Review

Culture

Film & TV

1 February 2024

6 min read

When Jesus walked in Leicester Square

As the The Chosen’s latest series premieres, Natalie Garrett analyses the TV show’s appeal.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A group of actors walk together at a film premiere

Jonathan Roumie, centre, with the cast of The Chosen.

So, I’ve met Jesus twice before. Over 20 years ago, I joined the cast of The Life of Christ at Wintershall, the epic outdoor drama experience that takes you through the story of Jesus’ life (and it’s still going strong). As well as being Crowd Person 176, with glorified tea towel on head, I was cast as the bride at the wedding at Cana. Apart from Jesus, the rest of the cast were local, normal people (as in not professional actors) and I rather shyly attended the first rehearsal knowing no-one. I had been sitting on my own for a bit when Jesus walked in and caught my eye. He walked straight over to me and shook my hand, “You must be Natalie,” he said. For just a moment, I forgot that he was an actor and I thought, “You really are Jesus, you know me by name!” But then I remembered that I was the only new addition to the cast, and he was just a really nice guy welcoming me to the company.

Some eight or so years later, I was involved with the Oxford Passion, a Passion play written for and produced by Creation Theatre company in Oxford. I helped write the script and played the role of Mary Magdalene. The actor, Tom Peters, who played Jesus in that production was incredible. As an actor and as a Christian, it was an extraordinary experience, sharing some powerful scenes with Jesus. Each night for several weeks, I had to watch my beloved Christ being crucified all over again. I wept deeply, every night.

Then fast forward to Monday 22 January 2024, and I’m at the cinema UK cinema Premiere of season four of The Chosen in London’s Leicester Square and I see Jesus walk the red carpet. Surreal.

So, there I was, in all my finery, lurking about, hoping to get a selfie with Jesus.

In case you haven’t come across The Chosen, it’s a ground-breaking historical drama series. Created, directed, and co-written by filmmaker Dallas Jenkins, it is the first multi-season series about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Primarily set in Judaea and Galilee in the first century, the series centres on Jesus and the different people who met and followed or otherwise interacted with him. The emphasis is on portraying the “authentic Jesus” through the point of view of the people who spent time with him, asking the question, what did it really look like to be a follower of Jesus? It has quickly become a highly successful crowdfunding project, with episodes viewed 700 million times and a big vision to reach a billion viewers by the end of season seven.

Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in The Chosen, says,

“Our fanbase was entirely Christian at first, but because of its popularity the show has attracted people from all faiths and no faith to the character of Jesus. We’re trying to really portray his message of love and tender mercy.”

To raise awareness for the show, which can be streamed on Netflix and Amazon Prime (or for free on The Chosen app), season four was launched with a cinema release in Leicester Square. So, there I was, in all my finery, lurking about, hoping to get a selfie with Jesus. And I had to pinch myself. When did Jesus become a world-wide celebrity with people whooping and whistling and jostling for his attention? Well, it happened when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday, but not so much in the last 2,000 years, especially not in recent years in the West.

What have the creators of The Chosen got so right that millions of people tune in to binge watch the narrative of the gospel story?

First up, Jesus laughs. A lot. He smiles and he hugs people. He is intensely personable and bloke next door-y (he’s not very good at ball games for one thing). But he also, when necessary, exerts huge personal authority. There is a confident, courageous, generous, humility to him that is hugely attractive. When the going gets tough, you think, he’d be good to have around. But also, he’s great company around the dinner table, telling stories and listening, too.

Because of the way the story is told, through the eyes of those who knew Jesus, we get drawn into the personal dramas of the Twelve Disciples as well as a wider group, including several women. It even includes some Romans, who are clearly the “bad guys” but drawn equally plausibly as the other more sympathetic characters. In the lives of these people, we find the domestic reality of the human experience – working hard to put food on the table, relating to family members, suffering illness and even miscarriage. And then we see the difference that it makes to have the Son of God around. And that’s the hook, that’s what means the viewer becomes deeply invested in the show because it turns out the people in the Bible aren’t super spiritual giants, they are people just like you and me. They struggle with the day-to-day realities of life, they’re confused, and they mess up. And then they meet Jesus.

It’s a huge risk creating a show when everyone knows how it ends. As we watch, even the early seasons, we know where the narrative arc is going. And yet, somehow, we still want to find out what happens. Because: we are invested in the stories of the Roman Centurion who looks as if he might come over to the light side; we’re keen to find out how Simon Peter and his wife get over their marital difficulties; we’re cheering for the success of the olive oil business set up by Zebedee (that’s James and John’s Dad) along with the help of some shrewd businesswomen who are also numbered amongst The Chosen.

When I see a dramatized version of any book I’ve read, I usually get quite angry – “that’s not what he/she looks like! That’s not how they talk!” And dramatizing part of the bestselling book of all time, the four Gospels of the Bible, is quite a risky choice for a TV programme. But I recognise the Jesus in The Chosen as the Jesus I know and love. And there is no higher accolade I can give than that.

The extraordinary success of the show is that millions of people have watched it and been drawn in. Millions of people have invested not just their time and viewing commitment, but also their own money. The show is entirely crowdfunded, and the show’s makers are deeply committed to building community around what they’re doing. Fans are invited to participate in the crowd scenes (being the 5,000 who get fed, for example) and there is almost as much behind-the-scenes content produced as the show itself. There’s a buzz around what they’re doing and it’s spreading way beyond the homes of a Christian fanbase.

When Jonathan Roumie arrived for the season four premiere in Leicester Square, it was like a rock star had stepped out of the car, such was the reach and excitement around his portrayal of Jesus in The Chosen. For hundreds of years, Christian artists have used the creative arts at their disposal – stained glass windows, music, fine art – to try to convey the authentic Jesus to the world. In our time, TV programmes are the artform of greatest impact and the digital distribution now available to the makers of The Chosen affords unprecedented access to their material around the world, as they aim to dub it into 600 languages ensuring 95 per cent of people worldwide can watch it spoken in their native language.

Is it too soon to suggest that The Chosen may be the Sistine Chapel of our age? It’s certainly too early to try guess the impact that this cultural phenomenon will have on the world’s faith journey. But if the reaction on the red carpet at Leicester Square last Monday night is anything to go by, Jesus seems to be making a comeback.

Episodes 1&2 of season four of The Chosen are showing in UK cinemas from Thursday 1 February 2024 - with other episodes being released later in the month. This is the first time ever that a full season of a streaming TV show will be released exclusively in cinemas.

Article

Culture

Israel

Middle East

Politics

27 June 2024

7 min read

Netanyahu’s baffling ability to bounce back

Disliked and embattled, the Israeli premier’s purpose strengthens him.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

Between two generals wearing camouflage uniforms, a man in a black shirt listens.

Bibi ponders future plans.

Prime Minister's Office, Israeli Government.

Are the dreams of Bibi Netanyahu about to be crushed? As the Israeli prime minister’s coalition teeters, what is remarkable is that he has survived so long. Central to this survival is his purpose – a dream of a secure Israel. We need to unpack such leaders’ dreams and understand why they are so potent.

Langston Hughes, in his poem ‘Harlem,’ asks what ‘What happens to a dream deferred?’ Several possibilities are put forward: ‘Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? And an alternative: ‘Maybe it just sags like a heavy load?’ And finally ‘Or does it explode?’

It’s possible that Hughes referred to Harlem race riots in the 1930s and 1940s, but no-one knows for sure. The question is what happens when a dream is put on hold – or worse, destroyed – in the face of struggle?

Do we press on? Do we give up? What happens if we press on, and things do not work out? Or perhaps we press on, and things do work out. Hughes’ poem encourages us to ask these questions.

Looking back, Hughes’ poem is interesting but obviously gloomy, without hope. A dream is deferred. It withers, and then vanishes. But what if a dream is – when encountering struggle – maintained, kept in tact? The dream, perhaps nearly lost, emerges in the end, stronger than it was before.

Hughes’ poem is one of struggle and eruption. Not struggle and emergence. It is a despairing poem, one that denies the possibility of resurrection from the brink of death, even if the obstacles are significant.

We all have dreams, perhaps about peace, career, family, community, love, or something else. Inevitably, these dreams are – as dreams always are, in order to test our faith - met with opposition.

In these moments, we have two options: we can believe in what we see – the dream faltering, withering on the vine, ever so slowly. Or we can believe in the unseen, in which the dream re-emerges from whatever resistance it encounters. The former values the material, what we can actually see. The second values and trusts in what we cannot see. This brings us back to the point of faith.

'I have lost count of how many political obituaries I have written about Netanyahu — and how many resurrection stories.’

Nicholas Goldberg

The ability to struggle and emerge, in which death or near-death is followed by resurrection, is a quality that is in short supply in modern political leadership. It is easily – and not surprisingly – overlooked in a culture prone to despair and hopelessness, in which we are met with a new crisis at every corner.

But some leaders have a unique, if not baffling, quality: the ability to struggle and emerge stronger, somehow renewed. They resurrect themselves where this was thought impossible. And when they have this quality, they become unrelenting forces, whatever you might think of them.

No leader better embodies this quality in the political West than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (or ‘Bibi’ for short). Netanyahu strengthens whenever he is on the ropes, perhaps because he is on the ropes.

Although a profoundly disliked figure by many, Netanyahu’s ability to struggle and emerge merits serious study from any student of politics. It is worth asking where his ability to struggle and emerge, resurrecting oneself from the depths of despair – in seemingly impossible situations – comes from?

Ishaan Tharoor puts it well in a recent Washington Post article: ‘Yet Netanyahu is expert at defying the odds.’ However, puzzlingly few articles are written on this topic – Netanyahu’s ability to come back from seemingly impossible circumstances.

Columnist Nicholas Goldberg comes even closer to the essence of resurrection in a Los Angeles Times op-ed in 2020, in which he writes ‘Over the years, I have lost count of how many political obituaries I have written about Netanyahu — and how many resurrection stories.’ He later comments on Netanyahu’s single life mission focused on security.

Both articles are more anti-Netanyahu than they are a reflection on the why and how of his countless resurrections. So it is worth asking: what is behind this quality?

A mission is fundamental to resurrection, in which certain politicians find a way through whenever the world counts them out.

While commentators focus on the ills of Netanyahu’s tenure as Israeli Prime Minister – indictments of corruption and possible future jail time, thwarting of a two-state solution in favour of the Abraham Accords, and the security failures that contributed to the October 7 disaster – they fail to consider deeper questions related to Tharoor’s description of Netanyahu as constantly ‘defying the odds.’

Neglected in analyses on Netanyahu is the deep trauma of his brother Yonatan’s passing in the famous Operation Entebbe. Neglected is the fact that he was wounded, sometimes severely, on many occasions while fighting for the Israeli special forces. And neglected is the influence of his father Benzion, a notable academic well-known for his writing on the historical oppression of the Jewish people (and on his own later rejection by the Israeli academic community).

These are powerful, deep-seated experiences if not major traumas, which – as Israeli friends well-acquainted with Netanyahu wisely note – underpin his clear life mission of increasing Israeli security in a dangerous world.

Goldberg puts this mission, even if uncharitably, as follows in his column: ‘Netanyahu has stood for one key proposition: that peace is not to be trusted; it is a pipe dream pushed by starry-eyed doves who fell hard for the likes of Yasser Arafat. According to Netanyahu, only battening down, fighting back hard, building walls and rejecting compromise protects the country.’

Netanyahu provides us with a crucial lesson in political leadership: a clear and simple life mission provides the ability to claim victory from the jaws of defeat, even in the most seemingly intractable of circumstances. A mission is fundamental to resurrection, in which certain politicians find a way through whenever the world counts them out.

A mission – simple because it is grounded in brokenness (the death of his brother) – provides Netanyahu (and other politicians that have this quality) with a strategic and tactical advantage that cannot be replicated by opponents without similar purpose. Such mission is not fleeting but enduring, Netanyahu resisting all temptations that might thwart his single-minded purpose.

In the case of Israel, no other Israeli political leader has operated with the same sense of mission as has Netanyahu over the last two decades. For if this were the case, Netanyahu would not currently be in power.

Our focus therefore should never be on dreams deferred, as per Hughes’ poem, but rather on the realisation of our dreams – underpinned by unique and consistent life missions.

Commentators, focusing on external circumstances – the current direction of the war, certain decisions made, the opinions of well-read ‘experts’ – neglect these deeper human questions at their peril, because the answer to the question of purpose helps people find ways through where none seem to exist. Purpose, not circumstance, allows a political leader to struggle and emerge in circumstances where most others falter.

For wider context, we can here turn to the example of Jesus, whose resurrection follows his trials at Gethsemane. When Jesus prays in Gethsemane, it is not clear how he should act. Jesus does not know what God wants from him. But he knows that he must carry out the will of his Father.

He asks ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want’. Jesus is alone in his deliberation. He asks and waits, and in this waiting, the way forward is revealed. Here we see, in its most poignant form, struggle and emergence. Jesus is resurrected three days following his death, when even his disciples had counted him out.

Our focus therefore should never be on dreams deferred, as per Hughes’ poem, but rather on the realisation of our dreams – underpinned by unique and consistent life missions. Discerning these missions is not easy. If anything, there is considerable pain involved in doing so.

Yet, struggle that involves the possibility of failure of a dream, within a consistent and singular life mission, contains within it the seeds of success. The dream emerges intact from whatever short-term struggle it faces, if not strengthened.

A way is found where none previously existed, when those focused merely on the seen long counted a person out. In the long run, mission enables victory: the realisation – not deferral – of dreams.