A recent Daily Caller hit piece criticized the wildly popular streaming series, The Chosen, for allowing a “pride flag” to be displayed on set. The Daily Caller described the official response on Twitter as a defense of the pride flag, crediting “Christian conservative commentator” Jon Root for having tweeted pictures of the 3-inch flag, taken from a behind the scenes video posted on YouTube.
The Daily Caller lifted snippets from a Facebook statement from Dallas Jenkins (Director of the series). Here’s the full statement: “We’ve made it clear from the beginning we don’t have a religious or political litmus test for who can work on our show. I love our cast and crew, especially because even though they all come from different backgrounds and beliefs, they work their butts off for the show and the viewers. The show’s official stance on anything is to be found in the content of the show.”
Jon Root is a self-styled “Christ-follower,” sports broadcaster, and wanna-be actor whose Twitter account is filled with banal quips, and a long chain of gas-bag non sequiturs as teased and ludicrous as his designer-casual hair do. He’s on a personal crusade against The Chosen, and has gleefully promoted the sensationalized pride flag controversy.
However, as much as Root wraps himself in the tattered rags of an affected piety, he’s been very vocal about his crush on the Game of Thrones HBO series. In a series of tweets, Root expressed his admiration for the show which features nudity, homosexuality, fornication, incest, and pedophilia.
So, what’s Root’s real motivation behind his criticism of The Chosen?
Dallas Jenkins has accomplished something exceptionally rare. He’s managed to gather together a cast and crew of talented individuals and produced a highly popular streaming series that features the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It’s a for-profit enterprise harnessing talent from across the spectrum of American society, and experts from every filmmaking discipline — but not Root.
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The actors involved in the show are among some of the most talented in the business and, through the exercising of their God-given skill, are having an impact on our culture for good — a feat in our increasingly secularized and self-centered society.
But, what about the presence of a pride flag on Dallas’ set? Well, when considered thoughtfully (instead of being guided by sensationalized muck-throwing), the resolution of seeming contradictions isn’t hard to achieve.
The set of The Chosen is analogous to any other secular workspace. You may work in an office environment where people of many different faiths or philosophical persuasions work together toward a common goal — usually for a too small paycheck, consumed by burdensome taxation, and a ubiquitous guy named Bill.
This is essentially what happens day to day on the set of The Chosen. The furor is over a Pride flag sticker that was affixed to an independent contractor’s equipment — his or her personal workspace.
The Pride flag is extremely offensive to Christians, and for good reason. The rainbow, as described in the Bible, is a sign given by God to all mankind and is symbolic of His grace and covenant to never again destroy every earthbound creature by means of a cataclysmic, world-wide flood. Genesis 9:12-17 records a conversation between Noah and God, “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”
Appropriating a Christian symbol for the use of promoting homosexuality is as offensive to a Christian as pork is to a Muslim.
But, Dallas is choosing to do what Jesus did by meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. For a Jew like Jesus, interacting with Samaritans was considered repugnant. Samaria was the ancient capitol of the Northern kingdom and a center of idol worship. Jesus went specifically to meet an adulterous woman and a Samaritan to boot. And, because he did so, this woman came to know the Savior and spread His gospel. (John 4:5-30)
Christians are called to minister to a fallen world, and the workplace is a field that is ripe for harvest. Dallas should be commended for his willingness to work with anyone, so long as the goal of producing Christ-honoring content is achieved.
While Dallas is slaying cultural giants, Root is casting stones like the Old Testament figure named Shimei, who cursed King David and threw stones at him when he fled from his son Absalom. (2 Samuel 16:5 ff) David refused to heed the pleas of one of his generals, Abishai, who offered to take Shimei’s head. But, as the saying goes, what goes around comes around. Shimei eventually lost his head to David’s son Solomon.
Two days ago, Dallas recorded a thoroughly Biblical statement on YouTube — a devastating response to recent critics of The Chosen. In essence, Dallas challenges viewers of The Chosen to judge the show by its content. Just as Solomon’s temple was constructed utilizing the labor and management of unbelievers, and just as your Bible is manufactured, distributed, and sold by people of diverse faiths, so The Chosen is a show about Jesus created by idiosyncratic people.
I doubt, if you’re a church going person, your house of worship was constructed by faultless angels. And, I find it highly unlikely that Jon Root’s church sprang out of God’s green earth through the working of Root’s glorious piety, formidable as that may be.
The Chosen is inspirational, moving, at times profound. But, it’s not the Bible, and it’s not a Christian ministry. It’s something rare in our time. It’s an honest, faithful look at the fully human, fully God Jesus of Nazareth, and the incredibly flawed men and women who were his closest disciples. Rightly, this show is loved because people know it springs from a love of Christ and for all the people He still seeks to save.
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