Even as the positive reviews poured in and word-of-mouth continued to spread like wildfire, I’m sure that many Christians were—and still are—skeptical of The Chosen. Admittedly, I was once one of them.
The skepticism is understandable. For one thing, the independent, crowd-funded, multi-season series about the life of Christ is the first of its kind—a high-risk and experimental production. The series (though its producers encourage viewers to read the Gospels) is also loosely based on Scripture, relying mostly upon the imaginative creativity of its writers—an approach fraught with difficulties and dangers. But most importantly, the series seems, at first glance, like the kind of project geared toward the Christian film market—a market generally saturated with soft-focus sentimentality and formulaic morality tales.
But from the first episode onward, it’s clear that Dallas Jenkins and the whole cast and crew of The Chosen mean business. And yet the strength of the show is precisely that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. This is not a thundering biblical epic of the Ben-Hur era, nor is it the kind of ponderous work of spirituality tucked away in arthouse theaters. It is meant to be a binge-worthy TV show in the era of binge-worthy TV shows. This is not to say that The Chosen is superficial or irreverent—the creators clearly operate out of a place of deep faith, and the characters and themes are presented with great love and care—but there is a kind of playful, homespun manner about The Chosen that is both disarming and absorbing.
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