Peterson said that Jenkins “avoided all of the cliché temptations of the easily parodied evangelical tradition, [and] that’s a hard thing to pull off.” Peterson also told the director that the cinematography of the show is “beautiful,” “the acting is top rate,” and the “overall production” is well done, something Peterson believes it “seriously important.”
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“Part of the problem with propagandistic religious entertainment is that it’s often low quality, and you’re supposed to pretend that doesn’t matter,” Peterson added. But if it’s about God, it needs to be of the “highest possible quality,” Peterson said.
Dallas Jenkins Explains His Purpose as a Writer for ‘The Chosen’
Jenkins shared with Peterson that he considers it to be his job as the show’s writer “to take Jesus down from stained glass windows…in the formality of religion that sometimes can distance ourselves from Jesus, from a pure relationship with God.”
“To remove the religiosity of how we oftentimes see God and we see him in paintings or stained glass windows,” Jenkins said, “and then even when we sometimes watch movies, it still feels like a stained glass window. He’s very formal and distant and pious and not funny or not interesting or not charismatic.”
Jenkins added, “So my show is designed to bring Jesus down from the stained glass window or from the statue and remind you that he’s a human being in addition to his divinity.”
Near the end of the interview, Jenkins got emotional when he shared the gospel with Peterson. The show works because “Jesus knows our hearts, [and] he wants a—” Jenkins said, pausing so he wouldn’t cry. “A relationship with you specifically,” he then continued.
“So whether he’s healing you, calling you to follow him, or rebuking you, it’s not based on a paint by numbers, one-size-fits-all—he knows what’s in your heart,” Jenkins said.
