Red Flags within The Chosen

Introduction

This popular television series depicting the life of Jesus from the viewpoint of His disciples began as a small crowdfunded endeavor in 2017 but has since become a worldwide sensation with over 280 million viewers. Boasting a broad interfaith appeal, the series draws two-thirds of its viewers from Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, and even Muslim backgrounds and the remaining third from those who claim no religious affiliation at all. Dallas Jenkins, the show's creator, director, co-writer, and executive producer, is working with the Come and See Foundation to reach one billion people by 2027. The show has already been translated into scores of languages, reaching the Guinness World Record for the most translated season of a streaming series. If we take these staggering facts at face value, we will conclude that the Great Commission is being fulfilled as never before.   

Questions

But is it really? A growing number of Christian leaders and laymen are taking a closer look at Jenkins' success, questioning whether The Chosen really delivers the true Gospel at all. Why? It isn't merely that they are skeptical of the reasons for The Chosen's popularity or that they wonder why Dallas Jenkins seems strangely exempt from bearing the reproach of the Gospel (I Peter 4:14), for Jesus did say that the fields are white unto harvest (John 4:35). It shouldn't necessarily be surprising if an evangelistic endeavor finds masses who are hungry for Christ. The problem is that Jenkins' thesis--that he wants to present a Jesus who is "authentic" because he is "more human" and "relatable"--would seem to require that this Jesus speak the language of contemporary culture, whether secular or Christian. Just what language is that? Wouldn't it be the upbeat language of positivity common to the Prosperity Gospel and to Progressive Christianity? And wouldn't the vocabulary of this language of positivity blend well with postmodernism, metamodernism, and even New Age mysticism?

It would certainly appear that The Chosen is speaking the language of modern culture as found around the world. And, no, we cannot assume that eternal truth is being communicated in that language. The Lord never commanded His disciples to be "relatable" or to avoid offending people as much as possible. He commanded them to speak the truth, and He warned them many times over that their efforts would meet with hostility and suffering. I wonder if Dallas Jenkins remembers that Jesus told His disciples they would be hated of all men for His Name's sake (Matthew 10:22). I wonder if he realizes that Jesus condemned popularity, saying, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you" (Luke 6:26). And I wonder if Jenkins has ever asked himself Jesus' burning question, "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). Jenkins is indeed trying to gain the whole world, but why, and at what cost? The unprecedented popularity The Chosen enjoys as a faith-based series invites a storm of questions rather than waves of thunderous applause.

Controversy

Although Jenkins' series is enjoying a season of unparalleled popularity for a faith-based project, it has been challenged by controversy almost from the beginning. What is very interesting is that this controversy hasn't been fueled in large part by big-name Bible scholars and theologians who are trying to gain a following, although some of them have added their voices to the discussion. This controversy began with a slow burn at the grassroots level as one disillusioned viewer after another clicked off after only a couple of episodes. I myself am one of them. After a friend first told me about the show, saying it was amazing and different, I found it on my computer and watched the first episode about Mary Magdalene with tears streaming down my face. The compassionate and loving firmness with which "Jesus" pulled her out of her sin was thrillingly beautiful. I was pleasantly surprised, since I don't watch shows about Jesus. This was in 2020, after the show had aired numerous episodes. I soon watched part of another episode but within minutes felt a distinct check from the Holy Spirit that something was false. "No! That's not how I see Jesus at all," I said to myself, and I instantly turned away to preserve the purity of the Biblical Jesus in my spirit's gaze.

After this, I kept myself informed about the show because the reasons I had felt directed to turn away from it now fascinated me as much as the first episode had touched me. I knew that something deceptive and elusive was going on, and I believed that, with enough diligence and discernment, I could depend upon the Lord to show me what it was. It wasn't long after that that I saw part of the episode in which Matthew "helps" Jesus write His Sermon on the Mount. The show had by now completely overplayed its hand by veering far from the Biblical record. Somewhere around that same time, I became aware that Jenkins had shown Mary Magdalene returning to her life of addiction and shame. This seemed very unlikely, given the power of the first episode and the total absence of any such thing in Scripture. By this time, I began watching Jenkins' own frequent defenses of his show and found his video "firing back" against his critics for having Mary Magdalene backslide. I was so upset by the antinomianism in Jenkins' video that I drafted several letters to him, none of which I sent, but I worked my thoughts out systematically and also began following blogposts about the show.

It was when I read the numerous comments for these posts and for Jenkins' video defenses against his critics that I felt myself becoming an integral part of The Chosen's audience. I researched and read nearly everything I could get my hands on to see if anyone else was as disturbed as I was that Jenkins was gaining a huge following for what I felt was a very dangerous show. Disappointingly, there wasn't much discernment out there. So, when I read articles praising the show, I began voicing my concerns in the comments section, alongside numerous others whose convictions matched mine. I didn't do so without backlash. Sometimes I was compared to the Pharisees who crucified Jesus, and once I was mocked as a "hoot at parties." It wasn't that I was a troll. I had spoken as respectfully as possible. It was that the authority of the Bible itself was being attacked left and right by Jenkins' fans. Not only could they not think to save their lives, they were so infected with postmodernism and metamodernism that it was almost pointless to respond to them.

So, this is Jenkins' audience, I realized. As the online debate in these blogposts intensified over a lengthy period of time, Jenkins' fans usually outnumbered nonfans two to one. Whether those who had stopped watching his show no longer cared to discuss it, or whether his fans actually did outnumber dissenting voices was impossible to tell. But the intensity of the conflict became so great that my own sister (who shares my concerns) cautioned me against writing about the show, once I started my own blog. "I don't know," she made a wry face. "People are pretty passionate about that show. It might cost you some friends." Cautiously, I wrote anyway, and I also soon found out that most of my friends had never watched it. It almost became a joke with some of us. There was usually that "thing" that had prevented them from ever trying it out, despite the recommendation of friends. One friend texted me a cartoon mocking The Chosen's popularity over serious Bible study.

But whether or not my own friends would have understood my mission, I knew that the Lord did, and I also knew that I had to get this thorn out of my system. The voice inside me refused to dis, for nothing I read or watched ever changed my position from that first day when I felt a creepy chill over my spirit that what I was viewing was not from God. In this post, I wish to raise several red flags that I believe every Christian should consider before traveling the alluring landscape of The Chosen.

Red Flag Number One: Jenkins' Harsh Response to His Critics

Dallas Jenkins' response to his critics is the first red flag that something is amiss. If he were indeed attempting to spread The Gospel over the whole world, one would think he would consider the voices of evangelicals--among them, well known conservative Bible scholars--who object to his show. But he doesn't. It is not as if Jenkins is impervious to criticism, for his "defense videos" abound. What is so unsettling is that he almost never admits that his critics have valid concerns, even when those concerns arise from Jenkins' own words. Jenkins' default argument seems to be either that his critics are misinterpreting him or that they are misinterpreting The Gospel itself. In fact, Jenkins seems to consider himself the vanguard of a movement to correct a historic "Christianity" overrun with stereotypes of Jesus generated by "statues" and "stained glass windows." Just what this means deserves careful attention in a separate post.

Despite the fact that Scripture teaches, "In the multitude of counselors, there is safety" (Proverbs 11:14), Jenkins seems to believe that, in the multitude of critics, there is authenticity. He seems to validate himself by reading his opposition as persecution for spreading The Gospel, and with this "persecution" comes the assumption that he is in the right simply because he is reaping opposition. His confirmation bias often has a field day. And yet, instead of blessing his "persecutors," Jenkins tends to deflect criticism by projecting blame onto his critics. In his frequent counterattacks, Jenkins seems entitled to "call out" anyone who is actually holding him accountable. He also tends to generalize his critics by the worst extremes, creating the impression that his opposition is ungodly and unreasonable, when the opposite is often true. His fans have picked up the theme many times over, eyeing Jenkins' critics who know their Bibles well as hypocrites who care more for doctrine than for people.

It would be enormously refreshing if Jenkins could "man up" and say he was wrong when he said Mormons and Christians "love the same Jesus" or if he admitted that there is zero proof or even plausibility that Mary Magdalene backslid or that Peter gambled or fished on the Sabbath. He certainly should find the ability to understand critics who push back against Matthew's assistance to a nervous and diffident Jesus who fumbles to deliver His first great speech. Plainly put, Jenkins can't seem to bring himself to admit when he is being utterly ludicrous. On the contrary, he seems to congratulate himself for receiving criticism from the very people whom nonreligious audiences seem to dislike.

Red Flag Number Two: Jenkins' Subjective Standard for His Content

Because Jenkins' response to constructive criticism is arguably unbiblical, his defensiveness invites the very thing it would deflect: careful scrutiny of The Chosen's content. By what standard, however, should the show be scrutinized? The fact that this question seems to evade an answer is another red flag. Jenkins would imply that The Bible is the standard for his show, but if that were true, his show would follow The Bible. In reality, The Bible seems to be Jenkins' standard for determining what he needs to add to the show. How else can he explain that, by his own admission, 95% of his show isn't found in The Bible? By what standard do we scrutinize that 95%? Should only five percent of Jenkins' show be scrutinized by The Bible?

It seems clear that Jenkins' "standard" is narrative, specifically narrative that pertains to Christ's "chosen" disciples. This is why Jenkins creates elaborate dialogue for detailed backstories which he calls "historical fiction," even though none of these episodes actually happened. This also explains why Jenkins bypasses large sections of The Gospels that feature Jesus' teachings or less "human" experiences, such as His temptation or Transfiguration. Jenkins' standard for his fictional narrative is that it be "plausible," although Jenkins himself decides what "plausible" means, despite the intended input of his two cowriters and three script consultants, who sometimes firmly disagree with him. We might summarize Jenkins' standard as "plausible narrative" that tells the human backstories of "the chosen" in relation to their perceptions of a "more human" Jesus. Clearly, Jenkins has an agenda: to create a sense of "relatability" he finds missing from The Gospel record as written.

This would seem to preclude using those Gospels as a standard by which to judge Jenkins' work, since he doesn't find them "relatable" to modern audiences as is. Jenkins' purpose is far greater than merely to translate--or paraphrase--The Bible into contemporary language. His purpose is to supplement the content itself--something which has never been done since the apocryphal writings were rejected from the canon of Scripture. In fact, only in the cults do we find such large bodies of writings added to the use of Scripture. Red flag indeed! Jenkins' wizardry has not only conditioned his audience to believe that the things missing from The Bible are the very things he needs to portray; it has convinced them that The Bible is irrelevant to his newly added narratives because they exist in a world of their own. With such a line of reasoning, since anything not in The Bible is missing from The Bible, Jenkins' creative canvas is as large as the skies. Despite his lip service to the contrary, Jenkins has used The Bible as a negative standard that supposedly falls short of what his audience most needs: the "authentic" portrayal of Christ's humanity.

Logically, Jenkins has built his entire show upon a sea of fallacies, but most people are so unfamiliar with both logic and rhetoric, let alone with Scripture, that they haven't caught on to Jenkins' casuistry. While Jenkins says his show never contradicts The Bible, he doesn't admit that it is impossible to contradict something that doesn't exist in the first place. This favorite disclaimer of Jenkins' depends upon the fallacy known as argumentum ad ignorantiam, or the appeal to ignorance. This fallacy shifts the burden of proof from Jenkins to his critics, who are somehow supposed to show that his invented episodes aren't Biblical. Jenkins thus succeeds in creating the perception that it is his critics, rather than himself, who are being subjective, and he knows that in the court of public opinion, the benefit of the doubt will land in his favor. When critics say that an episode simply wouldn't have happened because Jesus isn't like that or Peter wasn't like that or Mary Magdalene wasn't like that, they end up sounding not only opinionated but narrowminded and nitpicky.

If applying any sort of objective Biblical standard to Jenkins' show feels like chasing after a bag of feathers, on top of everything else, Jenkins whips out his right to exercise artistic license. How do you argue with that? And when Jenkins' fans have fallen in love with his characters, emotional appeal wins the day over any kind of doctrinal or theological reservations. Never mind the fact that emotional appeal is never the measure of true argument but is instead the favorite tactic of propagandistic big lies, Jenkins has eroded the very need for argument by shifting his viewers' focus from objective truth to subjective narrative. He has supplanted the primary purpose of The Gospel writers with his own purpose and can seem to validate himself by his impressive reach to unbelievers who love his show.

Red Flag Number Three: Jenkins' Preference for Entertainment over Evangelism

Jenkins' professed passion to evangelize shares an uneasy throne with his drive to entertain, and when it is Jenkins' ability to entertain that is bringing the crowds by the hundreds of millions and, with them, the profits, we hear Christ's sober warning that no one can serve both God and mammon. The fact that Jenkins considers himself the grand exception is yet another brilliant red flag. Our Lord's injunction against serving two masters indicts far more than the deceitfulness of riches. It warns against entertaining the mindset that guarantees those riches. The Apostle John calls this mindset "the world," which Christians are forbidden to love. "The world" includes the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (I John 2: 15-17). Where in this list does the love to entertain fall? But isn't that Jenkins' primary motivation? He would love for us to believe that his purpose to entertain is compatible with his purpose to evangelize.

And yet, Jenkins doesn't seem too enamored with Scripture for filming purposes. In fact, he doesn't consider The Bible itself to be entertaining as is, and he considers various attempts to film it with fidelity to be artistic failures. This isn't merely because of what he considers poor acting or poor filming but poor narrative skill. Jordan Peterson puts the words in Jenkins' mouth that a story for which we already know the ending simply isn't a good story. Entertainment, then, isn't to be found in bringing the familiar to film; it is to be found in lacing the familiar with the unfamiliar. Never mind the days when The Bible was considered its own bait in creating films such as The Ten Commandments, The Jesus Film, or The Passion of the Christ.  Jenkins and his artistic allies are bored with that.  They want something new, something unrehearsed--something uncharted and unpredictable.  Predictably, the elements of surprise and humor abound in The Chosen.

But, supposing that Jenkins still holds on at least in theory to his claim to evangelize, he must admit that 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, by Biblical standards of evangelism, the show would have to subordinate its purpose to entertain to its purpose to portray the Scriptures.  But the show doesn’t do this. On the contrary, Jenkins' purpose to entertain rules the day, with no end in sight as Jenkins plans one spinoff series after another. All of this, of course, has proved quite profitable for Jenkins, whose estimated annual salary of $174,166 in 2020 grew to $1.1 million by 2022. The show itself has generated profits in the hundreds of millions.   

Red Flag Number Four: Jenkins' Humanistic and Postmodern Theology

If Jenkins' goal is ultimately to entertain, doesn't that mean his Jesus has to be entertaining? And if Jenkins' Jesus is found to be entertaining because he is "relatable" and "more human," doesn't that mean He has been shaped by what culture considers "relatable"? Why would this not be another huge red flag? How can we be sure that what modern culture finds "relatable" isn't actually sinful? After all, it is Jenkins' "chosen's" sins and addictions that viewers find relatable about them, so what do they find relatable about Jesus? Jenkins believes it is His humanity that viewers will find relatable, and, to listen to their comments, Jenkins is exactly right. Never mind the fact that it is begging the question to think that we, the sinful, should find our Savior "relatable."

Jenkins would have us believe that everyone would love Jesus if they only knew what He was really like, and his show's popularity seems to support this. But Scripture tells a far different story. People didn't welcome Jesus; they rejected Him. John's Gospel tells us that Jesus came into His own but that His own received Him not (John 1:9-11). This fact isn't restricted to the religious elite with whom Jesus clashed. This fact includes everyone. Despite the fact that Jenkins' fans love to compare his critics with "the Pharisees who crucified Christ," the truth is that the mob crucified Him. It was the people whom Jesus healed, fed, and taught who cried out for His death. And most sobering of all is the fact that that mob includes you and me. But Jenkins' view of human nature suggests that people only need to understand Jesus better in order to believe in Him, and Jenkins believes that portraying the human Jesus will accomplish this purpose.

For Jenkins', the primary human problem isn't sin; it is pain. Therefore, people need compassion more than they need conviction. Jenkins' postmodern worldview would preclude a single standard of truth, even though he professes to be evangelical. A careful listen to his many personal videos will reveal that his theology at best is one of Hyper-Grace. For all practical purposes, Jenkins' postmodern and metamodern view of truth accounts for his sense of entitlement to call his fictional narratives of Jesus "authentic" when they are anything but. True to the metamodern approach to absolute truth, Jenkins says over and over that we don't know that these things didn't happen--again, the appeal to ignorance--but they might have happened. Worse than this, however, is his indifference as to whether they did or didn't happen. The bottom line is that they make a good story, and his adoring fans agree. So, if we approach truth as narrative, we can be as fluid with the facts as we please, and that requires creating a Jesus who fits that fluidity.

All this means that Jenkins has soft-pedaled at best The Gospel's accounts of Jesus' most direct teachings against sin. For example, our Lord's harsh words against lust as worthy of hellfire and as demanding amputation of a hand or removal of an eye are nowhere to be found in Christ's Sermon on the Mount as found in The Chosen. Jenkins would characteristically argue that the things he leaves out of The Gospels didn't fit the "narrative arc" he has chosen for "the chosen." This would mean, then, without a doubt, that Jenkins adopts the postmodern worldview that individual experiences shape our understanding of reality.

The Jesus of Scripture, however, says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." If that isn't reality, I don't know what is. Also true to postmodernism, it would appear that Jenkins' "authentic" Jesus is to be found in the collective, albeit subjective, experiences of His disciples, more than in the authoritative truth of God's Word. Although Jenkins would dispute this statement, if he actually believed God's Word to be sufficient, he would not contend that we need the show to make Jesus more "relatable." At the end of the day, Jenkins has psyched out his postmodern audience by offering them a Jesus who doesn't come on too strong. As a result, Jenkins' popularity continues to mount with his profits.

Red Flag Number Five: Jenkins' Condescending Patronage of Scripture

Without beating the point to death, we have to say that Jenkins has created a seven-season series of eight episodes each, reaching a potential total of 56 episodes, because he sees "gaps" in The Gospel record regarding the humanity of Jesus. It would be impossible to verbalize each and every objection to Jenkins' additions, and Jenkins' fans would not be listening even if we did. This is not merely because they have already fallen for Jenkins' characters but because anyone unfamiliar with the Bible has no reason to object to Jenkins' additions. Jenkins has said repeatedly that he points people back to The Bible, but his logic seems inherently flawed, if not insincere. Why would fans prefer a book that contradicts their favorite scenes and episodes?  And when Jenkins’ fans fall in love with the very content to which his critics object, Jenkins has driven a wedge between those who know The Bible and those who don’t.  He has also driven a wedge between his fans and The Bible. 

It wouldn't be accurate to argue that Jenkins' fans aren't reading The Bible more than they were before, but how are they reading it? If they are taking it as authoritative over The Chosen, then Jenkins has run the risk of deconstructing his show. If they are not, he has created undue rivalry for the truth of God's Word. As it is, by selling the big lie that he is telling the human story of Jesus from His disciples’ point of view when he himself has invented those disciples and that point of view, Jenkins has devalued the four Gospel accounts that already exist. He is not only marginalizing primary sources of the Christian faith as divinely protected over 2000 years of history; he is placing his own fictitious narratives in emotional competition with eyewitness accounts that claim 100% accuracy. Jenkin' show boasts only five percent accuracy by contrast, daring, nonetheless, to parade itself as "real."

The really alarming fact is that Jenkins' argues that we need the show to reveal to us that Jesus is human and that His followers continue to struggle with unrepentant sin, despite following Him. This claim actually removes his show from mere entertainment and elevates it on a par with Scripture. A careful review of all the "Bible" study helps Jenkins is currently creating for corporate study in church curricula will prove this point. This may sound like nothing more than what Christian schools a decade ago called "Biblical integration," but when Jenkins juxtaposes study of his characters with Scripture, knowing his fans prefer--by the very "need" for his show--the "relatable" characters of The Chosen, he is expecting them to perform mental gymnastics. How are they supposed to tell themselves they are studying The Chosen's characters more in depth because they are not real? The point is that, to Jenkins' fans, these characters feel more real than their Biblical counterparts! It isn't Christian schools that are doing these studies. It is churches--churches that would better spend their time working to build Biblical literacy in their parishioners.

There are so many problems with Jenkins' handling of Scripture that a careful study requires another series of posts, but the biggest problem to step over at the outset is obvious: if The Bible does not present a relatable Jesus without The Chosen, its Jesus is not relatable.  If the Jesus of The Bible is not relatable, not human, not compassionate (at 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?  Anyone who has listened to Jenkins’ frequent 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?

Conclusions

It matters not whether, in his own eyes, Jenkins’ professed purpose in creating The Chosen seems to be wholesome. The Lord did not direct Jenkins to place his fiction on a par with Scripture, creating more confusion in this information age over what is true and what is not true than has perhaps ever existed in the history of the world. If Jenkins' intentions were good, he would not be educating the Biblically illiterate masses on the false narratives of his show; he would be helping them to discover the historical Jesus as already revealed in Scripture. Jenkins's show by its very nature implies that we need a mediator between ourselves and the Scriptures and that Jenkins' imagination fills this need.  Is this any different than the Catholic teaching that we also need a mediator between our souls and Christ, Who is Himself the sole Mediator between God and man? With these questions, we not only raise multiple red flags; we sound a five-bell alarm.