Posted on 07/28/2022 10:09:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I grew up a Christian all my life. I’m no stranger to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and while I’m no Biblical expert, I know enough to be dangerous.
Yet, despite my Christianity, I’ve always lamented how badly Christian media has fallen short. I’ve made it no mystery how much I detest a lot of modern Christian music and movies. For me, it always felt like sub-par writing and acting pardoned by the fact that it was being sold and shipped to a built-in audience that had no other examples to pull from.
(READ: Christian Film is Garbage and We Have to Take a Different Approach)
Christian media has suffered from the exact same problem leftist media has. They’re far more interested in the message than they are in the story. The acting in these movies is so wooden for the same reason. Solid cinema is secondary to the end goal of getting the message of Christ across, and while it’s absolutely important that Christ’s message be delivered, making bad cinema just to do it is putting the cart before the horse.
Moreover, I can’t help but feel that every bad Christian television show or movie made, harms the overall message and drives away audiences who may wander away and never come back.
But let’s take a look at something that does it correctly.
“The Chosen” is something you may have heard of before, but if not, it’s a show that centers around Jesus and his apostles. Cinema around the life and times of Jesus are a dime a dozen, but this one is different.
“The Chosen” takes time to flesh out characters and do so with such care that by the time the first season is done, you feel emotionally invested in them. The focus isn’t just put on Jesus (Jonathan Roumie) either. Two of His apostles, in particular, truly stand out in my opinion. The first is Simon (Shahar Isaac), Jesus’s first apostle, and the other is Matthew (Paras Patel).
The story takes quite a bit of time focusing on these two men. Simon is a married man on the verge of losing everything. He’s impetuous and willing to break the rules. Matthew is a much-despised tax collector, portrayed as a man on the spectrum, who obsessively wants to do his job, even if it means betraying his own people. You get to know these two men relatively well before Jesus even arrives on the scene.
When Jesus finally does become a central figure in the story, it still cuts to various people and their lives in order to keep world-building. Too often in Christian media, Jesus becomes such a focused on figure that He towers too tall over the story. The world fades away, and this actually does a disservice to Him and His story.
“The Chosen” takes time for you to get to know the people and the place. The Pharisee Nicodemas (Erick Avari) and his struggles in keeping his order from seeing itself as more holy than God are masterfully intercut between time spent with the apostles. We’re also given time with the Centurian Gaius (Kirk B.R. Woller), a man who clearly has a prejudice against Jews but can’t help but care about Matthew.
Audiences often don’t understand the times Jesus lived in but “The Chosen” puts that setting into focus so you understand the importance and audacity of what Jesus and the apostles were doing at the time.
Is the message still there? Absolutely, but “The Chosen” does something that other Christian stories fail to. It shows, but it doesn’t tell. Like Christ, who told stories to get his point across, the story is enough.
As I said, I’ve been a Christian all my life, but I never saw the apostles like this. They were always important names but “The Chosen” makes them into important people. Their relationship to Christ has never been more human and personal. It really does shed new light on an old story, and the most important story in the world to boot.
It makes you wonder what kind of world we would be living in today if Christians had told stories in this manner ages ago.
What i like about The Chosen is how all the conversations are “fleshed” out. They aren’t just word for word excerpts from the New Testament like many other Christian films. This makes Jesus and his apostles seem real and not just wooden puppets.
Mr mm and I have been watching it recently.
We were skeptical at first for the very reasons the author mentions, but were pleasantly surprised by the result.
The film has its weak areas, but character development is not one of them. I think they did an especially good job casting Nicodemus.
one good decision i made two years ago was to pay this tv show about Jesus’ ministry forward. now we’re in season three and still funding it.
My two cents. Your mileage may vary.
Yes. I have no interest, except curiosity.
It seemsmthey are making things up and adding to the Bible.
It’s exploitation for entertainment.
Produced by Mormons. Be careful.
Once you make a good Christian film it has the advantage of being timeless. Like Ben Hur.
The producer is an Evangelical Christian. I think I heard where some of the show was produced on a lot built and owned by mormons. Although I would find that odd, as the mormons are a pretty tight knit group. But I suppose if there was money to be made.... So that might be where the rumor got started.
We visited a small protestant church in the heart of mormon land. They had bought some special doors for their entrance and were told by the manufacturer that they had numerous trades people trained in their installation.
But as soon as the people showed up they realized they didn’t have the proper tools, had a schedule conflict, etc. It was all mormon workers! They wouldn’t install the doors on a church!
I think it was two years and the church had finally been able to find (and afford) a company from a couple states away to install them.
They were VERY proud of their newly installed doors!
The Gospel IS the script. No word added, no word removed. And great production values.
I absolutely agree with you!
Agree!
How much of it have you watched?
I hope season 3 will be out soon.
So, you don’t believe in Christian media, just go read your Bible, right? Should that be extrapolated to suggest anything depicting the gospels outside of personal Bible study is wrong and theater? Eliminate children’s skits in church? All Christian movies? Heck, sermons because they’re someone’s interpretation?
Should we not witness for fear our biblical translations could be theater?
We shouldn’t preach the gospel to those in the language in which they’ll hear it?
Is there a single specific translation of the Bible that one should only read?
You have taken this person’s opinion……of which he is entitled and also stands by…..
…and you think you can extrapolate to the nth degree!
How about this….if you like it, watch it!
Those of us who have another opinion, leave us alone.
What is it to you to tell us what we should think or not think, or decide what this person is all about!
It goes both ways. The opinion posted, for which yes the person is fully entitled to, I interpreted as you did my statement, telling one how to think. I read “only my way is the right way”.
If it is not for you, fine. But why not have a multitude of platforms to bring people to Christ, or inspire believers to perhaps go to their dusty bibles and crack them open?
Last night, our small home Bible study group completed our study of James. Chapter five begins with warnings to rich oppressors and for context, we compared Mark 10:17-31, where the rich man asked what must he DO to enter the kingdom. One member of the group mentioned; “I was watching The Chosen and this man was Nicodemus”. In preparing for this study, I hadn't come across the actual name of the rich man, so I asked that we compare the gospel accounts of the story and see if there was any indication of the man's name and in short order we found that this person is not named in the Bible.
I cautioned the group about the show with “be careful what you watch”. I have never watched that show, but this alone gives me cause to also be careful. The point of television is advertising revenue though entertainment, which is a completely different agenda of the Bible itself and now I'm even more cautious than I was beforehand.
A story with 99% Truth and 1% untruth is still untrue.
...that is all
The Chosen is wonderful. Those who disapprove of the show please spare us all the holier-than-thou KJV snobbery.
Nicodemus blew me way for the depth of character they developed.
Jerry Jenkins, the Producers dad has written four books on the apostles. He takes a very deep dive into how he perceives their personalities and quirks as they walk with Jesus and Record his times.
I’ve read two of them and walked away better for it.
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