The director and creator of The Chosen’s popular Christian series has addressed the controversy sparked by an LGBT pride flag spotted on set.
Speaking to The Christian Post, Dallas Jenkins said the team had always been clear that there was no “religious or political litmus test” to anyone working for the show.
“We are not a church in which all of our employees are going to fit under one particular mission statement, one particular belief system,” he continued.
The controversy was sparked by an article published by The Daily Wire, which run a picture of a crew member’s small, hand-sized pride flag displayed on a piece of equipment. The flag can be seen in the series’ latest promotional video for about four seconds.
The news outlet later apologised for the publication.
Jenkins continued: “We made a decision from the beginning that our standard is going to be: Will you work hard? And of course, if someone's harming someone else, or if someone's vulgar, obviously, that's not a place for any professional environment.
“But when it comes to their personal belief systems, or what they want to wear or whatever, we're not going to do what we've seen other people do, where sometimes you'll see a Christian not allowed to wear a hat or express themselves or put a sticker on their desk that expresses their beliefs. And we always think that that's unfortunate when an employer does something like that. We're not going to do the same in reverse.”
The series tells the story of Jesus and is funded by its fans. It has garnered over 500 million episode views.
