Home Christian News ‘It’s a Dangerous Proposition’—Dallas Jenkins Describes Writing Process for ‘The Chosen,’ Discusses...

‘It’s a Dangerous Proposition’—Dallas Jenkins Describes Writing Process for ‘The Chosen,’ Discusses LDS Controversies With Allie Beth Stuckey

Clarifying earlier comments he made about his belief that some of the Latter-day Saints he has spent time with “love the same Jesus” as him, Jenkins said, “I’m not going to speak for the LDS church, but what I was saying—and I think my wording was sloppy. I think that I could have clarified a bit better—I do have some LDS friends, not a lot. I have LDS friends who I would say don’t necessarily love the same Jesus that I do.”

However, “I do have some that I have spent hundreds of hours with, I have prayed with, I have wept with, I have gone to Israel with, I have spent hundreds of hours of talking,” Jenkins continued, “and I would say that those friends of mine…when we’re talking particularly about Jesus of Nazareth, particularly the Jesus of the gospels, it is the same Jesus.”

“If you said to me, ‘Does the LDS church as a whole and the evangelical world as a whole share the same fundamental, theological beliefs about Jesus?’ I would say, ‘No,’” Jenkins clarified. “But I would say, even within the evangelical world, there are evangelicals who I would say don’t necessarily know Jesus as the Bible is portraying.”

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Jenkins added, “I just don’t believe in broadly stating about one people group, ‘This is what they believe,’ and ‘This is what they know.’”

Jenkins expressed that he knows what it feels like to have certain beliefs or values ascribed to him as an evangelical that he doesn’t necessarily identify with, and he wants to avoid doing the same to others. 

“I was speaking about specific people in that case,” Jenkins said. He also shared that “dozens” of LDS church members have expressed to him that “The Chosen” has helped them to feel closer to Jesus and understand him better. 

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“Even if we end up disagreeing on some of these issues, I don’t believe there’s a disagreement about the content of the show,” Jenkins said. “I’ve said from the beginning: the show speaks for itself.”