Red Flags within The Chosen

This popular TV series, created by Dallas Jenkins in 2017, has become a worldwide sensation with over 200 million viewers, earning accolades from multiple organizations and even from Hollywood itself.  Respected for its outstanding filming and its captivating cast, this series has attained an ecumenical appeal, boasting not only Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons, but even Muslims, among its most loyal fans.   

To deny that this show is controversial is impossible.  We might well ask how something so popular can also be so controversial, but the underlying question is certainly with whom the show is controversial.  If this show is proclaiming the truth of the gospel in an apostate age, we would expect it to be controversial among nonchurchgoers.  But the exact opposite seems to be true.  The show is immensely popular among nonchurchgoers, who comprise about one-third of its viewing base, and therein lies its proponents’ chief defense—that it is an unprecedented tool of the gospel, reaching millions of people that churches cannot reach.  It is disturbing but also necessary to realize that this show has been most controversial among not only churchgoers but among those who profess to know their Bibles well.  To be fair, there are many who vehemently defend the show who also claim solid doctrinal beliefs.

Certainly, the greatest source of controversy stems from this show’s divergence from the Scriptures.  Without this divergence, the show would not exist, for Dallas Jenkins himself admits that 95% of the show’s content is fiction—albeit, “plausible” fiction.  Obviously, the nonchurchgoer (or, for that matter, the churchgoer) who is unfamiliar with the Bible has no reason to object to this fact, but among many biblically literate churchgoers, this fact has become increasingly controversial. Inevitably, the show has driven an ever-deeper wedge between viewers who do not know their Bibles and viewers (or former viewers) who do, as any careful review of blog comments about the show will reveal.   Viewers who are thrilled to watch content that they didn’t know was in the Bible do not exactly appreciate having their bubble burst with doctrinal objections they didn’t even know existed.  And yet, time after time, the show’s most popular content has been the very point of its controversy.  And when the Bible itself—or, at least, those who know it well---appears to drive the wedge, we are left to examine the red flags that fly above the alluring landscape of The Chosen.  

The first red flag regards Jenkins’ professed dual purposes for the show.  If you have followed the arguments at all, you are aware that Jenkins defends the show as “entertainment” designed to evangelize. And yet, behind any purpose to evangelize must be a sound doctrinal understanding of how souls are won to Christ.  According to God’s Word, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).  If faith comes by seeing, and seeing by narrative—narrative that is almost exclusively fictional—then The Chosen is fulfilling its purpose.  And yet, is evangelism really the show’s purpose?  By biblical standards of evangelism alone, the show would have to subordinate its purpose to entertain to its purpose to portray the Scriptures.  Does it do this?  Or does the show subordinate its purpose to portray the Scriptures to its purpose to entertain?  If the show does the former, it claims nothing different than any other “Jesus” film that has come and gone across the decades.  If the show does the latter, why does it exist in the first place? 

It is not unfair or unkind to ask whether the show’s dual purposes are compatible.  The hard fact is that any show based on the Bible should logically follow the Bible.  And yet, by Jenkins’ own design, the primary purpose of his faith-based film is not to teach the Bible but to entertain by way of almost exclusively nonbiblical material which is, nevertheless, chosen for its spiritual impact.  It is to this very fact that Jenkins attributes the success of his show, and it is the show’s unique divergence from the Scriptures—where other “Jesus” films have been faithful—that Jenkins defends as obligatory artistic license for the sake of true art and entertainment.  Therefore, whether Jenkins’ evangelize-by-entertainment approach coheres with itself is indeed a valid question.  Well might we ask whether any such capture-by-guile approach is even ethical.  Yes, we are called to be fishers of men, and any good fisherman knows that he must use alluring bait or he will catch no fish.  Is it fair to examine the bait?     

Clearly, Jenkins’ bait is not the Bible but the 95% of “plausible” fiction he has added to the Bible.  Do we need to point out that religious filmmakers of times past considered the Bible to be its own bait?  Yet not only does The Chosen add to the Bible, it claims to be historical fiction in a sense that is not historically defensible, for there is no evidence whatsoever that the episodes that have been added in fact happened.  It is not as if these episodes have been discovered in the writings of Josephus or Tacitus or in the apocryphal gospels.  They are pure inventions of Dallas Jenkins and his writers 2000 years after they might have occurred.  At the very least, this show should be seen as contemporary fiction, not as historical fiction, its accuracy to Jewish custom notwithstanding.  Given Jenkins’ own admission that 95% of the show’s material is fiction, we understand the show’s purpose to be broader by far than any Bible storybook or any preexisting Biblical film. 

It is not rude or impudent to ask what this broader purpose is.  We would observe that, at the very least, extrabiblical content must of a necessity be added to prolong the life of the series.  And it doesn’t take an epiphany to realize that the immense popularity of the show would seem to necessitate dragging it out as long as possible.  All of this could be quite self-validating, not to mention, profitable, for the show’s producers.  Jenkins’ net worth in 2024 was estimated to be between $4 and $6 million, due in large part to his success with The Chosen.  Indisputably, the show has generated profits in the hundreds of millions.  We are not saying this profit is inherently wrong, but we would be naïve not to wonder if this profit is its own bait.  We would also be naïve not to wonder whether profit will shape the show’s future content, especially given the show’s immense popularity.  Did Christ without cause warn us of the deceitfulness of riches (Mark 4:19)?

In an age where not only biblical illiteracy but also bitter antagonism to sound doctrine runs rampant amid mainline denominations, we are living in denial if we do not see in The Chosen’s enormous popularity another red flag.  We might with good reason examine the causes for the show’s enormous impact:  it shows a human Jesus who is relatable.  He is compassionate, kind, tolerant, and funny, and He enjoys a good time as much as the next person.  His followers—the chosen—are equally relatable as disciples who follow Jesus while retaining vices and addictions and even at times backsliding into the grip of deep sin.  Take these elements away from the show and you have a very different show.  And yet it is these elements precisely that Jenkins and his follows adamantly defend as the show’s reason for existence.  After all, we need the show to reveal to us that Jesus is human, that He is relatable, that His followers continue to struggle with addictions despite loving Him, and that His followers even backslide—and must backslide—because they are all so human.  The validation of Jesus’ humanity amid His followers’ humanity is without a doubt not only a primary purpose but the primary purpose of the show.  Over and over, this purpose has been emphasized by Jenkins himself, and it is this purpose that most resonates with his viewers.  We must conclude, then, that Jenkins’ worldview has determined the show’s content where Scripture seems to have been lacking. 

It is fair to ask why the Bible is not perceived on its own to do what Jenkins’ The Chosen must do for it.  It is also fair to point out that if the Bible does not present a relatable Jesus without The Chosen, its Jesus is not relatable.  This poses a problem.  If the Jesus of the Bible is not relatable, not human, not compassionate (as least, not as compassionate as Jonathan Roumie), then how are followers who turn from The Chosen to the Scriptures to find a suddenly relatable Jesus?  And what if they do not find Him?  Or, if they do find Him, have they found Him only because they were first biased to see Him this way in The Chosen?  The argument would seem obvious:  yes, The Chosen has led people to a “Christ” that the Scriptures seem to obscure.  How then can we argue that The Chosen does not color a viewer’s perception of the Scriptures?  And yet this possibility is denied by Jenkins himself and by his viewers, many of whom admittedly have never before read the Bible.  What are we to do with this doublethink—a doublethink inherent in the show’s dual purpose?  We are to raise yet another red flag. 

Anyone who has listened to Jenkins’ manifold defenses of the show knows that he believes his show to be a useful tool in pointing people to a Jesus they have misunderstood until now.  But how do we know this is not a different Jesus when it is Jenkins’ show that has finally revealed Him to us?  The show’s advertising line, “Get used to different” should give us pause.  Especially given the abundant warnings in Scripture against being deceived by the false Christs who will appear in the last days, we do ourselves and everyone we know a disservice to exempt this show from scrutiny. 

It matters not that Jenkins’ purpose seems spiritual, evangelistic, innocuous, and even noble especially given the backlash he has received.  We owe neither Jenkins nor his fans any degree of loyalty simply because their intentions appear to be good.  We certainly do not owe them a loyalty greater than we owe to the Scriptures.  We must see without any emotional bias that Jenkins is implying that we need a mediator between ourselves and the Scriptures and that his show fills this need.  Is this any different than the teaching that we also need a mediator other than Jesus Himself to lead us to our Heavenly Father?  With these questions, we not only raise multiple red flags but sound a five-bell alarm. 

We will examine multiple assumptions behind The Chosen in the next post.