking to me is how former Mormons and counter-cult Christian apologists are among the most concerned individuals about this show. Hardly anyone is claiming that the Jesus presented in The Chosen is a “Mormon” Jesus or that watching the show will lead one to adopt LDS beliefs. Rather, what is concerning is the way that Dallas Jenkins has confused (instead of clarifying) his stance on Mormonism in his numerous interviews (especially his interviews with Mormons).
…this included countless times of prayer and fellowship. It has also led him to stand by his claim that the LDS friends he has gotten to know truly do worship the same Jesus as he does.
In one candid interview, Jenkins claims to have spent “hundreds of hours” with Mormons in the last few years over the course of the production of the show. According to him, this included countless times of prayer and fellowship. It has also led him to stand by his claim that the LDS friends he has gotten to know truly do worship the same Jesus as he does. Although he recognizes on some level that he and his Mormon friends belong to “different” religions, when it comes to the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Jenkins asserts that The Chosen faithfully represents someone who can be recognized and believed in by people of any faith.
Especially interesting to me as a former Adventist was Jenkins’ criticisms of certain former LDS countercult apologists. From his perspective, sometimes former Mormons actually misrepresent the beliefs about Jesus that he has come to see in his LDS friends. Furthermore, even when they accurately portray those beliefs, Jenkins claims that his friends would still dismiss them since those teachings often come from an older leader or era in the church and are apparently no longer mainstream views in contemporary Mormonism. If that doesn’t qualify as déjà vu for former Adventists, I don’t know what would. We are regularly criticized by both Adventists and evangelicals as misrepresenting Seventh-day Adventism, even as it continues to rise in respectability in broader evangelicalism.
At one point in the interview, Jenkins states quite clearly, “The Jesus of Nazareth—the Jesus that I am portraying in this show is a Jesus that (at least for my LDS friends that I’m working with)…I believe is the same Jesus. It’s the same Jesus.” In fact, he repeatedly characterizes his own show as “an evangelical show.” Jenkins seems to be thoroughly convinced that the Jesus he is portraying accurately reflects the Jesus of the Bible, and since for him it does, the willing acceptance of The Chosen by his LDS friends speaks volumes to him.
The Jesus of The Chosen
Just what sort of Jesus is portrayed in The Chosen? Although I have only seen fragments of the show, what I have seen concerns me. It concerns me not because I detect blatantly obvious heresy in its content, but because the show presents a Jesus to the world that is very clearly a distortion of the biblical Jesus. The Jesus of The Chosen is a distortion because of what it omits and also because of what it adds with regard to Scripture’s claims about God’s Son.
Undoubtedly some will find my critique unfair or overwrought. After all, the show is very popular, not just among the wider public, but especially among American Christians, who are its primary target market. Others will say that even if there are inaccuracies in the show, it could still be used as a catalyst to drive people to read God’s Word. Some will counter that criticism of The Chosen smacks of a narrow-minded, fundamentalist attitude toward anything with theological content that doesn’t line up exactly with one’s own theological commitments. I’m not here to simply dismiss those arguments out of hand, and yet I hope to explain why I find then unpersuasive.
Portraying Jesus
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the reality that different competing portraits and ideas about who Jesus is can and do exist in the world. It is not mere “semantics,” as Dallas Jenkins argues in the interview, to acknowledge that there is a Mormon Jesus, and an Adventist Jesus, and a Muslim Jesus, which are all contradictory to the real Jesus of the Bible. Whenever additional material is added to Scripture, or parts of the Bible are removed, or rearranged, the Jesus that emerges really is a different Jesus. It might be an extreme example, such as Ellen White’s Conflict of the Ages series, which repeatedly twists Scripture and adds an astonishing amount of extra-biblical revelation. Or it might be less extreme, such as The Chosen, which nevertheless still misrepresents who the Christ of Scripture truly is. We can even grant that the motives in each case may well have been different, yet the Jesus that is presented to the world still ends up being a different Jesus.
This producer misses the fact that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life are highly theological writings, shaped in a deliberate way in order to make very specific claims about God’s Son.
More importantly, it is not as though the life of Christ can be portrayed through any medium in a neutral manner (“Just the facts, Ma’am!”). Derral Eves, an executive producer of The Chosen who is a Mormon, argues that “[t]he show focuses more on the stories and life of Christ, rather than the theology that came after. The whole cast and crew are working together to accurately depict the life of Christ as best they can, in a way that anyone, regardless of faith background, would enjoy watching.” This producer misses the fact that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life are highly theological writings, shaped in a deliberate way in order to make very specific claims about God’s Son. It is simply not possible to present the life of Jesus Christ in a theologically neutral way.
Quite to the contrary, it’s no accident that the artwork of Mormon artists, as well as that of Seventh-day Adventist Arthur Maxwell’s The Bible Story look a little “off” to perceptive Christians. While the Jesus portrayed in that artwork might be doing things that are recognizable to Christians, it is ultimately the theology of the Jesus behind that artwork which shapes and influences the portrait being painting. So also in filmmaking, the Jesus that audiences see and perceive is a composite of all of the theology that the filmmakers bring with them and intend to present. It’s why movies or theatre productions about Jesus Christ––the eternal Son of God––are almost guaranteed to distort or misrepresent him to some degree.
Jesus and Nicodemus
To take but one example from the show, I would like to discuss the scene from John 3, namely Jesus’ famous encounter with Nicodemus at night. If any scene should be representative of how the show portrays the Son of God and communicates (or fails to communicate) biblical doctrine, it should be this one. Dallas Jenkins himself describes it as “the scene, the most impactful and famous chapter in the Bible, John chapter three.” He goes on to claim that what viewers see in the scene is “the gospel captured accurately.” These are strong claims, and they deserve to be investigated.
To begin with, Jenkins’ scene with Nicodemus is set in Galilee, while John writes about Jesus meeting with him in Jerusalem. While this might seem like a minor quibble, how could one ever justify directly altering a biblical narrative in any way, especially if one had a high view of Scripture? Jesus’ early ministry in Jerusalem is only mentioned in the Gospel of John, and it is a serious distortion to omit this. One is reminded of Ellen White’s Desire of Ages, in which, quite apart from doctrinal matters, the basic facts of the gospel narratives are not infrequently altered. For example, she describes Jesus’ brothers as being older than him, which would seem to obliterate the virgin birth altogether—or support the idea that she was a second wife who remained perpetually immaculate!
This might seem innocuous to many evangelicals, but for many of us former Adventists it is too uncomfortably similar to Ellen White’s Great Controversy “backstory”…
Secondly, Jenkins commends The Chosen, and this scene in particular, as having a “plausible” back story which leads to the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus. He invents a previous encounter between Mary Madgalene and Nicodemus in which she persuades him to go to Jesus. This might seem innocuous to many evangelicals, but for many of us former Adventists it is too uncomfortably similar to Ellen White’s Great Controversy “backstory,” which provides an even more expansive (and alternative) backdrop to the actual pages of Scripture. I have no wish to compare the consequences of Ellen White’s Great Controversy theme (which are absolutely fatal to the gospel) to the work of these filmmakers. Yet it is a little uncomfortable how both backstories are presented as being in their own way almost superior to how Scripture conveys its gospel narratives.
Thirdly, the dialogue of the scene, large parts of it invented, significantly alters how John portrays both Nicodemus and Jesus. In The Chosen, Jesus nonchalantly, almost rhetorically asks Nicodemus, “Ah. A teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things, hm?” Nicodemus then replies, “I’m trying, Rabbi.” To this, Roumie’s Jesus responds, in an understanding manner, “I know. I know.” From this small scene, one can already tell that the filmmakers are trying to create a more sympathetic Jesus and Nicodemus. The weighty gospel matters that the Jesus of the Bible presses before Nicodemus are watered down in favor of a more likable Jesus in The Chosen. As the scene winds down, Jesus tells Nicodemus that “the invitation still stands [for him to come and follow].” Nicodemus wistfully remarks, “Is this…is the kingdom of God really coming?” At this, Roumie’s Jesus replies, “What does your heart tell you?”
That line looks more like something a Disney Jesus would say than anything the Son of God––who knew what was in the heart of man (John 2:25)––would ever say.
Seeing the real Jesus in Scripture
Ellen White’s own formulation about her relationship to holy Scripture is well-known and cited by Adventists: she claimed to be the “lesser light” pointing to the “greater light.” The way that Jenkins and others seem to view The Chosen is, in some ways, similar. While they never claim it is (or is intended to be) a substitution for the Bible, they nevertheless feel it is potentially a very helpful tool that could point both believers and unbelievers to the Bible. In televised showings of the series with target audiences, the actors and producers seem to portray the show as having this ability. The actor playing Jesus, Jonathan Roumie, is even treated by audiences as a kind of “channel” to the real Jesus, as the viewings often leave audiences very moved.
Are they responding to a gospel that calls them to repent and believe upon the Son of God, or are they instead finding in The Chosen, a Jesus that they can more easily relate to?
But while such things may have the appearance of being spiritual, one wonders whether these individuals are truly being moved by biblical truth, that is, by the truth of the gospel. Are they responding to a gospel that calls them to repent and believe upon the Son of God, or are they instead finding in The Chosen, a Jesus that they can more easily relate to? I don’t mean to impugn the motives of Dallas Jenkins, and I am certainly not trying to imply that The Chosen is heretical in the way that Seventh-day Adventism or Mormonism is. Rather, I’m trying to show how extra-biblical depictions of the life of Christ are inevitably imperfect, and potentially dangerous, substitutions for the actual gospels. This is all the more certain in our modern-day American evangelicalism, which has sadly shifted quite dramatically away from the biblical gospel.
In our visual, media-saturated culture, we would do well to remember what it means to have true spiritual eyesight. Peter wrote to believers who had never seen the Lord Jesus Christ in person, much less seen a movie series about him. And yet: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). It is through the Word of God that believers feed upon Christ. It is through the Word of God that formerly blind enemies of God come to see the real Jesus Christ and are forever born again. Well did John Newton, the former slave trader, proclaim: “A bleeding Savior I have viewed, and now I hate my sins!” †
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