By Marsha West, Christian Research Network
To keep fans of The Chosen up to speed, I have laid out all my concerns in Is God really the one behind ‘The Chosen’ as the creator of the series declares? So I’m not going to do that here. However, the answer to my question is a resounding No! How do I know this? Because the creator of The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins, struck up a partnership with a pseudo-Christian cult that calls itself The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, formerly Mormonism, to produce the series even knowing full well that in 2 Cor 6:14-15 Paul makes it clear that believers are not to have intimate connections with non-believers:
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God.
Why? Because believers and non-believers are polar opposites. Paul compares light with darkness. He asks, “What accord has Christ with Belial.” Belial in Hebrew means wicked or worthless. Belial and Satan are one and the same. So Paul was asking God’s beloved to look before they leap into a pile of rubbish. Since God’s people have nothing in common with the dark underworld, refrain from getting involved.
Being acutely aware that Dallas Jenkins was going against the teaching of Scripture, discernment bloggers set out to warn him of the dangers he was facing. Namely, yoking with a cult could have devastating consequences on him and his production. But we were not heeded. Instead he brushed us aside. To ensure that discernment bloggers got the message that he intended to pay us no mind, he came out and declared on a radio show that Mormons are saved! Moreover, he boasted that Mormons are his brothers and sisters: “I’m going to die on the hill of, we love the same Jesus, and we want the same Jesus known to the world.”
In the above-mentioned article, I revealed how Jenkins’ so-called brothers and sisters “cannot be true Christians for the simple reason that their view of the essentials of the Christian faith do not reflect historic orthodox Christianity – not even close! What they believe about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the Atonement and Salvation, is not only unbiblical, but also pure fiction! And speaking of salvation, LDS Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1, p. 188 states that there is no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet of God. So, it’s easy to understand the reason The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a pseudo-Christian cult.
Not A Match Made In Heaven
The Jenkins/Angel Studios partnership turned out to be a disaster. In my piece The Chosen creator, Dallas Jenkins, ends a business partnership with a Mormon-owned company over broken agreements I reported what can occur when business partners have a decidedly different worldview:
Dallas Jenkins has announced that he and The Chosen have formally cut ties with Angel Studios, the Mormon media conglomerate that helped create, fund, and distribute the hit TV show, after an arbiter found multiple material breaches of contract on behalf of the studio. The ruling allows The Chosen to terminate their contract, part ways for good, and manage and distribute the show as they see fit and in a way that is economically sustainable, but will do little to offset other controversies Dallas and the show have been involved in.
In the same article, the following excerpt is found under the heading The Movie God Made:
Jenkins makes the claim that God is the one behind The Chosen. God directly spoke to him while he was mowing the lawn and said, “I want you to make movies for me and for the church.” Jenkins asserts that he felt God speaking to him 3-4 times in his life. He says God laid on his heart that “this will be the definitive portrayal of My people and this is what people are going to think of around the world when they think of My people. And I’m not going to let you screw it up.”
Dallas Jenkins’ claim that God said that He’s not going to let him “screw it up,” was not from God. We know this because Dallas did screw it up royally when he chose to partnership with a pseudo-Christian cult.
In Is God Really the One Behind The Chosen… I revealed the following:
According to Mormon Doctrine subtitled “A Compendium of the Gospel” page 163, Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers and we were all born as siblings in heaven to them both. To identify the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan as “spirit brothers” is blasphemy.
One Mormon leader said the following when asked what he believes about Jesus:
In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ.’ ‘No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak’” (LDS Church News, week ending June 20, 1998, p.7)
Christian Answers for the New Age, Marcia Montenegro goes into whether it’s scriptural for Christians to associate with false teachers and refer to them as brothers and sisters in Christ in per piece Priscilla Shirer, Max Lucado and T.D. Jakes: Betraying the Gospel?:
Whatever words Shirer and Lucado express in this Easter message that sound biblical are rendered hollow by the association with modalist T. D. Jakes. It is against Scripture to treat a false teacher like Jakes as though he is a brother in Christ, and to appear to be in theological agreement with him. Teachers are held to a higher standard; therefore, it is only biblical to warn about Shirer and Lucado because they are not trustworthy teachers. They either do not have discernment, or they fail to exercise it, or they have no issues with modalism. (Source)
Whether it is Jenkins or the individuals referenced in Montenegro’s article the necessity to carefully select those you’re going to associate with is very clear.
Dallas Jenkins’ Affinity For Propping Up Arch-Heretics
This same man who threw discernment bloggers under the bus for warning him that Mormonism is a theological cult, crossed over the line again when he did an interview with Kris Vallotton, second in command at Bethel Church in Redding CA which is a veritable breeding ground of New Apostolic Reformation clowns who claim to be modern day “apostles” and “prophets.” It seems the creator of The Chosen has an affinity for propping up arch-heretics.
Speaking of Kris Vallotton, Dallas Jenkins recently went on Vallotton’s podcast to promote The Chosen. Podcaster Doreen Virtue breaks down what happened during the interview in False Jesus of The Chosen, a video that’s worth watching. Here’s what Doreen wrote in the promo:
The Chosen just sunk to a new low when the show’s creator Dallas Jenkins appeared with Bethel Redding’s false prophet Kris Vallotton on a recent podcast to discuss their common ground…”
When arch-heretic Kenneth Copeland was invited to be the guest speaker of honor at a Bethel Redding event, Vallotton swooned over him saying, “I think it’s prophetic that Kenneth Copeland is here. Not just because of who he is, but because of the season he’s come in. I’ve been thinking about for the last month and a half that the righteous will live by faith. And here’s one of the fathers of the faith movement.”
Here, in part, is what Jenkins had to say to the man who heaped praise on Copeland during their interview:
I believe you, Kris, have a desire to make Jesus known and loved more around the world. So we can have some disagreements about some theological or doctrinal tenants and still believe that we are trying to get people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And so I am making my show and if you are willing to have me on your podcast and talk about my show, why would I go “first things first. There’s something that we disagree on that we must take the time to hash out on this podcast right now.” It’s just uh, it’s just foolishness.
Immediately after Jenkins uttered those troubling words, Doreen interrupted to remind us “This is the same Kris Vallotton who posted that the Holy Spirit is Jesus without skin, which is the heresy of modalism.” Doreen followed up with, “This admiration of a false prophet shouldn’t surprise us though, as The Chosen tragically and consistently portrays a false version of our Lord and Savior Jesus.”
Why would Dallas Jenkins agree to do an interview with a wolf in sheep’s clothing to promote his show? Maybe because it matters not to him who promotes his show, only that the show gets more viewers. He said he believes that Bethel wolves can “get people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.” But how can that happen when the biblical gospel is not preached by people who are caught up in a cult?
I warned my brothers and sisters in a piece I wrote Bethel Redding is a Shark Tank that,
Bethel Church in Redding CA is run by soothsayers who think nothing of manipulating people out of their hard-earned money to grow their demonic empire–oops–church. These men and women think nothing of twisting Scripture into a theological pretzel, in fact Scripture-twisting is what they do best. Churchgoers may or may not be aware that what they’re being taught is not orthodox biblical Christianity. On the contrary. What they’re being taught is outright heresy! And they’re learning it from wolves in sheep’s clothing who describe themselves as pastors and ministry leaders. In Bethel’s shark tank the true meaning of what is contained in the scriptures is rarely, if ever, taught. Bethelites are not learning the author of the text’s intended meaning from the stage. The term for this atrocity is eisegesis. Pay close attention to CARM’s definition: Eisegesis is when a person interprets and reads information into the text that is not there. An example would be in viewing 1 Cor. 8:5 which says, “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,” (KJV). With this verse, Mormons, for example, bring their preconceived idea of the existence of many gods to this text and assert that it says there are many gods. But that is not what it says. It says that there are many that are called gods. Being called a god doesn’t make something an actual god. Therefore, the text does not teach what the Mormons say, and they are guilty of eisegesis, that is, reading into the text what it does not say. Compare with exegesis.
Bethel’s Powers That Be, who are heavily influenced by demonic forces, are proficient at eisegesis! They are also proficient at duplicity, deception and downright lying.
Against this backdrop, the main point I’d like to make here is that, time and again, Dallas Jenkins has shown himself to be a man who is willing to compromise the Gospel of Jesus Christ and biblical truth to hock his show to an undiscerning biblically illiterate public, to include many Roman Catholics as well as those who are caught up in cults, especially the Mormon, Bethel Redding and NAR cults. I know this because he said “One of the most interesting things about this whole project has been my relationship with different denominational or faith traditions that I didn’t have before. I’ve learned so much more about the LDS community than I thought I knew. That goes for the Catholic community.”
If you doubt that what I’m saying about him is true, go to the article I posted at the beginning, Is God really the one behind ‘The Chosen’…? scroll down the page and read Pastor Gabriel Hughes’ warning about a professing Christian who defends an entire religion that adds to the Bible. Pastor Gabe’s take on the man who created The Chosen is enlightening to say the least.
I’ll wind this up with a reminder from a genuine apostle:
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:8).
Related articles that address serious issues with The Chosen
CRN has compiled a list of false teachers and several other professing Christians we’ve warned you about over the years. The list also contains those we must keep an eye on plus movements, organizations and “frauds, phonies and money-grubbing religious quacks” to mark and avoid as per Romans 16:17-18 such as those mentioned in the article.