On Monday, the official Facebook page of the viral hit series The Chosen addressed a major issue surrounding the project, saying it is not produced by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"We're not produced by Mormons," the post reads, in part.
The Facebook post drew more than 2,400 comments – 10 times the number of comments a post earlier in the day received.
It was addressing a topic that has circulated on blogs and social media in recent months. The Chosen, a product of Angel Studios, is a crowdfunded television series about the life of Jesus and his disciples. The second season was released last year.
The Facebook post, humorous in tone, included a screenshot of a critical comment that had multiple grammatical errors. That comment touched on the Mormon issue and urged people to be "very careful" in watching it.
"We're not anti-Christian, we're not produced by Mormons," the official Facebook page of The Chosen wrote. "But we're going to go out on a limb and guess there was a typo; which wouldn't be surprising, as most of our hate comments aren't written by English majors. That said, go ahead and be very careful with us – that advice is solid."
Director Dallas Jenkins, who is evangelical, also addressed the issue in March during an interview with Ruslan KD, a YouTube creator and hip-hop artist.
Jenkins said The Chosen does not "get funding from Angel Studios" and does not "get any funding from any organization, much less any religious organization." Angel Studios has LDS members within it, but the studio is a "distribution partner," and "they don't actually fund it."
"I am an evangelical," Jenkins said. "I consider myself a conservative evangelical. I believe in the Bible. [It] is God's Holy Word. It's the inerrant word of Scripture."
Jenkins emphasized that he is responsible for the content of The Chosen.
"Those who are involved in this show who are LDS or Catholic or any other faith tradition would be the first to tell you they have absolutely zero input into the content itself," he said.
"... I'm making a Jesus show," Jenkins said. "I'm pointing people towards Jesus. And I'll let the Holy Spirit and I'll let the discipleship of the local church do the job of nuancing all of those kinds of large-scale or even small-scale disagreements."
Related:
The Chosen Season 3 Begins Filming: 'It's Going to Be Intense,' Dallas Jenkins Says of Plot
Photo courtesy: ©The Chosen, Angel Studios
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
