A Catholic Defense of 'The Chosen'

As Season 4 is in full swing, here are some reasons a Catholic might want to check out Angel Studios' smash hit about the life of Jesus

If you’re a Catholic and you haven’t been keeping up with Angel Studios’ and Dallas Jenkins’ now-four season television show following the life of Jesus and His followers, now is the time. It’s getting undeniably good. 

I feel a kind of missionary zeal to let more Catholics know how good this show is becoming, especially now as we get closer to Holy Week 2024. Amen, Amen I say to you, that this show is the perfect substitute for any cinephile looking for some spiritual alternatives to their usual secular diet of shows and movies. 

That said, this show is anything but a penance. It’s an artistic and spiritual delight; an ambitious and visionary piece of spiritual story-telling that will no doubt invigorate the entire genre of biblical television and cinema for decades to come. Something fresh and new is going on here.

The Chosen isn’t just another low-budget attempt to create didactic vignettes of the life of Christ that hew close to and are almost lifted verbatim from the biblical text. Nor is it some strangely melodramatic attempt by Netflix to capitalize on faith-based audiences. It’s clear this show is made by devout Christians (and it’s crowdfunded by them) for their enjoyment as well as the enjoyment of a potentially much wider audience drawn to good television and story-telling, but curious enough to encounter Christ perhaps in a new way or for the very first time. The show also doesn’t seek to portray the life of Christ and the Apostles from a “secular appreciation view” where the natural Gospel narrative of wonder at the revelation of the divinity of Christ is generally deemphasized in favor of the “Jesus-as-wise-teacher” portrayal. 

The team of writers at The Chosen is clearly and deeply in love with showing a Jesus that is in accord with the whole of Scripture, human and divine, but also artistically attractive. But despite (or even because) of the specific faith of the showrunners, the show seeks to also be an ecumenical one, where Protestant theologians, a Catholic priest, and a Messianic Rabbi are welcomed as advisors to make sure the show doesn’t doesn’t veer into theologically anachronistic, controversial, and/or sectarian tangents. 

Now, I know already you might be thinking various things from people you’ve heard talk about the show or have opinions you might have come to yourself: I’ve already watched the first couple episodes and I didn’t like the creative choices they made regarding Jesus or This show is not Catholic and the Protestant influences turned me off with how they portrayed X differently than a Catholic would or It’s not faithful to the Gospel stories and adds a bunch of stuff in that’s not in there. 

Let’s work our way through these objections.

I’ve already watched the first couple episodes and I didn’t like the creative choices they made.

In The Chosen, if you didn’t already know, Jesus is played thoughtfully by devout Catholic, Jonathan Roumie. Therefore, many Catholic fans of the show have largely enjoyed having “one of our own” as the main character (following the example of Catholic, Jim Caviezel, playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ). Particularly, in scenes between Jesus and Mary, it’s clear Jonathan’s Catholic faith is informing his portrayal of Christ’s intimacy with His mother. It’s so moving to see the tender mother and son relationship as it is imagined through Roumie’s acting choices. I think for example of what Roumie’s Jesus says to Our Lady mid Season 1 as she lovingly washes his sweaty face after a long day of healing the crowds: “What would I do without you, Ema?” Another scene in Season Four of Mary washing Jesus’ hair and sharing a heart-to-heart about Christ’s anguish over the lack of faith in His own disciples, helps audiences see how Mary’s unique discipleship and motherhood gives her a privileged place in the heart of Our Lord, to receive the most dearest concerns of His soul, and to understand Him better than anyone else in His life could.

At every turn of the plot, I can say with confidence that if Catholics give the show a fair shot, they could and should comfortably swallow or even come to enjoy the creative choices the show makes regarding Jesus whenever Jenkins chooses to emphasize Jesus’ humanity in an unconventional way (“in all things but sin” [Hebrews 4:15]). As Catholics we already have a long tradition of portraying the humanity of Christ to its fullest implications because of our groundedness in the hypostatic union of Christ’s two complete natures united in one person. On the other hand, the show is no stranger to controversy. And in my opinion, much of it comes from the Protestant community. 

Certain fundamentalist Protestants already disagree with non-biblical elements in the story-telling (more on that below), but they also take issue with the portrayal of Jesus due to a lack of grounding in formal Christology. This results in some of them interpreting Jenkin’s creative choices regarding Jesus as irreverent, heretical, or violating their conception of what “Jesus should be.” The implication here is that the more human Jesus is shown to be (by depicting Him to be joking, tired, expressing non-sinful yet valid human emotions) somehow the less divine He is being depicted. 

To give an example of such a controversy from Season 2, a scene where Jesus was “prepping” the Sermon on the Mount by actually “practicing” his words and mulling over the best analogies to use, raised eyebrows (myself included to be honest) because it seemed to imply that the divine Jesus was lacking knowledge of what to say, even though He Himself is the Truth and God’s very WORD. But scenes like this are easily swatted away by a few verses of Scripture where Jesus’ humanity is shown to accommodate the same progression of knowledge or, to put it bluntly, lack of knowledge. 

Take how the infant Jesus learned language itself by babbling like a baby for years, slowly acquiring the ability to speak on a human level just like every baby. His divinity did not preclude a natural (non-sinful) struggle of practicing making vowel sounds, followed by consonants, joined by blending coherent sounds together, eventually making words, and then full sentences, until the Scriptures could say of the now-child Jesus, “He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). What does it mean that Jesus grew in wisdom? Well, it means what it means with us: He’s human and has a human brain. And just like our human brains acquire knowledge over time and through practice and experience: so too did Jesus’ brain and his abilities as a preacher, teacher, and leader grow. 

This seems wild to assert, but if Christ is fully man: the human process of learning is also part of his human nature and has been sanctified in Him. This is why the Letter to the Hebrews could say of Jesus: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8-10). If Jesus could “learn” obedience, then it is not implausible that he could practice a great sermon and learn the best way to form his words through trial and error (like He did once as an infant without denying His divine omniscience). And to the point about Jesus “not knowing things,” even the Scriptures depict Jesus saying things like: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36). This of course has to be understood as referring to Jesus in His human capacity for knowledge apart from His divine essence, but even these “high-falutin” distinctions do not ease the paradoxical tension of God being able to learn or being in some sense ignorant of some knowledge in the person of his only-begotten Son. These portrayals of Jesus in the Chosen can be reconciled with a perfectly Catholic Christology, so therefore, do not let that hinder you from trusting the show.

And I can say comfortably that after four seasons of seeing Jesus on screen, I have not been scandalized as a well-formed Catholic by a single one of the Christological non-controversies that keeps erupting with some low-church, fundamentalist Protestants with a poor grasp of Christology.

Similar too are reservations of some Catholics whose sensibilities about Christ might be more informed by classic “stoic, formal, and mysterious” portrayals of Jesus that we grew up with like Jesus of Nazareth (1977) that rigidly ground our conceptions of Jesus in an emotionally-muted, guru-like figure, whose attitude is more aloof than divine. But we shouldn’t confuse divinity with lack of personality. With an awareness of Scripture and a grounding in the profundity of the hypostatic union of Jesus’ two complete natures “who was like us in all things but sin” and Who “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped at but emptied Himself taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:6-7), all these difficulties can be resolved and challenge our relationship with Jesus’ humanity in a fruitful way that possibly makes us relate more to Him as our God and friend. 

This show is not Catholic and the Protestant influences turned me off with how they portrayed X differently than a Catholic would.

As a devout Catholic, I would say I’ve held my peace defending the show on this point until I saw more of it as the seasons have progressed. In the first two seasons, I truly didn’t know the direction they would take on characters like the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph for example; how hard would they stress the Protestant assumption that Mary wasn’t a perpetual virgin, becoming mother to multiple brothers and sisters to Jesus. I was also nervous about how they would portray certain bible passages and teachings of Christ that have distinct theological divergences between Catholics and our Protestant brothers and sisters. 

As season four comes to a close in theaters, I can yet again say that I’m glad to have withheld judgment until this point. Because the show has earned my trust by now. It has revealed itself to be truly committed to not giving much oxygen to modern Protestant vs. Catholic disputes and 90% of the time stays in decidedly ecumenical territory. While the Blessed Mother makes oblique references to “my sons” or “the boys,” they are never shown or dwelt on in any scene beyond two passing purely verbal references in two different seasons. In fact, the show has gotten into hot water with some Evangelical audiences for giving the Blessed Mother (what some of them would consider) an “out-sized and overly-intimate role” in the life of Jesus. It is not without valid cause that some of the anti-Catholic commenters on some episodes will frequently say at Marian scenes: “This scene is too Catholic!” As if that’s a bad thing!

Mary’s intercessory role in the Wedding at Cana is reverently portrayed, and, as mentioned above, many extra non-biblical scenes are written showing Mary consoling Jesus, ministering to him in a motherly way, and accepting the struggle of being mother to the Lamb of God in a way that I always find extremely edifying. But a fruit of good ecumenism is breaking down needless barriers to mutual understanding, and the response from other non-Catholic viewers in the comments has been a pleasant reception to the idea that maybe, just maybe: Mary’s motherhood is a lot richer than just the nativity scene at Christmas.

The closest hot-button theological issue the show covers would have to be Season Four’s portrayal of the “You Are Peter and Upon this Rock” passage from Matthew 16:18. If I had to give it a score out of 5 on Catholic orthodoxy, I’d give it a solid 4/5. Truly, the idea that Peter is the leader of the Apostles as a result of his name change was clearly and even comedically explored. Apart from one Protestant interpretation of the language of “binding and loosing,” the inescapable and overall meaning of the scene (like in Scripture), is that Peter’s confession of faith and new name has big implications for his leadership.

When it comes to substance, again I must stress that the show is common ground for all Christians, and if there’s anything leaning on the Evangelical side: it is more in the area of aesthetics, tone, and emphasis. This is where I think the most legitimate Catholic critiques can be made.

The evangelical aesthetic makes itself felt in how Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has something of a megachurch “look '' with a stage/backdrop in the open-field and anachronistic flyers promoting the great event beforehand. The laid-back nondenominational tone can be felt especially in some of the casual dialogue and catchy quips Jesus employs at times. When a Pharisee takes offense at Christ, Jesus responds “Oh, I’m just getting started.” And when a local priest shouts: “What’s wrong with you?” Jesus sarcastically replies: “Apparently, everything.” Dallas Jenkins has tried to explain the artistic reasons for why he chose to use very modern equivalent figures of speech at times, and for him it's all about communicating to contemporary audiences the human charisma of Christ and his appeal to the people of his time by taking away some of the inherent strangeness of the stilted modes of speech people communicated with back then. Jenkins in this way seeks to eliminate that cultural distance between the person of Christ and the audience today. 

For Jenkins, there are just some ancient mideast ways of speaking that don’t communicate the same intimacy and friendship between characters the same way they did 2,000 years ago. He has therefore explained that while his priority is to be faithful to the Gospels, it is also to make good dialogue for television. As a result, dialogue that sounds too clunky because it’s a near paraphrase of the biblical text or nothing beyond just the text, is not going to cut it for the immersive story-telling and compelling character depictions of the television he’s going for. But I completely empathize with the first time viewer, who, being used to verbatim biblical portrayals, might initially find this more casual and even contemporary- sounding jargon a bit jarring to hear at times.

But nevertheless I guarantee you that the longer you watch the show the “suspension of disbelief” begins to settle in for the majority of the show, and you easily focus on the “substance” of the portrayal over the lack of the formal-sounding archaisms and familiar packaging we’re used to. Only at rare times when an intrusive musical beat employs a little too much electric guitar does my suspension of disbelief pop a little (thinking here specifically of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes in Season Three and ending scene of Season 2 with the Woman at the Well), but even then, solid writing and committed performances of the actors always reels me back in after a enough time. 

For the most part, these personable tonal choices in dialogue serve making this show enjoyable to watch and builds our visceral connection with the characters in all their quirks and show-specific personalities. Watching the story of the Gospels becomes not just an exercise in hyper-historicity, but a truly vibrant and relatable experience. 

Despite the ecumenical nature of the show, the inescapable Protestant bias, however, does manifest most prominently in how the show prioritizes (to both great and superfluous effect alike), the personal testimony of believers who encounter Jesus. That is to say, the show emphasizes the individual’s emotional encounter with Jesus, the struggles of a given person leading up to meeting Jesus, and then the trials of staying faithful later on. It portrays the Christian life of the New Testament through the prism of a comforting experience with Jesus in line with the highly emotional nature of Protestant faith-life and worship.

The self-referential spirit of Evangelical Christianity can often reduce Christianity to what Jesus does for me. How he makes me feel. What he’s doing in my life. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a personalized relationship with Christ, but when Christianity is about the individual believer’s journey more so than diving deeper into the Person of Christ, something is out of balance. Hence, there are times when the show’s focus on drama in the supporting cast makes for good television, but one wonders if we need more focus on Jesus as a Person, as the most fascinating and compelling Person we could ever know. The show is strongest when it’s exploring the intricacies of the God-man, and at its weakest when it gets lost in the weeds elsewhere. 

Yet even here, as the show enters the more difficult parts of Christ’s Passion, some of these tendencies get suppressed due to the more grave and darker themes explored as well as the centrality of Christ to the Passion narrative that emphasizes his solitude in those moments. Season 4 Four’s entire focus is on loss and death, leading up to the raising of Lazarus. All the characters seem to be struggling with the problem of evil and why Jesus uses His powers sometimes and not others, and why He seems so ready to die in a way they cannot comprehend. This weightier subject matter has led to some much welcome Christo-centric mysticism in the show like a poem written by Mary Magdalene about “resurrection coming through death” that particularly moved and inspired me. 

Speaking of which, this now leads me to the final objection: 

The Chosen is not faithful to the Gospel stories and adds a bunch of stuff that's not in the Bible. 

A subplot about Thomas the Apostle seeking marriage with a devout female disciple, Zebedee, the father of James and John, getting into the “olive oil business” to support Jesus’ ministry, an entire episode devoted to Jesus by Himself at a campsite but gets discovered by kids who play with him and learn at his feet for 30 minutes: The Chosen is not afraid to spend extensive time developing its own television canon and lore that interweaves the biblical elements with plausible “fan-fiction” that doesn’t contradict the source-text. My greatest gripe with this can be that entire episodes at times seem to be padded by these purely fictional (but plausible) extensions of the Bible story such that the run-time can feel bloated or drawn-out. Sometimes they distract from more far more interesting stories that don’t get time in The Chosen such as the Transfiguration and the Baptism of Jesus. But as a service to good story-telling, these extra-fictional elements help to couch the familiar stories of the Gospel with unfamiliar and sometimes surprising elements that Dallas and his team have creatively contextualized the Gospel stories with. A compelling side-plot between Simon Peter and his wife comes to a head in the Season Three finale, for example, that gives fresh drama and beauty to the Walking on Water Gospel story. A plausible origin story for the Apostle, Simon the Zealot, raises the drama and impact of the Healing of the Crippled Man at the Pool of Bethesda account. Extended depictions of the Apostles celebrating the Jewish festivals of Sukkot, Hanukkah, and Purim flesh out the Jewishness of the followers of Christ and give more context to events in Christ’s life that happened during these great Jewish feasts (that we Gentiles often aren’t familiar with). 

While some fundamentalist Protestants have again found themselves highly uncomfortable with THIS particular point of creative liberty Dallas employs, Catholics familiar with the rich tradition of Catholic story-telling have found a kindred spirit in how Dallas is giving a master class in Lectio Divina with this style of spiritual art. Whether Dallas recognizes it or not, Catholics developed Passion Plays and Easter Plays in the medieval and early Renaissance that featured all sorts of creative retellings and paraphrasing of the Gospel story, filled with supporting characters (and even anachronisms) from the Medieval imagination.The same kind of story-telling he thinks he’s pioneering, no doubt! Even before that, Jewish Midrash traditions established a kind of Torah reading that allowed teachers to rephrase and embellish key parts of the Hebrew Bible within limits in order to bring out some kind of teaching more clearly through inserting extensions of scenes and stories that flesh out the bones of the text. 

What The Chosen is doing with its show is not unlike our ancient Christian and Jewish heritage of using Scripture as a jumping off point for the imagination within limits of orthodoxy and reverence. And I challenge anyone who has has yet to finish Season One or finished ONLY the first or second seasons, to push on to Season Three and see the good fruits of what Dallas over four seasons now has been able to do with the creative freedom he’s reserved for himself, and (in my opinion) so far used responsibly. 

I won’t belabor the point further. The Chosen is good. It’s good for everyone, but Catholics especially can appreciate this show for its strengths and weaknesses this Lent. So give it a try (or a second look if you’ve given up on it in the past).

But if you have already been a committed fan of The Chosen and are waiting until the new Season 4 drops on the Angel App, stay tuned for my *partially* spoiler-free review of Episodes 1-3, 4-6, and 7 & 8 of Season 4.

God bless! 

And walk… on… the… water!