In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
The Chosen is a largely-crowdfunded, independent, ongoing video series which debuted on
YouTube in April 2019 with the goal of retelling the gospel stories mainly
from the perspective of their minor characters and emphasizing the
life-changing nature of their interactions with the Lord Jesus. In the words of
Josh Shepherd at Christianity Today, its creators aimed for it to be “faithful to the biblical text while gritty in tone”.
Tom: Hmm. In my opinion, the grit is definitely visible, but not necessarily
off-putting.
Late to the Party
Obviously we’re more than a little late to this particular party: CT was writing about
the show well before it debuted. But you and I are just average Christians
looking on, IC, and we probably represent this project’s target demographic better than the Christian media. I have only viewed five episodes
thus far, so you will be a little ahead of me in that department, and can let
me know if what I’ve seen accurately represents the approach taken in the later
episodes.
Immanuel Can: Somewhat. The show definitely develops as the series goes along. We start to get a more definite
idea of the characters. And that was apparently one of the goals of telling the
story from a disciple’s perspective in the first place. The director says he always
hated the depictions in which there were only three disciples: Peter, John and
Judas, and the rest were a kind of blank-placeholder “disciple”. He wanted to
flesh out all the characters in more depth, making them distinct from one
another, and putting them each in a unique relationship with the Jesus
character.
We Caught Them Taking Liberties
The writers take some creative liberties in doing this. So, for example, we see in
the early episodes that Matthew, the tax collector, has Asperger’s ...
Tom: Uh, okay.
IC: Asperger syndrome was undiagnosed in those days, of course. Matthew manifests all the tics,
obsessions, strengths of detail-orientation and diminished ability to read
emotions from others that is typical of that type.
Tom: And does it pretty convincingly, actually, now that you point out that’s what they were after.
IC: It’s a way of explaining why a Jewish man would be okay with colluding with the Romans, though his society
would hate him for it, without resorting to simply suggesting that he was
greedy. It’s a different take. And though we have no biblical evidence that Matthew had such a syndrome, neither do we know why he was a tax collector
prior to his calling. What we do know is that his response to Christ was instantaneous, untroubled,
and complete. Would
that we were all so quick to respond.
Going Beyond the Word
Tom: Right. If you’re looking for a faithful verse-by-verse retelling of one of the gospels, you need to watch
2003’s The Gospel of John. This is NOT that. This is very modern, non-linear, and full of character
moments, dialogue and imaginary interpersonal connections we don’t find in scripture, like the first episode’s scene
where the Pharisee Nicodemus fails at exorcising the demons from Mary
Magdalene. Some of the older characters speak in the mannered way you normally expect
in semi-historical films, but Peter’s dialogue is completely 21st century English-idiomatic. He says
“okay” all the time, which I find a little jarring, and uses Western
figures of speech. He is also portrayed as a reluctant Roman collaborator. So if
you are uncomfortable with going “beyond the Word”, this is probably not a
project you will enjoy.
That said, it seems to me that what the director and writers are attempting here is
to portray realistically and humanly the biblical interactions that led to
changed lives; to treat them as absolutely real, and to try to reimagine how
those interactions sketched out or hinted at in our Bibles might have played out in real time
if you had been a fly on the wall. From that angle, provided the Christian
viewer is okay with the fact that a lot of this is pure fiction, one or two of
the scenes I’ve seen so far work powerfully — like when Jesus delivers
Mary in an entirely understated and empathetic way. But this sort of approach
necessitates creativity, and “padding” the story. I can understand why it
was necessary given what the creators are trying to accomplish, but
I recognize some older Christians may find it difficult to hear
extra-biblical words coming from the mouth of our Lord and Savior.
IC: Yes, I find that the most difficult thing to take as well. Adding to the Lord’s words … not okay
with me, under any circumstances, even just for dramatic effect.
Sentimental Slop
Tom: I know what you mean. There
is a long series of scenes in Season 1, Episode 3 where Jesus interacts
with a group of children. It is probably the writers’ idea to give us some
insight into his character. Sadly, 90% of what Jesus says in those scenes is
extra-scriptural fluff: phrases like “You are very special” that echo the
modern, sentimental slop you get in primary school. We have well over 1,000 words that came from the mouth of Jesus recorded in scripture. He never told a single soul they were “special”. The scenes humanize him,
sure, but also walk pretty close to the line of trivializing him. (The episode
also makes him out to be very liturgical, which is not completely wrong, but
perhaps not completely helpful either.) But then when the children ask him why
he has come to Capernaum, he quotes from Isaiah. The change is electric. Any
Christian would feel it instantly. Suddenly he’s telling us something that
matters in words we recognize. We can feel their authority.
IC: I feel a little torn
about some aspects of the series. The acting is really pretty good … much
better than one ordinarily expects from a Christian production, and especially
a period piece.
Tom: Mary is terrific. Nicodemus is a Hollywood character actor I’ve seen before, very solid. Andrew is played
by a nobody, but absolutely convincingly.
IC: And occasionally I find myself catching an insight about a particular scriptural incident that I had
not considered before, but that actually seems more harmonious or plausible
than what I had previously thought. So there are some insights in the
drama.
Between Two Horses
Tom: Any time you take a Bible scene and try to act it out, you are caught between two horses. On the
good side, because it is a visual medium, you may inject something that brings
out an essential truth in the text. There are moments this works, and really chokes
me up, and not all of them are verbal. It’s a nod, or a physical gesture, that
just impresses me as authentic, and is certainly one very plausible way these
things might have actually occurred. And that’s the point, really: they did occur. They are not a “story”. To
take them this seriously is something I believe the Lord would approve.
On the other hand, there is the danger of adding something that violates the
spirit of the text and takes the viewer away from the truth. That’s a moral
danger I’d be reluctant to play around with too much, and it probably explains
the extremely literal approach of The Gospel of John.
IC: The creators are trying to come to grips with the text of the Bible, as well as make something new, and I can sense their earnestness to get both right. If they don’t always succeed,
they are at least trying for that.
Customs, Habits and Language
One aspect I quite like is the Jewishness of the thing.
Tom: I could not help but notice the actor who plays the Lord has an appropriately Eastern profile, as does the actress playing his mother. I like that.
IC: This is a production that makes absolutely no apologies for saying that Christ was a Jew, living among
Jews, with Jewish faces, customs, habits, language and artifacts on every side.
This isn’t just some awful Westernized version of things; the creators are
really trying to immerse us in a Jewish way of understanding these situations
and teachings. I believe churches would benefit from thinking more
carefully about the Jewish context of things, and this production kind of
compels that.
Tom: Absolutely agreed about that. There is also a good deal of attention given to the political situation
between Jews and Romans, which is very much there in the gospels, but of
necessity becomes more overt here since it drives much of the onscreen conflict.
I think they do that very well. The dynamics between those
two nations and between the mixed bag of characters in this version of
first century Capernaum are carefully thought through, and they serve to
explain a character’s actions in many cases. Peter is portrayed with the
urgency of authentic fear, and his plight reminds us of the genuine thirst for freedom that must have existed among
Jews of that era, and which would have provided a ready analogy for the much
more crucial need for spiritual deliverance.
Real People
IC: That takes us to another interesting aspect: the Romans in this drama. One, Gaius, has a very
human sort of ambivalence. In general, he manifests the cynical weariness of a
veteran cop. He’s unkind, contemptuous, and vaguely disapproving of everything;
and yet he’s somehow tractable and likable as well, his very resistance to all
that is going on lending a strange charm to his weary capitulation to it. You
get a real sense of a tired-soul-still-searching out of him. That’s
interesting. The other Roman of note is Quintus, played as the kind of
simmering psychopath who would have been likely to find the Roman army really
attractive, and whose enjoyment of violence would surely have expedited him to
top ranks. He’s really disturbingly malevolent.
Tom: I like the way they’ve treated each characterization as an exercise in individuality.
There are no ciphers and no robotic ranks of identical, predictable people.
IC: We often think as the Romans as sort of blank spaces in the narrative, as placeholders
for tyranny, or stereotype thugs. (The exceptions might be Herod and Pilate,
about whose nature and propensities we know somewhat more from the Bible
account.) But it’s novel to see the Roman soldiers played as human beings
caught in their own dilemmas too. In scripture, Gentiles really get what we
might call short notice until the book of Acts. We don’t often think of how
they were involved, but at times they really were.
Tom: And when we think that in a few short years, Paul would be writing one of his most
theologically important epistles to a Roman church, we are reminded that the
Lord’s mission may have revolved around Jewish history and sprung from it, but
God had a far vaster plan in view. That’s not a bad thing to bring out.
IC: Indeed not.
Things That Could Go Wrong
Well, where do we go from
here? We have a thing that could go badly wrong, because it’s tampering with
scripture. But it doesn’t seem awful, except in that business of adding a
little too freely to the words of Christ. Purely as a drama, it’s effective and
pretty nicely done. It does entertain: it’s not the usual mess of wretched
production values and weak acting for which Christian films are rightly famous.
And it does seem to have some theological merits, at least in that it offers
some fresh perspectives on persons, situations and themes that might have
become stale in our imagination.
But is this a safe watch for
Christians? Is it really a good thing? What do we make of this, Tom?
Tom: Good question. I’m trying to leave aside the things I dislike
about it that are truly neither here nor there morally: things like the fact
that it’s advertised on YouTube with a hashtag called #BingeJesus, which is truly cringeworthy. That’s a typical stunt from a young Christian
director-type in our day, and I know what he means by it, as does his
audience, but I absolutely hate the flippancy. Then there’s the introductory title sequence and theme tune,
which looks and sounds like most anything new from Netflix, though the whole “twelve
fishes swimming against the school” motif is rather clever.
IC: The slogan, yes, is too flippant, too “hip”. A minor point in the grand scheme, perhaps,
but still irritating.
A Safe Watch?
Tom: That aside, to your question “Is it a safe watch?” For me, sure. For you, sure. For people
who are in scripture every day and know good from bad, absolutely. We can pick
it apart, celebrate the good stuff and trash the junk. It’s refreshing in some
ways. I like the idea. I get caught up in the storytelling.
I will probably finish it. I like the thought of it
as a “gateway” for the unsaved to the gospels,
because it covers a lot of territory very quickly. If you had never known a thing
about Israel under Roman rule in the first century, this would be a great
primer.
But there are times when I stop and say, “This is just wrong, and
not just inaccurate, but reinforces a popular meme about Jesus that misleads
and confuses people.” For example, Jesus doesn’t love the little children
because they are innately lovable (which is the impression left here); he loves
them because he is Love Incarnate. And Jesus didn’t choose Peter, or anyone else, because he “saw something in him”. Like all of us, Peter possessed
no innate qualities which would appeal to a holy God; rather, knowing and being known by Jesus changed him forever. These are distinctions with differences.
IC: I thought the same about the episode with the children. I think it was where the drama
moved farthest away from scripture, and there, I found it began to lose both
its power and its way. In the end, it was a bunch of sentimental twaddle.
Tom: Exactly.
IC: I would rather that they had waited to the “suffer the little children” part of the
gospels before they ventured any theology of kindergarten, if they had to have
one. And really, that whole episode could be gone, with nothing of substance
lost in the bargain.
Cautionary Notes
Tom: It’s also a minor point, but to have the Lord interacting with children in the absence of
their parents is very non-canon. Jesus always showed the greatest respect for
God’s family order. So he says to the woman at the well, “Go,
call your husband.” And when he blessed little children, it was because their
parents brought them to him, not because he had secretive meetings with
them in the woods. I’m not suggesting the writers were even aware of the way
those scenes might play with protective parents today, but they are entirely
unnecessary and out of character. Furthermore, he trashes the disciples to those
same kids just before leaving, which is also out of character. I do not
think you can find a scriptural example of the Lord using his disciples as an
object lesson to third parties behind their backs, and
definitely not before they had even failed to perform.
IC: Maybe that’s a good cautionary note: insofar as the series is allied to the scripture, it
seems to have merit; and when it wanders I think the spirit of the thing
goes wrong. I’m not saying they should never dramatize or imagine scenes or
dialogue; I’d just advise them to avoid doing so too wildly.
A Note of Hesitancy
But back to what you were saying earlier, because I think
it’s important. Can I ask you to expand a bit? You say that this sort of
imaginative series is no problem for Christians well grounded in scripture.
Okay. But I hear a note of hesitancy, do I not?
Tom: Well, yes. I have a ways to go with the series, so you’ll have to tell me if you’ve
observed the same thing: in The Chosen, most of the strongest scenes dramatically are the ones farthest removed from
scripture: exorcist Nicodemus vs. Mary Magdalene’s demon possessors, Peter spying
on other Jewish fishermen in the dark, the wrestling match con-game, or Matthew
almost getting his head chopped off for insisting on an audience with the
Romans. There seems to be a sort of internal conflict between the standard
conventions of the medium of visual storytelling and the need for sacred truth to
be treated accurately and respectfully.
So then, if weaker Christians and unbelievers become most
occupied with those scenes, as might be quite natural given their impact, there’s
a risk the greater lessons of the material will be overshadowed by mere drama.
On the other hand, if even an imperfect presentation serves to whet their taste
for the word of God, who could complain? Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of
the good. So I’m of two minds, and I think I will need to see
the whole thing to really judge it fairly.
On the Fence
IC: I already have, and I have the same reservation. For new and immature Christians, I don’t think it’s
a place they should be drawing their theology, or even necessarily their
initial impressions of the biblical narrative. And if it becomes any kind of
substitute for actually reading the scripture, well, that’s totally bad, of
course. A more mature Christian, one with a well-formed sense of the gospels,
would be able to compare it with scripture, and see added value where it
exists, gleaning the best from the story’s imaginative elements while having
much more ability to recognize any unwarranted departures and liberties with
the text. Still, I’m undecided about how far that goes, and I’m still
particularly uncomfortable with any human attempt to recreate Christ
dramatically. That seems to me to be an undertaking just bound not to work.
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