Dallas Jenkins has garnered international acclaim for The Chosen — but he’s actually the son of a famous author, who also wrote an incredibly controversial Christian novel.
Jenkins’ star is rising, with The Chosen Season 5 in production and Season 4 finally coming to streaming, not to mention a host of spinoffs in development for years to come.
While the show’s creator isn’t a fan of the “faith-based” label, it’s hard to deny that the genre is growing increasingly popular; The Hill, based on the true story of baseball player Rickey Hill, dominated Netflix’s chart earlier this year, while Season 4 amassed nearly $30 million in box office receipts.
You could say his knack for Christian entertainment runs in the family: his dad is Jerry B. Jenkins, the co-architect behind the Left Behind franchise alongside Tim LaHaye.
The original 1995 novel had a simple premise (at least from the outset): taking place during the Rapture (an end-times event in which dead and alive Christians rise into heaven), it follows what happens to the non-believers who are… you guessed it, left behind.
This was the first of 16 books, and it’s considered the most successful series in Christian publishing. However, it’s not without controversy: some have accused it of being anti-Catholic, its dispensationalist outlook (in the simplest terms, it takes a very literal view of Bible prophecy, as opposed to interpretation) isn’t widely held, and others feel it sensationalizes the apocalypse.
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That’s before we get to LaHaye, who branded homosexuals “militant, organized” and “vile” in 1978’s What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality (originally titled The Unhappy Gays) and endorsed the conspiracy theory that the Illuminati is pulling the strings behind the world’s events. He died in July 2016.
Jenkins hasn’t been the subject of any backlashes like that. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he even admitted that he thinks The Chosen has overtaken Left Behind in terms of cultural impact.
“Somebody asked me recently when I thought The Chosen would surpass Left Behind in its impact. That ship sailed a long time ago. The funny thing is Dallas used to be known as ‘Jerry Jenkins son.’ I’m now known as ‘Dallas Jenkins father.’ May it ever be so,” he said.
If you’re a fan, find out if there will be a Left Behind 3. We’ve also got everything you need to know about how to watch The Chosen Season 4 on streaming, why you should buy it on DVD, and breakdowns of The Chosen’s cast and filming locations.
