Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1085: Pride Flags and The Chosen: Dallas Jenkins

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Dallas Jenkins is an American film and television director, writer and film producer. He is best known as the creator, director and co-writer of The Chosen, the first multi-season series about the life of Jesus. In this conversation, we talk about his heart and philosophy behind The Chosen, including the role that creativity plays in opening up the biblical account Christ. We also discuss the recent controversy over Christians being upset that a gay cameraman had a 3 inch pride flag on his own equipment on set. 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is the one and only Dallas Jenkins. Dallas is an American film and television director, writer, and film producer, best known as the creator, director, and co-writer of The Chosen, the first multi-season series about the life of Jesus. In this podcast episode, we talk about The Chosen, his heart behind that show, which I find to be absolutely incredible. And then we also talk about a recent controversy that he and his crew have gotten in regarding a three-inch pride flag that was posted on one of his cameraman's pieces of equipment. Maybe you've heard about that. It's kind of everywhere on the internet. So we do talk about that in the last half of this conversation. So

please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Dallas Jenkins. Dallas, thanks so much for being a guest on The All Draw. I'm really, really excited about this conversation. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. I like what you do. And we mentioned off the air, we're both a little bit raw and tend to be uncensored, which sometimes can, when you're talking about the issues of Jesus and LGBTQ and human sexuality, very easy to cover,

very easy to nuance through. Sometimes it can lead us to some problems, but I appreciate that. I just literally just finished watching your 20-minute response on the whole pride flag thing that we'll get to. But I just loved your response. I just loved your demeanor and everything. Yeah. I've never, I haven't heard you speak before. So I was like, Oh, I feel like this is gonna be a

great conversation. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm excited about it. Uh, before we get to the whole, uh, three inch pride flag on your cameraman's computer. Yeah. I'm going to try to, um, yeah, behave myself here. Let, let, let's go back. And where did the idea of The Chosen come into play? What birthed this? Amazing. I mean, I'm a fan. This is absolutely incredible what you've done with this. Where did it start? Yeah, thank you. Well, it was birthed from failure, actually. I did a feature film. I'd done multiple movies and projects over the years. Finally had one that was released nationally to theaters with some of the biggest producers in Hollywood.

Had a very bright future with that. I mean, again, I'd made other projects, but they were primarily independent. And the movie completely bombed, completely tanked. I went from a director with a very bright future to a director with no future in the matter of just a couple hours. And that's when I surrendered. Very, very long story short, my wife and I, while we were crying and licking our wounds, the Lord kind of pushed

us towards the story of the feeding of the 5,000. And we were exploring that story, trying to glean what we could from it. We didn't know why the Lord was pointing us there. And we were reading the story, trying to glean what we could. And then I got a message in the middle of the night from a person I'd never met, just out of the blue, didn't say hi or hello, but from the other side of the world just said, hey, remember, your job is not to feed the 5,000. It's only to provide the loaves and fish. And I went, okay, why did you tell me that? And he goes, oh, that wasn't me. God told me to tell you that. So you go, all right, this is pretty clear. That concept of realizing that I only want to be in God's will, I only want to just concentrate on the loaves and fish that I make and deliver them to God, and he deems them worthy of acceptance,

the transaction's over. And for someone like me in my 40s who struggled with narcissism and controlling everything in my life, that was a novel concept. And I surrendered to it. I said, okay, God, I'll do whatever. If I never make another movie, that's okay. And that's when my life dramatically changed. I was then willing and open, because again, I'm not responsible for the results, to doing a short film for my church's Christmas Eve service. It's a script that I'd had on my shelf for a year and a half I'd put aside because of the Hollywood movie. And it was about the birth

of Christ from the perspective of the shepherds. We filmed it on my friend's farm in Illinois, 20 minutes from my house. And while I was making it, I was binge watching The Wire, an HBO show from well over a decade ago. Not a Christian show, just a full stop. But the way that they approached the story and all that, I was like, you know, there's never been a multi-season show about Jesus. There's been movies and miniseries, and they go from miracle to miracle, Bible verse to Bible verse. But a show that's multi-season, that gives you the time to explore the stories, to give cultural context, historical context, and yes, artistic imagination to really help you to understand the characters and go season to season. I just thought, boy, that's never been done before. And that would be really cool. And no one was lining up around

the block to do it. But I thought, boy, if I get a chance to do this, I think it could be cool. So that short film that I did ended up getting in the hands of a streaming platform. They're called Angel Studios. And we're not partnered with them anymore, but at the time they were looking for content. They saw the short, loved it, heard my idea for the show. They said, we want to do your show. I got excited. They said, we're going to raise the money through crowdfunding. I got depressed because crowdfunding never works. And the all-time record was like $5.7 million. And that was projects with big fan bases and we had no fan base. And, uh, but I was like, Hey, loaves and fishes. Uh, this is my loaves and fish again, long story short, ended up

generating over $10 million from 16,000 people around the world based on that little thing I did from on my friend's farm. So that allowed us to do the season, season one and, uh, the rest is history. And as I talk to you right now in our studio, uh, we're in the middle of filming season four. So that's, uh, that's the So that's the Reader's Digest backstory. Okay. Well, no, thank you for that. The artistry, we even use the phrase artistic imagination. It is so incredibly powerful to get inside the characters.

The first season with Nicodemus and Mary and I don don't know it just opens up the character so much you know so and i know and i don't follow a lot of online criticism but i've heard maybe enough that i know some people like that some people don't like i think some people may have been critical of you know too much artistic imagination what was that a value going into this early on was that planned out that you really wanted to not, not just, I just said, not just follow kind of chapter by chapter or whatever, but really kind of open up these characters and stories and really humanize them in ways that I don't think I've never ever seen anybody with like a Bible kind of film before. Yeah, no, that's a good question. Yeah. I mean,

in fact, the show came out of the desire to not do what had been done before. Meaning I've seen all the Jesus projects. I mean, I grew up, I mean, I'm a long, I mean, I'm lifelong, strong, evangelical Bible, believing conservative. So I've seen all the Jesus projects, some of them good, some of them awful, some of them in between. And I love movies. I love TV. And yet I would say that the Jesus projects I'd seen wouldn't have even been in the top 500 of my favorite movies or TV series, even though I'm a Jesus follower.

Why is that? Well, usually there is this reverence that comes in, which reverence can be good, of course, that takes Jesus and treats him as a stained glass window, as a statue, as a painting. He's often portrayed very stoic. And the stories go from Bible verse to Bible verse. The fact is, when you tell this story from Jesus's perspective, strictly from a drama perspective, from a show or movie perspective, he actually doesn't make a good main character. Now, before you think I'm blaspheming Jesus. No, exactly. Just saying. I'm saying he doesn't change he doesn't

complex at all he's a flat character he's perfect he doesn't improve he doesn't learn anything new over the course of his ministry and he's changing all these lives and yet we don't have any insight or connection to the people whose lives are being changed so when the moment happens where he heals someone, or you mentioned the Nicodemus on the roof. So that's a great example. That happened in episode seven of season one, Nicodemus and Jesus meeting, and we do the John chapter three narrative where the most famous chapter in the Bible, the most famous verse in the Bible. Well, the reason why when people, and I'm just going to speak for what people say, I'm not saying this, I'm not bragging. I'm just saying people say that scene was one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen,

or I changed my life for it. And the reason it was impactful, even though that's been portrayed before is because we took six episodes before that to introduce you to Nicodemus based on not explicit scripture, because the scripture just starts with Nicodemus, a Pharisee, met with Jesus at undercover of night, and here's what happened. Well, you don't know who Nicodemus is, you don't know any backstory now, but if you go to history, you go to religious history, you go to the Jewish history, you can go, okay, why did he meet with him undercover of night? Well, that's because he's a Pharisee, and Pharisees rejected Jesus, most of them, so he had to do it in secret. Okay, that's interesting. What

would that have looked like? The religious context, the historical context, the cultural context. In the scene, he references the Old Testament, like Jesus talks about. You remember Moses with the serpent on the pole, and he's making these comparisons. So what we do is we go, all right, we're going to introduce you to Nicodemus, what he might have been like, what his home life might have been like. All of these things we're saying up front before episode one, we say, this is in scripture. Viewers are encouraged to read the gospels. So we take you through this historical context and character context. So by the time Nicodemus gets to the roof with Jesus, you care.

You care about him. You want him to get it. You want him to follow Jesus. You know, and you've also seen Jesus. You've been spending time about him. You want him to get it. You want him to follow Jesus. You know, and you've also seen Jesus. You've been spending time with him for six episodes. So when he's talking about his kingdom and he's talking about why he's here, it matters. You get it. It's emotional.

All of those things. And that's the secret sauce of the show. That's the thing that I hadn't seen before. And we've been planning that obviously from day one, knowing that the decision to have 95% of the show actually be content that's not explicitly in scripture was going to be difficult, was going to be challenging, was going to get us a lot of hate, a lot of resistance. We just made the decision that we're not going to be motivated by trying to avoid criticism or trying to please people. And ultimately, our approach is always, is this plausible? Does this fit within the character and intentions of Jesus and the Gospels? What I think you're responding to and

so many people are responding to is even the stuff that's not in Scripture feels like it comes from someone who believes Scripture and who is supporting Scripture and who believes Jesus is the Son of God and the savior and the miracle worker and all those things. So our viewers, I believe even the non-believers know the difference between the Bible and the show and on the things that they're not sure about, they see something in the show and they go, is that in the Bible? And they go check. What's better than that? That's exactly what we want them to do. It's what we tell them to do. So that's been our approach from day one and continues to be our approach.

What are some critiques you've gotten along those lines? Is it, is it simply like, well, you're adding to the Bible or something, or is there any, are there, are there any like kind of like robust critiques? Like, okay, your creative imagination here actually is causing conflict with what the Bible is actually saying. I'm just trying to imagine like what problem people would have beyond just no, if, if, but then if we we do any if we say no creative imagination then then you have a guy in front of

a camera just reading the bite like you don't like you don't add any of these like even jesus is there we don't know what jesus's hair looks like we don't know a building you know like there's just to do any kind of bible film you have to take some creative liberties but yeah so i believe and uh and i said this last night on our live stream, there's a great, I think, approach to argument debate. And I think this is good even for whoever's listening right now to keep in mind to something I try to practice. There are three kindnesses that you give to your opponent when critiquing or when arguing. Number one is to understand their position. Number two is to understand it so well you could sympathize with it. Or three, then you disagree with it if you still disagree. And you actually clarify their position. Could you

be in their shoes? Can you explain it back to a way where the person could say, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. So I'm going to do that right now, which is, there's a spectrum of critiques that the show gets. On one side of the spectrum, the farthest side are people who don't even believe the show should exist because of one of two reasons. One, they'll say you should never add to scripture. Revelation says don't add to this book. Now again, we know that Revelation was written even before a Bible existed, but let's just assume for the record that, like I believe, you shouldn't add to scripture. Well, they apply that to even when you're not doing scripture. So I always like to say the show isn't scripture. Scripture is scripture.

Show is a show. We're not adding, your Bible hasn't changed since the show came out. But again, I'm being fair to their critique. They're saying the Bible should never be added to. And when you are putting words in Jesus's mouth, there are people who will think it's real or whatever. And so you should never do that. Another one is the second commandment about graven images. You should not portray Jesus because that is not the actual Jesus and people shouldn't worship a different Jesus. Of course, our response to that is no one's worshiping Jonathan Rumi who plays Jesus. No one's worshiping the show. But again, I'm giving credence to what their argument is. So that's the, typically the show shouldn't even exist. Then there's people who watch the show,

don't agree with necessarily those two points, but anything that's in the show that they believe wouldn't have happened, that they believe is contradictory to the character and intentions in the gospels. Some of them, I think, are quite unfair and extreme and will often misinterpret what we're doing. But let's just, again, consider the ones who are being fair, who actually like most of the show. But then they'll see something, for example, here's the best example. We show Jesus before he delivers the Sermon on the Mount. In season two, we show him walking alone and he's, for about 10 seconds,

he's like rehearsing some of the things he's going to say and kind of working through the best way to say it. So it's like sermon prep. And that pretty much, like there's two examples, that's one of them that were the most controversial and caused the most people to freak out. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but just to get upset is to say, Jesus always knew what he was going to say, never would have needed to prep, never would have needed

to rehearse. He was given wisdom by the Father, all of that. And so that's the kind of thing that someone would say that goes, that actually contradicts the divinity and the perfection of God. When you show Jesus struggling to come up with a way to say something, again, my response to that is, we know Jesus was sinless. I believe he was perfect, but that doesn't mean that in his human form, which Philippians talks about, he gave up his equality with God to be a human being, that in that human form that he could have tripped and

fell. He wouldn't have been able to deadlift, you know, 600 pounds. He, he, there were, there were certain limitations that he had as a human being that didn't allow, he didn't sin, but that could have allowed him to go, all right, I'm speaking to 5,000 people. I want to make sure that I'm understood. What's the best way to say that? But again, I'm just giving you an example of the kind of thing that people can, can get upset about. I've often said, understand before you refute. Yeah, I love your approach. So I really appreciate even you taking the time to kind of best, kind of steel man the

other person's, you know, maybe argument. I guess that example, I would say the exact opposite. I mean, the first heresy that the early church battled was not about the divinity of Jesus. It was about his humanity. People denying the humanity of Jesus. That was a big, huge, heretical thing that the early church in the first couple centuries had to deal with. And it's obviously not sinful to have a faulty memory.

If I forgot something yesterday or whatever, I'm like, oh, what was that thing? You know, I couldn't remember something. Nobody would accuse me of living in sin. Like I need to repent because I forgot what was on the shopping list or something. So of course, Jesus rehearsed and thought and did his sermon prep sinful then? Is that what we're saying? Like if, you know, like that's just not, yeah, no. Well, I'm going to clarify real quick is I wouldn't say what you just said. I wouldn't say, of course he prepped. I've said publicly, I don't know if I don't know. Yeah. I'm saying it's not sinful for him to have,

or it's not sinful for me to have portrayed that he could have. I'm not cocky enough or arrogant enough to believe that 2,000 years of debate about the hypostatic union of the divinity and the humanity of Jesus can be solved in a YouTube comment. And I believe that there are good people, smart people like yourself and like scholars throughout history. I've had scholars who've criticized the show for overemphasizing the divinity, just like what you said, to where

they'll say, I don't love when the show has Jesus put on his God goggles. And there's a scene at the end of season one where he's talking to the woman at the well, and he's talking about her history and how all these things he knows about her without her telling him. And I've had scholars, you know, heaven bound Jesus following Bible, believing scholars who've said, ah, God goggles. That's not how it would have been. And so you've got not that, no, they're not hating the show. They're just, this is where I disagree. And it's like, some people believe and approach it like, no, no, no. I've solved it. I've solved the debate. I know, of course, Jesus would have or wouldn't have. And I'm going, I don't think of course should be used too often.

So that's, I just want to clarify that. I appreciate that. I should have said, of course, but I would say what I should have said is it would very much resonate with his profound humanity that he did human-like things. And, you know hebrew says he learned obedience learn he learned how to obey he didn't just waltz around just like this is so easy like the temptation was agonizing because it was a real temptation and i gets into you know could

he have sinned whatever i'm not talking of course but he begged he begged the father on in the garden of yosemite please take this cup from me. I will be in your will, but if there's another way, could we, you know, maybe could we try something? And then on the cross, he was praying a psalm saying, why have you forsaken me? Again, was he sinning? Was he doubting? These are all things that as the one tasked with telling this show to the world, telling this show to the world, I have the blessing, but also the challenge of portraying that and recognizing that it's going to continue the 2000 years of debate. And it's just something that I'm, again, I'm not petting myself on the back, but I'm willing to do. And I think that's

part of what we're talking about today, which we'll get to about the pride flag controversy or any of these controversies, because God took away my narcissism and my need to people, please, I'm willing to kind of go, all right, I'm putting it out there and we're going to, let's, let's talk about it. Let's dig into it. And because for better or worse, I don't really care about over praising me or over critiquing me. I'm willing to have these conversations and live in that tension. And again, I'm not, I don't want to come across like I'm proud of myself for that. I'm just saying God gave me a little bit of a superpower in that I'm now motivated by something other than avoiding critique. I'm happy to have these conversations because they're great conversations.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, I just, I, yeah, I love that. So it's intentional that you are trying to, would you say trying to open up more of the humanity of Jesus? Not to take away his divinity, but I feel like the divinity is so assumed when people read the Bible that we, if there is an emphasis for modern day Western Christians, I think it is for us to kind of see a little bit more of his humanity, because I think we don't appreciate that. Is that part of your motivation in the creative liberties you've taken to kind of help us get more in touch with the humanity of Christ? Absolutely. And you used the term open up, which is a good term because I'm not creating Jesus's humanity.

I'm revealing what I believe is something that we often miss through our religion oftentimes or through ourptions, or through even catchphrases that we've used. Jesus, for example, said, I and the Father are one. And so I remember growing up thinking like, I had this kind of confused idea of Jesus and the Father literally being the same person. And of course, now we even just by saying that we get into the whole Trinity. And what does the Trinity mean? God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit. And then you can be accused of being a heretic. Like I'm a believer in the Trinity, of course, uh, as a conservative evangelical, but I'm saying Jesus, the son had a different, like he, he referred to his father,

pray to the father. Uh, he talked about his father. They were separate. I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna go into that rabbit hole, but I'm just saying in essence, three and three different people three different persons in the trinity that's orthodox trinitarian so we get into some of those things and we have this notion that jesus like you said walked around as god and we kind of forget philippians that he literally says he did not count equality with god as something to be grasped now there are different interpretations of that, but that's a pretty extreme statement if you think about it. This show absolutely accepts his divinity. You see, I mean, season one, he says, I am that I am. That was actually the beginning of season two. He asserts his authority constantly. He's healing. He's asserting that he is the only way to

salvation. He is the savior of the world. All of those things, accepted, embraced, but he also brushes his teeth, and dresses a wound and he laughs at his friends' jokes. He makes jokes. He dances with his friends at a wedding. His first miracle was as a favor to his friends because his mom asked him to. And not only do I believe that by emphasizing his humanity, we're not taking away from his divinity. I believe and have seen responses to this, that it actually enhances it. Because when you think the creator of the universe intruded into humanity and became one of us and experienced what we experienced, that makes me love and worship him even more. That makes me even more in awe of him. And we've

had people tell us, seeing Jesus cry, seeing Jesus laugh, seeing him exhausted at the end of a day of healing and needing his mom to help him get ready for bed and wash off the dirt and blood of his hands and wipe his sweat down changed my life. It made me love the Bible more, love Jesus more. So yes, I mean, that's a lot, again, a long answer to your question, but it's, it's, it's, it's absolutely intentional. I would agree. I would totally agree with that. I'm curious. Um, so my backgrounds in first century Judaism and Greco-Roman history and stuff. So I just, I love just the background stuff and history. I, one of my, so one of the things I appreciated most was your portrayal of like, I would say in particular, like the, the, the Roman guards and stuff, like just how heavily political the environment was like in that, just that, that, that oppressive air of, of Rome in Israel was, I just, I love it. My question is what's your knowledge base for that? Like, do you have scholars on the back end doing research or do you just do a ton of research or, cause I mean, it's really, you know, I could probably nitpick stuff. I really wanted to,

you know, I mean, I could, but like, it's really, it's done really well with like some pretty complex historical stuff. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. There's things, little things that either we, sometimes we just miss that happens. Cause we're especially covering Jewish history. I mean, if you've studied Jewish history, you know, and this is a joke among Jewish people is like, you know, you want, I can't remember the joke, but it's like, you know, you want 12 opinions on one, you know, one issue to ask, you know, ask 12 rabbis unpacking Jewish history and the nuances, especially because they didn't believe in imagery. So they didn't, they didn't draw pictures of what they were doing. It's a, it's a minefield. But, but some

things we know are a little bit off, but we do it on purpose for the sake of the show and for people to understand the larger issues. But one of my co-writers, I have two co-writers, the three of us write everything. One of them is a historian, is a antiquities historian. He's an Old Testament scholar, just loves history and studies that. All our departments study it as well. And the head of our production design department, Jim Cunningham, he also is a historian himself. So they're doing research and all that. We have a council, I've a Messianic Jewish rabbi, a new Testament scholar, evangelical and a Catholic priest,

all of whom don't have veto power over anything, but they're providing, like they're reading our scripts and taking note of the things that we might get wrong. And there's just, you know, a lot of just online research that we do. So we're trying really hard as best we can to be accurate. And I think part of what has caused people to like the show and part of our mission is that when we're portraying what we believe is true and the consequences are eternal, it's important you get the setting right as well, because then that contributes to this overall feeling you have as a viewer of authenticity. And so you're going, oh man, I feel like I can smell it. I feel like I can see the dust. I feel like the Jewishness of this, the Roman oppression,

the clothes, the textures, all of that feel real to me. They don't feel like a church play. Because this feels real, maybe the message is real. Maybe Jesus's ultimate authority is real as well. I love the whole wedding at Cana, man. The way you built up just, because you read that, that miracle comes out of nowhere. It's like, oh, they ran out of, this is a big deal. So you just turn water into wine. It's like, is this, you know, the other miracles like raising Lazarus from the dead because it's like oh they ran out of just a big deal like so you just turned water into wine it's like is this you know a lot of miracles like raising lazarus from the dead it's like oh that's a big deal it's like wedding ran out of wine like who cares kind of you know but like it's so great isn't it oh that's what's so beautiful yeah i mean we portray some of the biggest miracles you know the feeding of the 5 000 and the walking on water and we're going to get to

lazarus raising him to dead but to me what so beautiful, I love that you brought up the wedding at Cana because I think that's what really illuminates that Jesus is an intimate God. And that's one of the key things I want to communicate with the show and in my life is he's a God of the intimate. He wants a personal relationship. And his first miracle was to cover up his friend's embarrassment. Like his friends were all embarrassed. And so why is that? If we just read the Bible out of the blue, we wouldn't get why that's a big deal. You have to understand some of the context and what a big deal that was. And so you see in the episode, like why it matters and why it's going to be embarrassing.

And his mom's like, can you please do this? And then there's this weird exchange in the gospels where Jesus is like, what does this have to do with me? Yeah. And then his mother responds by turning to the servants and going, do whatever he tells you. It's like, there's this kind of cheeky, cute exchange where you almost imagine then that he's like, what do you mean? What does this have to do with me? And she can tell by his facial expression, oh yeah, he's going to do it. And I'm like, well, let's get into that. Let's portray

why that would be. And let's care about the people involved that way. When we get to the miracle part, it matters. And then when Jesus is dancing with everybody, I'm like, that was one of my favorite scenes I've ever filmed. One of my greatest moments ever was the first take of everyone dancing and all our extras and everyone. I was like, this is one of the most joyous. I get almost emotional thinking about it, remembering it because everyone had prepared so much for that. And you get this scene where they're all dancing. And then Peter says to Jesus,

can you help Andrew be a better dancer? And Jesus says, some things even I cannot do. And he's making a joke about his divinity. And all this, like to me, just as an objective, even though I'm the one who made it, I'm able to objectively go, oh man, that's so fun. Oh, I wish I could have been a part of that 2000 years ago. And then it makes me love Jesus more. Yeah. It's so good. Okay. We got, we got to get to this pride flag things. I know a lot of people are probably interested to hear about that.

Enough with this. Who cares about being the divine thing? I don't, let's talk about pride flags. So yeah, I've got opinions that I'm going to try to withhold to let you talk, but maybe just explain the situation because it elicited enough critique and attention. I mean, there's some really high profile people that are like talking about it, like really, you know, so it's, it's kind of hit the fan a little bit. So yeah, tell us, tell us, tell us exactly what happened and how are you responding? It's funny. In five years of doing this, we've had, we've had a few big controversies. All of them I'm responsible for

in the sense that they were usually something I said or something I put in the show. This one's funny because it's the biggest one easily. Is it? Oh my God. Yeah. Oh yeah, easily. And it's like I woke up one morning

and all of a sudden I'm thrust in the middle of a national Christian culture war. And I'm like, I didn't even do anything. What happened? So it starts with, it's a Tuesday morning. I'll make this quick, but it's kind of interesting how it came to be. So Tuesday morning, my daughter, who has a part-time job for the Chosen answering social media comments, and she sends me a screenshot of an exchange that we had had, our team. And someone

was asking like, why is there a pride flag on your set? And they're pointing out that one of our BTS videos, so we do tons and tons. I mean, I'm telling you, we're going to do 56 hours of television. We've also, by the time the show is done, we'll have released, I'm not exaggerating when I say thousands of hours of behind the scenes content. And so for three seconds, three to four seconds in one of our BTS videos in the corner, there's a three inch pride flag that's on one of my crew members, personal equipment. And he's been with us for over a year. One of my favorite employees, absolute hard worker. He's gay. He's out proud of it. You know, he's on his own social media. It's easy to find. And of course, people have been publishing it. He has a three-inch pride flag on his own

personal gear. And it showed up in one of our videos. We didn't know. We didn't see it, didn't recognize it, but it showed up and it's out there. And so someone asked about it, and we responded with one of our kind of boilerplate responses that we give when people ask about our cast and crew's faith backgrounds. So for years, we've had questions like, this crew member, this cast member just put up a Biden sticker, or they said something, they're Catholic, or they're Hindu, or they're not Christians. And they'll ask like, what's the deal with that? I thought this was a Jesus show, whatever it is. And we have kind of a, it's a thoughtful, but it's a boilerplate response that we give. Cause of course we can't respond to all

thousands of comments, writing it out each time. So we have a couple that we, we, we provide. And it said, you know, we don't have a political or religious litmus test for the people we hire. You know, we ask that you concentrate on the content of the show, you know, and if you rely on us, we'll let you down, that kind of thing. And it was a bit of a, so I saw that and I go, oh my gosh, guys, like this is a different issue. This is a very nuanced issue. I mean, you have a podcast dedicated to the issue.

This is very, very challenging, very nuanced to navigate. This is not something that you respond to with just a boilerplate response. So I'm immediately contacting my team and we're talking through it. And then it just, I mean, it blew up and people are now, you know, I mean, you just, you go on YouTube, you search, it's just headlines. There's a thumbnail where they Photoshopped me waving a pride flag. The headlines say the chosen embraces and promotes pride month. Dallas Jenkins, the chosen defends pride, all these pride flag. So there's a lot of extreme

things. People started calling for the crew member to be fired. It really started to spiral. In addition to that, there are a large chunk of our viewers who had legitimate questions and legitimate going, wait a minute, I thought you guys don't tend to take stands on this type of thing. And it's pride month. What are you doing? I mean, some of them were, many of them were asking fair and legitimate questions, but that was getting lost in the shuffle of, you know, the, the big extreme headlines. Then what escalated was a couple of our actors got really upset, justifiably in my opinion, by the specific comments being made about our crew member, because it wasn't just being said, hey, we disagree with this. We hope the chosen clarifies. It was fire this guy. He's disgusting. He did it on purpose.

He's trying to cause a problem. And so a couple of our cast members who love this guy, and we are a family on the set, and this guy works his A off for the show and loves the show and for the fans. And now he's being told he should be fired because he's got an agenda and he's now being put into the same category like we like to do of everyone else, just labeling a tribe. And so our actors got on and were like,

we stand with our brother. And if you don't, you know, if you don't, and they didn't even say, they weren't even talking to the fan base in general. They were saying, if you don't support him, or I don't know, they didn't even say that. I want to be very clear. But they were like, you know, we stand with our saying, if you don't support him or I don't know, they didn't even say that. I want to be very clear, but they were like,

you know, we stand with our brother. If you don't like that, you can, you know, don't let the door hit you on the way out. And a couple of our cast members are, they're not practicing believers where they are,

but they have a difference of opinion on the homosexual issue. So they're, they put up a pride symbol on their, on their post and all that. And we don't police our cast and crews, social media. Like I made a decision early on that. And we don't police our cast and crews social media. Like I made a decision early on that unlike both sides, I think sometimes you see like Gina Carano from the Mandalorian got

fired for her support of Trump and whatnot. So both sides, I've always, I'm a pro, I'm a political libertarian. I'm pro-life, but I'm a libertarian. Who's like, I always err on the side of small government. And I apply that to my business as well, is I go, the show speaks for itself. The content is unabashedly Jesus-focused. Our social media is unabashedly Jesus-focused. But our cast and crew, they are their own persons, and I want to let them do and say what they want to say. So that really escalated things as the actors defending him, and some people took that to say, anyone who disagrees with pride flag shouldn't watch the show. And that's not what they were saying. That's not who they were talking to, but it, it, to some people that came across that way. So that's the gist of it. That's what really

escalated things. And I made a statement last week that you've seen, and that went over well. I mean, that was that, that people responded positively to that, but there's another group of people who didn't, who were like, because I didn't take it back, or I didn't take it down, or I didn't make a formal stand representing my company for this issue, other than to say where I stand, meaning, and everyone knows the show's position on Jesus, but I'm not going to get into the nuances of this kind of stuff on social media. So anyway, that's way more than that. And it covered a lot in our live stream last night, covered a lot in my original video that people can watch, but that's the gist of it. Well, in this day and age, I'm not shocked too much anymore. But yeah, even 2020, it is shocking that this has gotten so much attention. I mean, you were so clear that, you know, you could have made it an all Christian, all

conservative Christian evangelical crew or whatever, cameraman, you know, whatever. People maybe have done that and, you know, good for them. You decided from the very beginning, we are not a Christian. Even said like, what does it even mean to be a Christian? Like production, Christian is a term given to people that follow Jesus, not cameras and sets. And like, those aren't Christian, you know, and you're producing a film about Jesus, but you know, you made the decision early on that we are going to have non-believers there. We're not going to place their non-belief, you know,

like, I'm like, great. That seems so clear and obvious to me. And you made it really clear in your response that if you have, if you still have a problem, it is with that. It is with me making the decision to hire people who are either not believers or not maybe conservative Christians, even if they're maybe Christians or whatever, and we're not going to police their actions. So is that what people are still having a problem with? I don't think so. I think, yes, some people do. There are some people who are just plain, you should have the same standards and policies

that a church has. And they've thought of us like a church or a ministry. And we've said from day one, we're not a church and ministry, we're not a non-profit. Said it from day one, constantly, constantly, constantly. To be fair, it's easy to confuse that because A, we're a Jesus show. B, we have books, Bible studies, you know, devotional books out there. I mean, it's very clear where we stand, where I stand. And because we're a free show, this is where I think the most confusion comes from. I am often saying to the audience, we're free. You can choose to pay for it if you want to or not.

But if you don't, we won't exist. That also, even though I'm telling you, if you watch my live streams, if you watch my messaging, you will see me say it over and over and over again. But it can still be confusing of like, wait a minute. And that's what it hurts has hurt. A lot of people's are going, you keep saying we're not a Christian production. We're not a ministry. Well, I feel like a sucker now because I've contributed thinking that that's what you were doing. And I go, well, okay, let's differentiate between my personal calling and what I'm doing and what the show is accomplishing and the company itself, the, the, the, the chosen Inc, the, uh, the chosen Texas LLC, which does the, which handles the production. Those are companies made up of a lot of people with a lot of different backgrounds,

a lot of different faith perspectives or lack thereof. And so whenever you say, all right, our company, our production is quote unquote Christian or a ministry. Like, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it's just not what we're doing because we recognize we are reflecting so many different people. So if I went out and for example, let's just say I said the chosen endorses Donald Trump or the chosen endorses Joe Biden. Well, now everyone who's on that team is now kind of brought into maybe my own personal stance on things. And I just don't believe that that's fair to them. I don't believe that that personally, now there are people who disagree with me and that's fine. But personally, I've just chosen

to approach it in that way. Now, again, I want, always want to be very fair. I, I don't think people are just upset that we've hired people of different beliefs. I think part of it is the pride flag. They're just saying you shouldn't allow him to have it on your set. My response to that is respectfully, you don't need to worry about that. It's our own workspace policy. And, and that's, you know, that's how we choose to run our business. Second, they're saying, well, then you shouldn't have put it in a video. You shouldn't have shoved it in our face to that. I would say we didn't mean to.

I also think it's three inches. It's in the corner. It's, you know, but okay, that's fine. But then furthermore, there is this, the actors saying, if you disagree with us, don't watch the show. And they feel like they're attacking the fans who've gotten them to that point. Actors have clarified and apologized for how it came across. But again, I want to be fair to them. They didn't say anyone who disagrees with pride, don't watch. They said anyone who is disagreeing with our stance to support our brother, to defend him, the comments that are being made about him. So again, that's why my conversation with you is so, so welcome to me while I'm on your podcast, because we have the ability to speak in nuance

and to explain all this. But I want to, I understand that if, when there's not that kind of time, people can take it a certain way. And so we're just trying to, and I have friends and advisors who are like, don't talk about it. Just let it pass out. Just let it go away. It'll go. And it's not going away. And I do think because we have asked for support, because we have said to people, even though we're not a nonprofit, even though we're not a church, we are dependent on crowdfunding. I think we also have to be willing to say, okay, when you are confused or when you are upset, I'm going to take the time to clarify, to nuance it, to discuss this with you while recognizing that

ultimately we may disagree on something. And I hope that something like this isn't enough to get you to stop watching the show, but if it is, I can't control that. And, um, and this, this is the approach that we've decided on and we're not reeds in the wind who are going to change just because, just because of controversy. Well, we'll change if, if, if a better idea is presented to us. Um, but not because of just because there's of controversy. We'll change if a better idea is presented to us, but not just because there's been controversy. I was wondering, I'm like, should you have even responded? But I didn't realize how big it was.

So I guess, yeah, being crowdfunded, and just to clarify some things, maybe with everything getting lost and all the flurry to do that. Because I get critiqued all the time. I rarely respond just because it's like, I don't, I don't, it's a free country. You have total right to post your critique and I have every right to not read it and not care and move on and stay with my family and, you know, do constructive work.

Yeah. And we do that a lot of the time. And one of our rules that we broke, unfortunately, is we don't respond on someone else's turf unless we're clarifying something like sometimes someone will say, I'm just going to make up a bad example, but someone will go like, you know, I don't know, the Chosen Season 4 comes out in a month. And we'll go, no, it's actually coming out in six months. Or they'll say, the most common thing is referencing comments I made five years ago about some of my Mormon friends. And they've extrapolated it to mean that I was referring to the entire Mormon church.

It's a long story, but they'll go, Dallas is a Mormon or Dallas believes all Mormons believe this. And I'll go, and sometimes we'll just, just for the sake of clarity, because so many people can get so easily confused. And in today's social media, you'll see this. There are YouTube videos with me, and I'm sure you've experienced this too,

my face with quote marks next to a phrase that I didn't say. They're summarizing what I said and extrapolating their own flawed meaning to it. But then they put quote marks, which communicates a quote. And so you go, all right, what do you do with that? Like we have well-meaning, loving, fair fans who see that and have no reason to disbelieve it. And they're going to Dallas, actually say that. And they don't have the ability to talk to me directly or their friends come up to them and they say, did you know that the chosen wave, the pride flag on their set and that they then defended it and that it's during pride month. And then they look up and they see a picture.

Literally there's a thumbnail, like I mentioned earlier, of me holding a pride flag. And how do they know the difference? And so I just go, okay, they deserve at least clarity, even if it's, even if not agreement, especially because we're so out there with our fans. We're so connected. We are so behind the scenes all the time. And we need to be willing to engage sometimes for the sake of clarity. Well, good for you for doing that. Good for you. That makes sense.

What's hard for me is I don't know if the church realizes just how much damage it's done by its specific outrage toward anything LGBTQ. And I, you know, as I try to understand, you know, I get there's a lot of fear, a lot of stuff. There are, you know, certain ideas that, you know, in certain contexts might be forced upon people or whatever. I get the maybe frustration, but most LGBT people statistically were raised in a Christian church and had a horrible experience from other Christians, horrible experience. And it just, it boggles me that Christians just don't understand, maybe don't understand

like how fast you're just pushing people away from Jesus when you react in this way. Like, I mean, think about like, okay, here you have a gay cameraman. Where else would you want him than to be staring at the life of Jesus 12 hours a day? Do you, okay, no, let's get him out of there. Let's get him out of Chile. Don't get him anywhere near Jesus. Like on what planet does that make any theological sense? Well, and the thing is, again, always to be fair,

a lot of them wouldn't necessarily say we should fire him for being gay. They would say you should fire him for waving a pride flag and causing controversy. He knows what he's doing. He's doing it on purpose. This is part of the agenda. And then they start lumping in.

Like, why is he throwing it in our faces? Yes, it's an anti-Christian symbol. And they'll start talking about a lot of the other issues that he might not even necessarily be part of, but they'll talk about the transgender issue or the mutilating children issue or the whatever it is that it becomes this big monolithic thing.

And because he has a pride flag, therefore he is part of this big monolithic thing. And we are in a culture war and we have to stand for truth. And to your point, there's purely the strategic part of this, which is, okay, let's say for a moment that we accept and agree on everything that you're saying, even then, meaning that he's part of a big monolithic group that's trying to bring down Christianity, which isn't the case with him, but let's just pretend for a second that it is. What is the best way to respond? Is it to say, you should be fired, you are part of this, this is your, to a mind read, which we love to do, to mind read, what does that accomplish?

And I think we sometimes confuse, and are sometimes well-intentioned, trying to stand for truth and trying to not give ground in this spiritual and culture war that we're part of. And so we don't want to give ground. We don't want to be soft. We don't want to be lukewarm, like Paul says, don't be a lukewarm church. I keep getting accused of, you know, you're because you're allowing and embracing sin. Therefore you are, uh, you know, you've chosen to embrace evil and all that. I've, I've been told that explicitly. I think there's

this where I've come from is like, so even if I was with you on the, they're all the same, they're all bad. They're all trying to kill us or kill our beliefs. I'm just not sure that him coming on the set and me going, all right, here's the rules. You're going to do this, this, and this. I just, I just am not convinced that that's the best way to approach the conversation. And then secondly, I also, I've never understood this and you deal with this all the time. So maybe you can help me. I don't understand why it's more important to address that issue than the fact that, like, for example, other crew members who are straight are sleeping, you issue, this particular sin is worse and requires public statement against and requires us to take a stand specifically against. That's where I kind of get confused too, is I just go, I have conversations with my cast and crew all the time. They know

where I stand on things. It's done in love. It's done in respect. It's done. And I just don't fight this battle, quote unquote, assuming it's always a battle. Cause I don't think it always is, but I just don't fight this the same way that you would. And I hope that's okay. But for some people, it's just not. If I can steal, man, the position that you just articulated that, you know, why this specific issue, why this flag, I, you know, Christian, the best thing I could think of is like, well, it's just thrown into our faces all the time and Hollywood and commercials and this, and you have target and Bud Light and all that, whatever else. I was gonna make a joke, about you wearing a Bud Light shirt too, but no, you're not. Um, I, I, you know, I, so I think

some Christians feel like it's, it's, it's a belief system that if you want to believe it, fine, whatever, but why does it keep, I feel like it's just forced onto their base throats. So I can see, I could see, I could see some of that. I would also say, let's, even that's kind of a fifth inning observation, meaning like, okay, well, where did that come from? Okay. Well, for decades, LGBT people were

oppressed, marginalized, made fun of, mocked on like live TV, like Archie Bunker. And I mean, we're talking like just a few decades ago, then they were, you know, Christians in the eighties saying, you know, as, as gay people are having their partners die in the hospital through a horrible disease, AIDS, you know, Christians, random Ravens saying, this is God's judgment for your sin as they're just weeping over losing a level. Like just, I mean, decades and decades of decades of really terrible treatment, let alone stuff like conversion therapy and electric and lobotomies.

I mean, there's just a deep, deep, dark history. So now in the, you know, fifth, anyone, and now if somebody is like kind of sick of it and like, you know what, I'm proud of who I am now in the, you know, fifth, anyone, and now if somebody is like kind of sick of it and like, you know what, I'm proud of who I am, you know, I know, I don't prize us in. Right. So I don't even the high idea of pride. Like I'm like, oh yeah, just the term alone. Isn't something I'd celebrate. But again, if I go to try to understand, it's like, well, if you, if you keep oppressing somebody for so long, any psychologist knows that, right? They're going to counter react, right? And come out and say, you know, I'm sick of this.

I'm sick of this. And here, I'm going to be, I'm going to be, I'm going to be who I am. You guys got to deal with it. In fact, we're going to have several gay people in the next Disney film, you know? And it's like, I don't even think that I don't, that reaction's not right either, but it's like, at least have some maybe understanding of, of, of the role that the church has sometimes unintentionally played in even beating into and creating that, that kind of reaction, you know?

Yeah. And I also think that we have to really be nuanced in the understanding of what it means to shove something in your face. So we've been accused as Christians oftentimes of, why are you shoving your belief in my face? Why are you shoving it down my throat? You know, we've had people who get fired or who get rebuked at work for wearing a Jesus saves shirt or a crucifix or having a sticker on their personal equipment. And it triggered me or politically even, you know, a conservative liberal just just saying like, uh, I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask you to take off that hat. I'm going to take, ask you to, uh, you know, change your shirt. And we always,

almost always reject that. We think that that's unfair. I happen to agree. I don't believe that someone wearing a shirt or someone even having a three inch flag is shoving it in my face. Now the argument to that sometimes would be, well, the pride flag is inherently anti-Christian because it's taking the God symbol of the rainbow. And there's a, we could debate that, where the flag actually originated, because there's a lot of inaccurate information about that too. And you could even say, well, I mean, like I said in my video, I actually said in my response, I was like, look, I don't celebrate Pride Month. And if I wore a shirt, it would say humility on it because I'm not a big fan of the word pride. And I've had this conversation with my, with some of my, my gay friends. I'm like,

you just need to understand the word pride. Look, you want to go with that one. That's fine. But like we, the Bible and our beliefs in general are always like pride, no good. You know, I understand why you like that term. I'm just saying not helping your case. Um, and so, uh, but, but I just don't, I reject the notion and I'm free to disagree, but I'd reject the notion that it's shoving it down my throat by him having it on his personal equipment. And it doesn't, I don't walk by it and go, Oh gosh. You know? Uh, so because I don't believe that that's any more shoving it down my throat than my own shirts. I mean, I'm wearing a shirt right now. That's a, you know, asserting the position that Jesus is God and can, you know, and there are some people who go,

I don't want to, you know, you're shoving your beliefs down my throat. And we always have said, that's ridiculous. No, I'm not. I'm just expressing myself and let's have a conversation about it. So that's where I stand on it. I think some people felt like we contradicted that by putting it into a BTS video and to which we say, well, it was unintentional. And it was even that it was three inches. It's in the corner. It wasn't pushing anything on you. And I think, I think we as believers could stand to be a little less triggered. Yeah. Just like the people we are asking to be less triggered. Even if you did take it out of the video, then I'm just a big fan of consistency.

Then you would have to make sure no potentially offensive idea is symbolized in anything. So that means even like, nobody should be wearing like an American flag t-shirt because Native Americans can get really offended that way. You think you support genocide? You're like, well, no, that's, you know, like what, what symbol isn't going to be offensive to somebody, you know, um, a cross can be offensive to Jewish people, you know, I mean,

there's, well, I think, I think there's people who would say what you, you're going to equate a pride flag with a crucifix, obviously. And because we tend to, we tend to think, but we're standing for the real truth. We're standing for, and of course, I believe that. I believe that Jesus is the way and the salvation, and I believe all of that. But I also go, I just, I'm not going to fight that battle with symbols. I don't think that, I think we sometimes get so in love with or in fear of symbols that that becomes what the argument is about. And so I chose to not go down the path of, let's just say on our set, no political statements, no religious statements. And then I go, well, yeah, I don't want to do that either because

where do you, where do you find the line? And I have a lot of people saying, well, what would you, you know, what about a swastika? What about a, and, and, and partly I sometimes I'll respond by, by saying, obviously we know the difference, but other times I go, well, here's the thing. You don't have to make that choice. Like you can for your own business. And I don't even say the snarky. I just go, I'm the one who has to make that choice for my business and my set. And, you know, some of these questions you're asking are bridges we may cross when we come to them, but I'm typically, I'm going to Elon Musk most of this. I'm typically going to err on the side of liberty, free speech. I know that I have the right to restrict things on my own set if I want to, but I'm a pretty, I tend to err on the side of libertarian, you know, like

even if I disagree with you, I'm going to let you do it. I believe that with the government, I believe that with business. And, um, so yeah, there are some things obviously that could, could, could cross the line. Uh, but this one to me doesn't. And I understand if we disagree, I understand if people disagree with me on that, it's okay. I respect that. Uh, but let's just still, I think, try to keep it measured. What would you say? So yeah, somebody said, you know, what would you allow somebody with a swastika on their camera? Because you said you've heard somebody bring that up? Oh yeah. I guess the question is, is there a line that would be crossed if somebody was publicly advertising a symbol that represented not just something that's maybe you don't believe in, but actually is like, is there a line that

could be crossed? I come from the controversial perspective that there is a difference between a swastika, which represents a group of people who were literally slaughtering and taking away life of entire people groups for their cause. And whether it's a pride flag or even a MAGA hat, because there are people on the pride side who would equate and flag or even a MAGA hat, because there are people on the pride side who would equate and have equated a MAGA hat with a swastika. And I would say that a MAGA hat make America great again. Yes, I know it's very inflammatory and controversial, just like a pride flag is, but I've had people on our crew who have worn Trump pro Trump stuff. And there was actually someone in our teamster department who had a MAGA hat on and we're in Texas. And I would never have

told them to take it down. I don't believe that it's the same as a swastika. I don't believe that, that even though there are people within that group, you know, people who supported Trump, who within that group who are bad people, and there are people within the pride group who are bad people. There are people in every group who are bad people, just for the record. I don't believe that that statement inherently comes even to the same universe as what a swastika represents. And so I believe that. And again, there are people who go, it's the same because it's all sin. It's the same because it's all inflammatory. It's the same because it's all an attack on Christ. I don't share that belief.

I think that nuance is allowable. There's a judge famously said when he was talking about pornography and they were talking about what should be illegal, what constitutes something that should be illegal. And he goes, he actually said, he goes, I know this may be weird, but I know it when I see it. You know, it's kind of like there there's certain things that just, you, you, you can have some common sense about. And, and I think that there is, uh, you know, as a, as a country, sometimes we have to make those difficult nuanced decisions.

Swastika is for sure. One of those that I, you know, would, would cross the line. There are other things that are a little bit more nuanced. I'm going to tend to err on the side of freedom. Um, but some of those will cross the bridge when we come to it and we'll know it when we see it. Real quick, before I let you go, I got, I got, I shot out a tweet asking people if they had any questions, uh, to you and they're all good. There was no, there was no hate just so you know. So there are some, uh, same people on Twitter. Um, well, what, yeah, one person, I guess, kind of related to this, you know, how do, how do you handle, well, I'll read it, how does Dallas keep going when so many Christians seem bound and determined to find reasons to hate on or cancel the show? Well, two things.

I want to be very clear. I mean, we are, by all measurements, one of the most beloved shows. Like, if you just look at it objectively. How many millions? How many millions have seen it? Or did you have a, at least one episode has been seen by over a hundred million people. Unbelievable. Um, and our social media, there are very few shows or movies that, that can, that can compare to the engagement and the support that we get on their social media,

uh, the crowdfunding that we get all of that by every objective measure. I receive more love. And when I'm out in public and I'm recognized, it's fairly common. And it's also, I would say 30 to 40% of people who see me in public start crying, not because I'm a celebrity, not because they're treating me like the Beatles, but because they want to express to me how much the show has changed their

life. So I am full. I am overflowing in the love tank. And if anything, I'm more at risk of believing that and falling prey to the praise and starting to believe my own praise than I am to the criticism. So that's number one. Number two is I just, I'm telling you the story I told you at the beginning of the podcast broke me of my narcissism. I used to care what people thought I used to need to be affirmed. So my wife and I, when, when, when, when we see videos, I mean, right now there, there's well over a million views total of videos on YouTube that are outright, not just criticizing, which is fine,

but outright questioning my faith. You know, prominent people even saying, you know, you, you, you are damaging the cause of Christ. You were hurting the gospel, all that stuff. You are dangerous. You're siding with evil. I've heard, I've seen that phrase multiple times. I think it's a superpower that, uh, that God granted me, uh, several years ago when I broke and surrendered to just not care about to not have what the Bible calls a fear of man, where you care more about what they think than what God thinks. So I'm not a victim. I'm blessed. I'm honored to be able to have this opportunity. And I knew going into it what comes with the territory. I'm a little bummed that in the last week and a half or two weeks, the most significant controversy was something that I, like, I just kind of, nothing had changed.

You know, this guy filmed the feeding of the 5,000 and he had the three inch pride flag on his, on his gear. And that was a year ago. And just out of the blue, suddenly, you know, because we made a couple of mistakes, suddenly it's the biggest controversy was faked. It's a bummer. I don't like being, being publicly slammed for something that's inaccurate, meaning some people have done it accurately, but some of it has been extremes or exaggerations or misquotes or whatever. That's a bummer.

But there, there's someone that you and I love who experienced much, much worse and remained focused, silent. And I can, I can as well. Do you have planned, is a couple of other questions, a Book of Acts spinoff or an Old Testament spinoff? I mean, are you, or is that even something you can discuss openly? We'll have some things to talk about down the road. Right now we're focused on the show itself, but we are having more discussions now about those things than we used to. I used to go, no, don't talk about it.

It'll come later when I'm done with the show. I'll take a year to nap and then we'll consider this. Uh, the, the, the demand for it has gotten so strong that now we're having so serious discussions about it and maybe we'll have some announcements in the near future. All right. Last question. What are the biggest challenges that you face in staying faithful to scripture? Uh, well, I, I think anytime that you're doing a show like this where Scripture is just one of the things that you are basing the show on, I mean, it's our primary source of truth and inspiration, but we're just as much relying on artistic imagination, biblical, you know, cultural context, historical context.

So it's less about staying faithful to Scripture. That part is actually easy when we get to the scripture part you just use scripture that and we don't change that or contradict it it's the lead up to it that's not scripture where we go all right got to be plausible got to be fair and authentic to the character and intentions of jesus and the gospels that requires a lot of prayer requires a lot of listening a listening, requires a lot of honest conversations with our consultants. But I love Jesus. I love the Bible. And because I do, I think that that means that it's a little easier than it may look because I so badly want to get it right.

That even when I maybe do something that causes controversy, it doesn't change the approach. Because I go, no, I'm pretty sure we were prayed through. I'm pretty sure we had good counsel. And the people who are disagreeing with me aren't part of that counsel that I respect and that would push back on me if this was a grievous error. And so by the time the show comes out, by the time the controversial thing has happened, it's already fully baked, meaning we've already thought through and prayed through and considered and discussed all of these things. So because we

take it so seriously. So that's why when it happens, some people go, well, why don't you just change it? Like, why don't you, you know, now that it's controversial, now that it like, why cause all this controversy? And we're like, well, you really want us to have that approach to go, Oh, some people didn't like it. I guess we'll change our minds. Or I guess we'll, I guess we'll, we'll rewrite that scene that we did. Uh, I think, I think people wouldn't want me to go, Oh, some people didn't like it. I guess we'll change our minds or I guess, we'll, I guess we'll, we'll rewrite that scene that we did. Uh, I think, I think people wouldn't want me to be, to have that approach. Nah, that's a good, that's a good response. You know, I mean, every, every, even, you know, scholars will debate everything. Every verse in the Bible has loads of opinions on each side and every other. So even if you went with a certain interpretation of the

wedding of Canaan or whatever, and kind of built a story around that and someone says, no, that's not how to interpret that passage. Here's it's like, okay. And maybe they're even right. I'm sure you get it perfectly or whatever, but like, like you can't like, that's just, that's just part of biblical interpretation. Like you're going to get some things wrong. So. Yeah. And then when people say what they do is sometimes they take it to an extreme and they go, you are now harming the gospel. You are now dangerous. And they'll use examples maybe that they saw online of one or two people saying, they might say like, I didn't read my Bible last night because I had the chosen, which of course we don't want, but that's so, so, so rare. They conveniently ignore, I'm not exaggerating, the millions of comments of people

who are explicitly saying, I am reading the Bible more than ever because of the show. I am praying more than ever because of the show. And if people were saying consistently, I now believe in a hippie Jesus, or I believe in a, you know, love wins Jesus, or I now don't need to read the Bible because I have the chosen, that would be a big problem. But people are constantly saying, constantly, constantly, constantly saying, I'm reading my Bible more than ever. My Bible feels like it's now in color as opposed to black and white. I didn't always understand it. This has helped me research it more and help me give more context and Bible first. And that can only be a good thing.

Oh man, Dallas, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been super awesome. Thank you for giving me your time. I know you've got a lot, tons of stuff going on. So, uh, No, this is important though. And I appreciate your, I appreciate your show and the fair and open conversation. And, uh, I think this kind of stuff is important. So thank you for having me on. Yeah. Many blessings on season four, man. Appreciate it. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.