A retired Bible-study teacher struggled to find Christian videos that felt authentic, with believable acting and period-appropriate presentation. She discovered a television series about Jesus and his disciples and found it unexpectedly immersive, with diverse casting and delayed appearances of Jesus. The story emphasized Mary Magdalene’s distress and the complexity of first-century life, including dietary laws and cultural details. After watching, she and her husband returned to their Bibles and discussed their faith late into the night. During 2021, the series became a shared companion through church group viewings, online discussions, and episode study guides. Access required a proprietary app, so she distributed QR-code cards to help others find it.
"For years, Karla Cameron, a retired Dr Pepper executive in Georgia, taught Bible-study classes to teen-agers, a task that became more challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic. She wanted to show videos to her students, but most of the Biblical movies she found had cheesy writing, bad acting, and costumes with visible zippers. One day, she learned about a new television program that told the story of Jesus and his disciples. It was called "The Chosen," and blog posts praised the show for its authenticity and its humanity."
"That evening, Cameron and her husband put on the first episode. It was not at all what she had expected. Many of the actors were not white, and Jesus didn't appear until the end of the episode. Instead, the focus was on a frantic and demon-possessed Mary Magdalene, played by Elizabeth Tabish; the show intimated that she'd been sexually assaulted by a Roman soldier. The first-century world felt, to Cameron, lived in and at times confounding."
"In the course of 2021, "The Chosen" became a kind of companion for Cameron. Her daughter, who had been crazy about "Game of Thrones," had begged to go to Iceland to visit filming locations. Now Cameron understood the lure of fandom. She recruited the members of her Tuesday-evening church meeting to watch the show, and led discussions after. She joined Facebook groups where people matched plot points to Bible verses, and she posted a scriptural study guide for each episode."
"The show wasn't yet available on any of the major streaming platforms-you had to watch it on a proprietary app-so she printed out cards with a QR code to help people find it. "The Chosen," then in its second seaso"
Read at The New Yorker
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