The Eric Metaxas Show - Kevin & Sam Sorbo and Dallas Jenkins

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Kevin and Sam Sorbo share a lot of laughs with Eric from the National Religious Broadcasters convention; then, Dallas Jenkins breaks down the new season of his hit series, "The Chosen."

to the Eric Mattaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, folks. Welcome to the Eric Metaxus show. I really couldn't get anybody for this hour. And then I saw Kevin Sorbo. Remember, you know him from Hercules, like 45 years ago. He was somebody. Now he's a big nobody, and he's coming onto my show, begging me for publicity.

And he brought his current wife. What's your name, honey? Sam. Sam, what are you, number four? Yeah, you people make me sick. Hollywood that would be from the floor. Listen, you know, I must be very fond of you to make fun of you

publicly. That is your lovely language. And say all the things that everyone's thinking. In all seriousness, you know, I love you both. You were fantastic on the panel this morning. Oh, you were there? You were unbelievable. But Kevin didn't get out of bed. You were almost as good as the other two panelists. You know what? I didn't get it until 11 o'clock. You're going to go to the moon, Alice. The panel

this morning, we're going to air that on this program. My producers are the producers, ladies and gentlemen they're gonna we're gonna put that on the program because it really was an amazing panel it was really was Charlie Kirk Vody Vauxby Bacom Jr. and some guy and me but no and Owen Strawn was the was the MC the host he was kind of moderating it but it was it was about it was about well social justice and kind of the woke culture and critical race theory but it was good we're gonna we're gonna

air that but I'm glad you guys liked it whenever I do anything like that I always want to know what are the like you know the the pretty Hollywood people think of it no yeah because they're intellectual giant because we're very I said what is Jennifer Anderson get her on the phone what did she think of the panel what had Ben Affleck think about what okay come on we we we could around too much they can afford to be socialist or five hundred million well exactly exactly so tell me they don't live like that you guys are always working on a million wonderful things so Kevin yes what are you doing lately what's your

What projects are you working on? I got a movie in theaters now called The Girl Who Believes in Miracles. I started with Peter Coyote and Miro Sorvino. It was right during the Kavanaugh hearings when he filmed it. So you can imagine what side I was on and what side they were on. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Mirrovino, Peter Coyote, and you. Yes.

Okay. When is that coming out? It's out now. Seven weeks. It's been in theater. And what's it called? The Girl Who Believes in Miracles. The Girl Who Believes in Miracles.

Yes. And how did, is this a film where you're also a producer or is this? No, just a lowly actor. I played a doctor on it. It's a girl that's at the nine years old. She's in church. The pastor says, if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. She takes it to heart, starts praying a little miracle to start half around town.

It's a wonderful little movie. And people watch that one. I've got One Nation Under God opens Fourth of July week. I play a high school teacher in this one, not the atheist college professor. Don't you always play high school teachers and stuff? No, that was a college atheist. That's redundant. It's just a college professor.

The atheist is covered. And so that one is called One Nationer of God. where I have a debate class after school where I trick the students into debating about that phrase going back into our Pledge of Allegiance. And then Sam and I have a movie coming out in the fall called Miracle in East Texas. Now that's been coming out for a while. I've heard about this. It got put on hold because of COVID. We wanted to make sure theaters were opening up.

But you guys were producing that film. And we produced it. I directed it. We both starring it. We got Lou Gassie Jr.'s in it. John Ransberg is in it? You were unavailable for that one. Unbelievable.

I'm so busy. And by the way, I've got standards. I would not be in a film like that. Albin knows. I would never let anybody. It's a true story set in 1930. It's a wonderful, wonderful movie. When is it coming out?

Hopefully in September is what we're looking at right now. Miracle? In East Texas. And where did the story come from? It's a true story, John. It's a true story about two con men that went through Oklahoma and Texas, wooing widows out of their money on fake oil wells. And they would sell 500% of the shares, declare a dry hole,

and move to the next town. So it's kind of like the producers. Yeah, but it's, except this is a true. And in 1930, we're in the heart of depression. They'd strike oil in Kilgore, Texas, largest oil fund in the history of the world at that time. And it's a wonderful... It won 10 wonderful awards at 10 different film festivals. Oh, it's won 10 awards.

Hey, it's won 10 awards. Congratulations. So you directed it? Yeah, he did. And produced it. Yes. And you're in it. Yes.

And Lou Gossett Jr.'s in it. And Tyler, and Tyler May, who is a WWF guy, but people know him as Sabretooth in the X-Men movies, 6-9 wrestler. Yeah. And John Ratzenberger. Wow. One of the cool things about that movie is we cast a number of women to play the widows up in Canada. We cast them on tape. We cast them on tape.

I don't know what that means. We didn't meet them in person. We're a civilian. What does that mean? We didn't meet them in person. Oh, you got, okay. We had them with her age and up in Calgary. So they just submitted a videotape.

Right. And we cast them. And to a woman, they were evangelists. Yeah. We had no idea. Wait a minute. Yeah. Really?

Yeah. It's pretty wild. To a woman, they were evangelists. That's the strangest title I've ever heard. To a woman, they were evangelists. What I'm saying is they were all evangelists. Like, it was just odd that they would come on set. It's more than odd.

And the movie is not an overtly faith-based movie. Right. It's a clandestinely face. It's like Blindside. Blindside meets Green Book. Yeah. Right. But I know that Dennis Quaid spoke last night.

I play his. his pastor in the Reagan movie, when that comes out. He's going to be at the dinner. There's a dinner here tonight, and Dennis Quaid will be there tonight. And I guess you guys will be there, too. I heard they wanted Eric for that role. They did. They booked me.

But then they booked. So Dennis and I worked on Soul Surfer together with the same director, Sean McNamaran. So it's been a while since we shot the movie. Well, the last time I saw you at a movie premiere was at Soul Surfer in New York. My daughter, who's the adult over there, she had braces on. She was about 12. and I can't believe how time flies. That's just really wild.

That's that many years ago. I know. But you've been in a lot of movies. And I'm directing the next left behind movie. We started filming soon, and we talked about getting you a role. Oh, are you serious? I didn't know that that was that was. It's August and September.

And it's the next left behind movie. Yeah, because I'm out. I'm out. I don't like that. I don't trust the Jenkins's. I'm out. So seriously, we had Dallas Jenkins here this morning. You know that's my maiden name, right?

No. Is that true? Yes. No, I didn't know that. But seriously, that's, that is wonderful. So what is the, when you say the next left behind? It's the third, based off the third book that LeHaye and Jenkins, his dad was Jerry Jenkins. Well, obviously, sure.

And Dallas directed me in my first really faith-based movie called What If, which is the same writer as they did, God's Not Dead. And if you haven't seen What If, please see it. It's a much better movie The God's Not Dead in my book. Yeah, but pretty much anything is. Oh, bang! Except for Ishtar. I take that back.

No, seriously, we have to... Listen, we have to show... I just like to say Ishtar. Come on. I just do like to say Ishtar, or Heaven's Gate, or whatever. But seriously, I didn't know that film, the one you just mentioned, but when you talk about the Left Behind Series, I did not know the film you were talking about was a left behind film. So what is the background, or what is that story?

Would we know that story? People get left behind. No, I know, but that's the whole series. What part of it is this? Oh, you know what? It's... Well, you're just going to improv the whole thing? No.

I thought she had an answer. There's a script. The script is quite wonderful. It picks up pretty much right where I'm taking over the role that Nicholas Cage did in the last one. I'm glad somebody did. So they actually got a lot of... They got a lot of emails saying, why do you have him? You need Kevin Sorbo in that movie, and that's why Cloud 10 got a hold of me.

Well, see, I have said this. I've been on the record many times. If Kevin Sorbo is not in it, it is not an officially Christian movie. That's just the way it is. That's the way God designed the universe. So I'm glad they got you for it. Did you see the Babylon Bee piece on that? They picked up on that, and they said every Christian, it's the new law.

Like, you're passing all these laws. No, this one was with Kurt Cameron. Every Christian movie has to have Kevin Sorbo. Even after he passes away, they're going to... They got to put me in digitally. Okay, I did see that. Actually, I did see that. Oh, my gosh.

I hope I get residuals, though. Okay. So you guys, you're here at CPAC and... It's actually the NRB, but... Did I say CPAC? Ah, same difference. You're here at the NRA. I knew it was a number of letters that was involved.

That is really wild. Wow. You're here at the NRB. There's somebody shoot me because I'm tired. That comment that you made this morning about the insanity of having a breakfast at 7 a.m. Oh, listen. When Salem, you know, the brass at Salem, you know, they're Nazis, basically. When they say you need to be to breakfast, they don't mean we hope you'll be at the breakfast. You're like, if you don't want your legs broken, you need to be there, right?

So I showed up at the breakfast. And of course, there's like an hour. That's not Nazis. That's the teacher's union. I'm sorry, I got to be. And they, so I said, I'll go to the breakfast. But to be at a breakfast at 7 a.m. And then to have to kind of hang out and watch some presentations, you know, I could have,

I could have rolled out about at 8 o'clock and I would have been there. But I'm going to complain more after the break. We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. How many years have I been telling you about relief factor? What, like four? The truth is, I know there are millions of people. In fact, some say over 100 million people struggling with some kind of people.

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True, that. True. Yes. All right, I think I'm done. Any other questions? I played a princess. I know. I know you did.

It was love at first sight. I played Hercules. For him. For him? Oh, that's so cute. How's he feel about you now? She's all right. That's all I care about.

So seriously, though, what are you working on? Kevin, what are you working on these days? You mentioned something just as you walked in. Well, the Reagan movie, I have one week left on that. So I got to go to Guthrie, Oklahoma, in about three weeks to finish filming that. Oh, they're not done filming that? No. So I could still bump out Quaid for the lead.

I think they've already shot all his stuff. I'm playing the pastor of a college age Ronald Reagan. His scandal is going to break tomorrow. He can't play the college game anymore. Quaid's scandal is going to break tomorrow. They're going to scrub all those scenes. That's how rumors get started. I'm in.

Oh, and I'm doing a Western called Trailblazers. We're shooting that maybe here in Texas. And who is in that? It's Dean Cain's in it. Gina Corona, who got bumped off of that. So it's like everybody who's been canceled, all the good actors, all the good people. Right, I just got bummed up. Antonio Sabato Jr. is the one that produced it.

By the way, I don't want to call it cancel culture anymore. It's cancer culture. That's what we should, because it's a cancer. They canceled me on Facebook. I think I told you that. Facebook took me down. YouTube took you down. Yes, they blasted me up.

They don't like the truth. You can't talk. After the segment, I want to ask you to borrow a few bucks. Truth is a killer for him. But it's, well, listen, as many people have said, it probably meant you're over the target and you're probably, you know, doing some damage or whatever. And I think, listen, you know and I know, God's in charge of our careers. It doesn't mean we don't work.

But the point is God's in charge of our careers. And it's a badge of honor to be canceled by leftist. You can follow me on Twitter still at K Sorbs. Follow me on Twitter. I do two, three lines. Pretty funny stuff. Like when, like when Grusome said you had to be on a 10 o'clock curfew for COVID, I posted. I got home at 9.58 p.m. I just beat COVID.

Oh. Thank God. You know, you don't seem like you'd be a funny person. And in person, you're not that funny. But on Twitter every now and again, you really hit it out of the park. And that was not one of them. But let me just say that you are working on something else, though, besides this Western. So you have a week to shoot, to finish shooting Reagan. So when are they going to wrap all the shooting on that?

The end of July. The movie will probably come out in the spring is what I'm guessing. Okay. So you're almost done with that. Yep. You're going to be in a Western, and you're still married to what's your name? What's your name, honey? Stop it.

Huh? You love me so much more than you love him. You don't know the real name is Sandra? You know, you're like a little boy pulling my pigtails. That's exactly right. I admit that. I tease the people that I love. That's a fact.

So, but you said you had another project, Kevin. You walked in and you whispered it to me. I've got, well, against the tide is out right now. It's a documentary I did with John Lennox. He's a retired math professor from Oxford. That, by the way, John Lennox is a friend. He's awesome. And he and I, we got together and we talked, and I'll tell you what, he doesn't like you.

That's okay. But, no, he's just so wonderful. His wife Sally loves me. I love that. When I saw you guys do that together, I thought this is fantastic. He is a treasure. He is an absolute treasure. We haven't talked to his in the city a bunch of times.

He's an absolute treasure. But, no, you said you had, I'm fishing for something. Climate Hustle, too. I got climbing out. No, no, no, no, no, no. Which I call weather, but go ahead. When we sat down, you said something to be play ball. Oh, yes, play ball, not politics.

Thank you very much. I have too much on my mind. I can't help it. Go to playball, not politics.com. Okay. I'm tired of athletes that are mixing it. When people go to sporting events, they just want to watch the game. We don't need more LeBron James out there.

They're making $90 million a year telling us that we should, you know, kill the next cop, you know, as he postings. I mean, this is, We need to sort of fight back and just get back to sports being sports. You want to just get the sports back. Just play sports, you know? You can just be about sports. Well, it is interesting how the, you know, Dennis Prager always says the left ruins everything it touches.

And you know why? Yes, but go ahead. Because the left is lies, and so it perverts the truth. the truth is we love the sport so they have to kill it well yes you're right and I mean I wasn't really going to go into why because we could be here

for days but I guess when you talk about sports all sports have effectively been ruined until we come through or if whether we come through this strange season the idea I will not watch the NFL if they're going to be kneeling when we're doing saying the pledge is

I won't you know it's just but it's a failure of leadership in other words the fact that the owners cannot lay down the law. Say, but hey, excuse me, you're on the clock. Yeah. So if you don't like it, like at McDonald's, you know, you can't preach the gospel while you're making fries. You need to make fries.

You need to do your job. Watch the NHL. The NHL is great. Well, the NHL, right? That's on ice, right? It's on ice, yes. But the fact is that the NBA has been destroyed. Yeah.

The NFL has been destroyed. They're about to ruin the Olympics. Well, the Olympics is, let's not get into that. But what I was going to say is baseball. has also stupidly stumbled into this stuff. Yeah, when they moved from Atlanta to Denver, they took, there's 80% of Atlanta is black. And they took it away because of this voter ID cards.

They move it to a place that's maybe 80% white and has stricter voting laws. Explain that to me. It's all posthering. It's insanity. All of its lies. Then they say, you guys are conservatives then. Yeah.

Well, the cover of, the cover. The cover of my next book is called Is Atheism Dead? And we're looking for you to star. No, it's called Is Atheism Dead? And the cover is a snake biting its own tail, right? And the snake eats itself and disappears. That is essentially all of the philosophies of the left. So when you see them doing things that hurt them, like moving the All-Star Game to Colorado,

you think this is prepot. They're so crazy. They're even doing things to hurt themselves, as long as they're. makes them feel good for 10 minutes. Well, it's like it's, it's, they, they, they want other people to suffer. They don't care how much they suffer. They want everybody else to suffer. Yes, that's exactly right.

And that's, if you think about it, that's a devilish doctrine. Yes. It has nothing to do with anything good. Let me, let me just switch here. So the website is what? It's Playball. Not Politics. Not Politics.com.

Playball, not politics. Okay, and Mrs. Hercules, what have you been up to? Well, I have this new book that I've launched called Words for Warriors that's getting rave reviews. It hit number one on Amazon. Shh, don't tell them because I don't want them to take it down. It hit number one on Amazon? It did. That's so impressive.

Listen, as somebody writes books, I don't know if you can appreciate how astonishing that is. That is incredible. I'm thrilled. I'll tell you that. And I tell you, the most amazing thing, the book's not that great. You're so cruel to me. I was like this thing, I don't know who's buying this. Now, I tease you because you're, listen, you're so wonderful.

I can get away with it because you really are wonderful. You're a homeschool mom. You're an activist. I'm rebranding homeschool, by the way. We're not calling it homeschool anymore. What are we calling it? Because when you bring your children home to educate them, it's not home and it's not school. Because what you want to do when you home educate your children is you want to do everything opposite what the schools do

because the schools are not educating. They're purposely not educating the kids. So education should be pursued of truth, beauty, and goodness. Okay, that's not the catchy. And school is actually engaged in teaching children that there is no objective truth. Beauty doesn't exist and there's no goodness. I'd rather be nagged by a normal woman. You're mean.

Okay, the new term is, what's the new term? Come on. Self teaching. Self teaching. Self-teaching. What do you mean A Blinken? Ableacon. Self-Tot.

Books, books. Founding fathers were self-taught. You mean autodidactism? Autodidactic. Autodidact. And you teach your children that word. And when somebody asks your child, where do you go to school? The child says, I'm an autodidact.

No, that's not good. And then the adult has to say, oh, sweetheart, what does that mean? That means I'm self-taught. That means I'm self-taught. That might work. that could work I think homeschooling is a little is a little catchier

I don't know if you want to die on this hill but it's your life parents are too afraid why because they went to school because school teaches you that you can't do anything that you haven't been formally instructed in where did you go to school to do radio

well that's a bad example because you're terrible on radio oh you finally tried to land a blow and failed but wait seriously though what is what is What's the argument? Home school sounds fine to me because the word home is in it and it's not like it's... Because it puts the onus on the parent. And how is the onus not on the parent? The parent is not the teacher. The parent shouldn't try to be the teacher.

All right now. The paradigm of the teacher teaching the children is really the teacher spoon feeding children information that they then regurgitate on the test. It doesn't teach thinking. It's a pity. We can't do another segment because I got to go see Chuck Swindoll. I don't have time for you people. But listen, I think you have a good point. Kevin Sorbo.com. Or sorbos.org. This is like this is better than having like Jamie Farr and Charo as guests. It's just unbelievable. Of course you do.

Of course you do. I don't know. I'm so sorry that we don't have more time. But we will have more time. And I'm grateful for everything you guys are doing. And I hope everybody will look you up. on the web. God bless you.

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So like a lot of people know of his work. The fact that you are doing TV and that you have just astonished so many people by figuring out how to bring the Bible to life in a way that is not cheesy. Unfortunately, Christians have to start there. You know, when we pray something, we want to say it's not cheesy. Everybody I talk to says that the chosen is superb. So first of all, let me congratulate you finally in person on what you've been doing. And tell my audience, because a lot of people are tuning in, they don't know anything about this,

and we now know that they need to know. So Dallas, tell them about it. Well, first of all, thank you. You had me on about a year and a half ago before The Chosen was cool. Before you were anybody. Yeah, exactly. You were a nobody. I made you.

Yeah, absolutely. It was being on your program. That's right. It is responsible for all of this. And by the way, now, biblically, you have to tithe unto me after the Order of Melchizedek. God has been sharing that on my heart as well. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad we're on the same page.

Well, The Chosen is the first ever multi-season show about the life of Christ. So there's been movies, there's been miniseries, but there's never actually been a multi-season show that can allow you to get deeper into the stories. And so we much, and we talked about this last time, like what you did with the Bonhofer book, where you're taking so many, historical facts, but making them readable. It didn't feel like a history book. Well, that's the whole thing, is that sometimes if you do good Bible study, you discover things, and you think, gosh, I never really saw this before. And I have often wondered what would it be like to do what you are in fact doing right now?

What would it be like if we could flesh this out in a way that would enrage you know, Bible worshippers who think that the Bible should never be expressed in any other dimension except the King James English or something like that. What would it be like to flesh this out so that people could watch it and learn the context in an entertaining way? Right. And the cool thing about this is that what people sometimes fear when you do a show like this, where we're taking the Bible stories, but we're also expanding on them with backstory, with cultural context, with artistic imagination, as they think, well, this might replace the Bible, or this is adding to the Bible.

I always like to tell people, your Bible has not changed since the chosen has come out. The Bible is still the same. The Bible is messed up, just in case you want to know, is messed up by the monks in the Middle Ages. They just wrote whatever they wanted. Right. Yeah. So I'm not going to talk about that.

But what people are saying over and over and again is that this is bringing them back to the Bible. Exactly. To read the Bible more than ever. And they're reading the Bible with their kids because their kids love the show. And they want to know which is from the Bible, which isn't. and they are able to dig even deeper, and it actually enhances your experience with God's Word. Well, look, there's no question about that,

and it's always really hide-bound Christians who are the biggest enemies of great Christian media, and it's a sad thing, but we've always had them with us. They don't seem to understand that, you know, these are the kind of people who would be criticizing Jesus for telling parables. It's just preposterous. What you're doing, I just want to say it flat out, the chosen is magnificent. No one has ever done anything like this.

And you are the answer, Dallas, if I can say it, to a lot of prayers. People have been praying for years and years and years that God would raise up people who could further the kingdom with this kind of excellence in media. And I'm not kidding. I talk to people who are like me. They're inclined to whatever is about God, or they're inclined to whatever. watch it or whatever, but they know probably it's going to become with a side order of cheese. And they realize that there's no way around that.

But in the case of this, so many people have said to me, no, no, this is really good. Or my daughter is really skeptical and they can't stop watching it. And that is like so crucial in a day like ours where people are so tremendously sophisticated with regard to media. Right. So how did this happen? How did you manage to pull this off? Where were you in life that you were able to make this happen on this level?

Well, I was coming off of my biggest career failure. I mean, I had just done a movie with some major Hollywood producers. It got a theatrical release. They were going to be doing multiple movies with me over the next 10 years, very excited, and then the movie completely bombed. And, you know what the movie? Can you tell us what the name of the, this was Ishtar? What was that?

No. It was called The Resurrection of Gavin Stone. It came out in theaters in 2017. That's pretty bad when a story with resurrection in the, the title bombs. That's like, yeah. It's a little bit. It never got out of the grave. Right. You're full of them today. That's good. I'm sorry. It's a coffee. No, it's a good thing. So out of that failure, and I'm thinking at this point, I may never make another movie again.

And here was the difference maker. I got to a place where I was okay with that. I was genuinely okay. As long as I was in God's will, that was the key for me. That became the superpower of I don't need to do what I want to do or what I thought I wanted to do. I'm content to do whatever God wants for me. And that's where I did a short film about the birth of Christ for my church's Christmas Eve service. And that's all it was intended to be. These stories are always the same. They're so predictable.

It's like this is little nothing for my church. And somehow, Shazam, God used that. And it's almost like he's taking us like little children on this path to show us, if you walk with me, that's the only way to get anywhere. if you really want to glorify my name. But the fact that you go from working on a huge Hollywood movie that fails to this little nothing and that God uses that. Folks, I'm talking to Dallas Jenkins.

If you haven't checked out The Chosen, trust me, you want to. There's an app. You can go to The Chosen. What's the website? Well, just find the app. You go look up the Chosen wherever you get your house. The Chosen. All right.

We'll be right back. I'm talking to Dallas Jenkins, the man behind the chosen. TV series about the life of Christ, the New Testament. So where are we in the series right now? How many episodes have you gotten done and how many have aired? So as I'm sitting with you at NRB, episode six of season two is debuting here this week. So the first five episodes of season two have already come out. We've got three more episodes left in this season.

And I'm currently writing, finishing up the scripts for season three. Do you always know that you could write? I mean, your father is, of course, famous for writing, but did you know that you would be writing? Is this something you just grew up with in your family? Well, certainly the storytelling gene was inherited. I certainly watching my dad and reading all my dad's books, and when the Left Behind series came out,

I had a front row seat to seeing his work get appreciated all over the world, so that was cool. So I always definitely had a storytelling background, but I was passionate about movies. And when I saw the movie, one full of the cuckoo's nest, when I was a freshman in high school and the scene with Jack Nicholson

where he pretends to watch a World Series game and broadcasts this fake game and all the mental patience start cheering and gathering around. I thought whatever that is, I want to do that. I want to inspire in audiences the kind of emotional reaction that that's inspiring. Did Stanley Kubrick direct that?

That was Milo Shorman. Foreman, because I don't like Kubrick so much. Miloge Foreman. That's one of the great movies of all time. And it's so cool that that inspired Well, you mentioned this on the last segment when you talked about we're in an age now where of prestige television where you're competing with some of the great television of all time. And that's what I was watching when I came up with the idea for the show was, and this is

a sad thing to say. I wasn't inspired by faith-based entertainment. What about Thomas Kincaid paintings? What do you think of them? They're lovely. They're lovely paintings. All right, let's move on. Yeah.

But you're not going to give me to see nothing negative about Thomas Kincaid paintings. Yeah, that's my job. Go ahead. They're lovely. But I was inspired more by, I mean, the great movies of all time, but then also these prestige television shows like Friday Night Lights that I was watching and I'm thinking, okay, now if I could take that human behavior,

that authentic human portrayal, and apply it to something that is typically portrayed on stained glass windows or in a very formal version. Jesus is quoting King James the Bible. He's boring, he's emotionally distant. It's so honoring of God's word that it almost gets to the place where you're not even excited about God's Word anymore because it just feels so distant.

Well, it feels religious, right? It feels religious, and religiosity is dead. It's not alive. It's not passionate. It's not filled with blood. It feels desiccated and dry. And that is why it's so interesting you bring that up. We are seeing the Chosen is growing huge in the Catholic Church, in the LDS Church.

The Pope is actually. interested in the show. We're seeing this all over the world, and I think it's the show, when you're focused solely on Jesus and you strip away religious barriers, you strip away cultural barriers, and you get solely focused on Jesus. And all of those religious things, they all took place after Jesus was here. All those religious walls were out. And so we're focusing solely on Jesus, and I think that's been the key. Well, so where are you in the story? In other words, you say you're in part six, episode six of the second season. So how does this, you know, what's the timeline here?

So we are still a couple months into Jesus' ministry. So at the beginning of his ministry, he was still keeping things quiet. Like he would do a healing and he would say, don't tell anybody. Right. And so when you look at Jesus' ministry, there's the year of popularity, which is kind of the second phase of his ministry. And we're starting that now. Jesus has announced that he's the Messiah to the woman at the well.

The first time he kind of came out as the Messiah, at least publicly. and now it's attracting a bunch of people who want to be healed, they want to be redeemed, but it's also attracting enemies. So in this part of the story in season two, you're seeing the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Sanhedron are going, wait a minute, we're starting to hear about a guy who seems to be saying things different than how we normally say them. We've got to figure out what's going on. So just a couple episodes ago, Jesus healed a man on Sabbath at the pool of Bethesda.

That's scandalous. How could he possibly be the Messiah doing a thing like that on the Sabbath? Doesn't he know what the scriptures say? Right, exactly. Jeez. You're talking about the kind of comments I get on YouTube, too. But don't you think we all act as though we would have been with Jesus in this? We would have been either like, who cares, or we would have been criticizing him like the Pharisees or the Sadducees.

Probably, let's be honest, folks. I mean, you know. And that's what we explore in the show is you realize that the Pharisees didn't wake up every morning twirling their mustache saying, I want to be a villain today. They genuinely believed that this man was hurting. their ministry. It wasn't just pure greed. They were thinking, look, we're Bible believers, we're Torah believers. And this guy is upsetting the apple cart. And that's not a good thing. And we see that today all the time. So yeah, it's fair to say that there would been just as many. It's kind of the way John MacArthur feels about Joel Lohsteen, for example.

Right? It would be just like that. That's exactly right. Joel Osteen is a direct comparison to Jesus Christ. Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying that MacArthur can be for a sacal, but he's a friend, so I wouldn't say that publicly. No, honestly, what I'm trying to say is like, we have to kind of get in our heads about this and stop pretending that these were distant times and if we could magically go back, we would suddenly be cheering on Jesus. We don't know. Because a lot of us have really strict religious views of things. And the idea that you're able to portray this in three

dimensions, it's kind of necessary because our instinct always is to simplify and to make religious and to kind of create these, you know, very clear things. When sometimes, there's a mystery and it's challenging. But what is the end game? We've just got a minute left, but how far can this go? Or is this something you see can go indefinitely? Well, we're doing seven seasons. That's the plan.

Well, then you have a plan, yeah. So it's a good number, and it's better than infinite, because at some point I need to take a nap while we're doing this. But our passion is we want to reach a billion people with the authentic Jesus. That's the phrase that's plastered on the walls of everyone involved. in this project. And right now we're approaching about 200 million views in the app on DVD and whatnot. And the goal is we want to reach a billion people. Right now the app is in every country in the world. We're hearing from underground churches who can't get DVDs or Bibles.

That's amazing. Seriously. Can you imagine the Internet is in all these countries and they don't let Bibles into these countries, but they might be able to see this? They are able to see it. Yeah. We're hearing that from them every day. And so that's been the coolest things. So we're not limited by anything formal and we can't be canceled because we're not, you know, with any streaming service or TV show, we got our own app and that's been the key. Well, I love that, you know, that we're, our side is getting wiser and wiser. We're supposed to be wise as serpents. A lot of people get that wrong and they say, I think we're supposed to be wise as doves. That's not right. The scripture says wise as serpents. And you have built this thing

with a lot of wisdom. God is blessing it. God is using it. And I'm just so grateful for you, Dallas. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you, Pickley, for The Chosen. I hope everybody listening will please check it out and tell your friends. Thank you. We're at the NRB, and I don't know where to begin. The interviews we've been doing here are just insane.

B is for beautiful. Alvin, you said that you saw Dale Evans and Roy Rogers. Yep, they were riding. They were riding trigger and they were carrying bullet. I just saw that guy litter. Uh-oh, though he's picking it up. Oh, thank the Lord. Because this is the religious broadcast.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Christian. Okay, now I want to tell you something. Dale, you're making fun of Dale Evans and Roy Rogers.

Yeah. At my first N.R.B. Yes. I saw Dale Evans. Wow. Was this like in spirit or was he? No. No, not Roy Rogers had passed.

Okay. But, do you see that couple dressed as American Indians? reminded me of you when you're at a place like this just people wander by they blow your minds and you never see them again I don't know what's going on hey uh well I want to I want to interview them but I can't yeah we should probably interview well let me say this before we interview any more people yeah because YouTube canceled us we're heroes yes it's a badge of honor it is YouTube is beholden to the Chinese communists mm-hmm they're working with the devil against God's purposes

in history. And you know what? Hey, anybody can make a mistake, but that's way bigger than a mistake. It is really terrifying what is happening in America. So we need to mock them ceaselessly. And we need to tell people that you need to know what's going on. Wake up, folks. Wake up or you're part of the problem.

Wake up and smell the decaf. No pressure. But if you want to be used by Satan, don't wake up. No. So, but let me just say that because they canceled us, we've taken a big financial hit. Yep. So we want to be very clear.

that one of the ways we break even on this show is when you go to Nutrimetics.com or my pillow.com or my store.com and use the code Eric. And we stand behind these products. We're not just telling you to go there. We think, frankly, to have a partner who is a sponsor, it really helps that you believe strongly in the product, that it's a spectacular product. but go beyond that and say that these folks behind my pillow, my store, and behind Neutremetics, these are tremendous human beings. And I would do anything to help them. Frankly, Neutremetics.com, we should mention this more often. Yes. They give literally 50% of their profits to missions and to, you know, the kind of charities that go along with that.

The founder of Neutrametics was a missionary pilot. and they're all in. He met his wife on the mission field in Peru, and they are, they're just extraordinary people. So they're creating these tremendous products. You've heard about it on the program, but they give literally 50% of their profits to missions. And I think to myself, you know what,

instead of going to CVS and buying vitamin D or vitamin C or whatever else you're buying, CBD gummies, I just would say go to nutrometics.com. Yeah. You get your millic. tone in there. Yes. You can get a handful of coeludes and vodka. Whatever puts you to sleep, they have it.

And so I just want to say Nutrimetics.com, these guys are, they're spectacular, and I just want you to know that. Use the code, Eric, you get a big discount. Yeah, and watch the interviews we did with, or Eric did with Tim. Well, if you want to know who these folks are, we should

re-air those interviews, because I want my to know who we're talking about. These are tremendous people. They have miracle stories and everything about the establishment. of the company and the missions and all that stuff. Yeah. Good, good stories. It's kind of wonderful.

And we just need to know, I know that, you know, people say, well, what can I do besides voting? Well, you can vote with your money? Yeah. How you spend your money. And can you think of the spending power that Americans have? Yeah. We're talking billions and billions of dollars.

How you spend your money, where you spend your money, is more than how you vote. And so if you give your money to organizations that are going to use. it for God's purposes or for any kind of good purpose. If you can do that, suddenly you realize, well, you know what, if I don't do that, I'm foolish. That's tremendous power that I have as a consumer. So we want to say to folks, mypillow.com, my store.com, neutromedics.com. There are many other wonderful organizations and corporations. But take that seriously and don't give your money if you can help it to folks that are not using it for the right purposes.