Imperfect, but helpful?

The Chosen is an American TV and film series on the Life of Christ, which from uncertain beginnings has become a global success.

It has millions of viewers and has been dubbed or subtitled in scores of languages. With a model of crowd-funding it has raised the vast sums needed for a series which aims to complete seven seasons of eight episodes each, 56 episodes in total. Currently it has done three seasons, 24 episodes, and is available on Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and the Angel Studio and Chosen apps – it’s free on the apps. The director is Dallas Jenkins, a conservative evangelical, 46 and married with four children, whose father Jerry Jenkins was the author of the Left Behind books. So why, when most Christian film series are cheesy or preachy or both, has this been a terrific hit.

Realism and backstories

The answer is partly in the title, The Chosen. Of course this refers to Jesus, but also to his chosen disciples as we see much of Christ’s life and ministry through their eyes. They are mostly pretty ordinary guys from Galilee who live in the hot and dusty reality of first-century Palestine, where earning a living by fishing or farming is hard, cripples and lepers are commonplace and the Roman occupation never lets up.