‘The Chosen’ Creator Dallas Jenkins Responds to Voddie Baucham’s Claim That His Show Violates the 2nd Commandment
‘The Chosen’ creator Dallas Jenkins has responded to Dr. Voddie Baucham’s recent comments criticizing his hit TV show about Jesus as violating the second commandment, saying that while he ‘loves’ Baucham, he believes his take is ‘misapplied.’
We’ve written about Jenkins in the past, with our post ‘Dallas Jenkins Says Mormons are Saved: ‘I’m Going to Die on That Hill,’ the time Dallas Jenkins Doubles Down on Controversial Mormon Comments, Straight up Lies the Dallas Jenkins Affirms Mormons are Christians in ‘Definitive, Final’ Video’ and ‘The Chosen’ Director Says Jesus Transfiguration Not Important: ‘What Purpose Would it Serve our Story?’
Earlier this month, Baucham appeared on the Babylon Bee Podcast to discuss his recent appearance on Glenn Beck’s show. When host Jarret LeMaster made a passing comment about The Chosen, Bauchum said he didn’t watch it, describing it as a line of restraint that he draws and offering “2CV, man. Second Commandment violation.”
This prompted Jenkins to respond:
Using his logic and reasoning, however, there would be nothing wrong with Christians creating an image of Jesus the Son or God the Father depicting him as a golden calf, so long as it’s not worshiped or bowed down to.
That’s not a proposition we ever want to hold to or defend.
For more information on why 2CV’s are so bad, see here and here.
Bonus Jenkins content:
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It’s a sad day when Dallas Jenkins talks more sense than Voddie Baucham, but here were are. People who hold to this particular take on the second commandment simply cannot do so based on the reading of the text as is. They MUST insert words into what God has said to produce their particular understanding. In other words, it’s just bad hermeneutics.
Using creative license to portray specific actors, fictitious speech and fictional actions pertaining to the life of Christ and his Apostles does indeed create an image and understanding in the minds of many that will be present in their consciousness when they bow down and worship Jesus. They will in part be worshipping a man-made portrayal. The portrayal in The Chosen will be stuck in their head.
God portrayed Christ as He intended Jesus to be portrayed and revealed to us in Scripture. No visual records or representations were kept or created. Not even a description. Adding to the written biblical record is just as biblically problematic as adding a fictional face, voice and personality to the God who people worship.
The biggest problem with The Chosen over previous portrayals of Christ is the multiple episodes over multiple seasons that thoroughly ingrain a specific depiction over time… a depiction of Christ that then supercedes the depiction of Christ in Scripture in the minds of many.
This method that has been common within Mormon specific films and teaching over the last many decades has worked very well to ingrain an image of Jesus to Mormon church members. They have now moved to this stage of incrementally depicting a slightly modified version of Jesus to the masses, and Christians are blindly gobbling it up.
One of the groomsmen in my wedding (a Mormon of course) is one of the top people at Angel Studios. They create many of the Mormon-specific films as well. It is all incremental deceptions with a pre-planned end-goal. The incremental morphing and slight changes in the message of Christ will continue over time.
This take is only slightly less misguided than Jenkins.
But whatever floats your boat, you sad Catholic / Mormon apologist
The view of the 2nd commandment that rejects all depictions of divinity is certainly based on sound exegesis.
No words are inserted.
Exodus 20:4
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:”
We are not to make any graven image is the clear teaching of the text. God commands the making of images not representing divinity so this clearly applied to divinity and not all things.
The Israelites saw no manner of similitude lest they corrupt themselves and make graven images. If God accepted the making of images of himself then he would have shown a similitude of himself.
Deuteronomy 4:15-18
15Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: 16Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, 18The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:
The idea that sinful man can create a representation of the infinite perfect holy God and it be acceptable is absurd. Depictions of Jesus can never be accurate so the idea that Jesus wants to be inaccurately depicted is crazy. Having an inaccurate/false representation of Jesus is a violation of the 9th commandment.
Well, since the Catholics excised the 2nd Commandment from THEIR list of good ideas from Moses, it’s not surprising he would fabricate this stance. Given the abhorrent presentation of Jesus they promulgate, holding up someone as a representative of God is among the least of their issues
And yet, here we (humankind) are… “bearing the divine image.”
Image of God not crafted by hands of men. Indeed.
“Using his logic and reasoning, however, there would be nothing wrong with Christians creating an image of Jesus the Son or God the Father depicting him as a golden calf, so long as it’s not worshiped or bowed down to.”
It’s almost as if the Son of God wasn’t incarnated into a cow 🤔
If the second commandment is a blanket prohibition against the creation of any sort of image, then why did God, immediately after giving such a command, then provide Moses with instructions to create images of the cherubim for the tabernacle/ark of the covenant. Taking Bauchman’s interpretation is a clear case of the same sort of error as the Pharisees of Jesus’ own day, a legalism which condemns the innocent by adding to God’s word, claiming to uphold the letter while violating the spirit.
Your view seems to be designed to give permission to Joseph Smith and others to fashion a new version of Jesus according to their own imagination, and to present this new version of Jesus to others as Joseph Smith and Dallas Jenkins did.
How very convenient. The fear of God is not a factor among some. We should err on the side of a stricter reading of the second commandment rather than erring by becoming flagrantly dismissive toward this command of God… at least for actual followers of the biblical Christ. People who create their own have fashioned an idol… a blasphemous one as well.
I think I’m going to leave this here as a good reminder as to when somebody blanket states that “Mormon theology isn’t influencing The Chosen” that they better actually know what they’re talking about instead of admitting multiple times for months that they’ve never seen it.
https://youtu.be/UFBkdLHlMzE