A ‘friendship recession’?

This February the phenomenon that is the streaming show The Chosen has hit cinemas again, with the first two episodes of Series Four showing us more of Jesus and His disciples.

Director Dallas Jenkins hopes that watching will be a shared experience for many of us, encouraging people to ‘get together during a time that’s very divisive’. This new series is a step up in many ways – more focused, more confident storytelling, and more compelling with its mix of light and dark, sorrow and humour, faith and frustration.

The Chosen has been lauded for highlighting the roles of women in the life of Jesus, and its lead women are worth watching. But as the disciples continue to grow, learn and live together, the portrayal of friendship, in particular male friendship, is powerful.

We see Jesus’ humanity clearly through His humour, His hunger, and His growing sense of burden at all that is to come; here He becomes more the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Meanwhile, His disciples warmonger and argue round the fire about their own status. But as He loves them, they learn to love each other better, and to better understand what it means to be in relationship, to be brothers.

We are told by surveys and research that men are in a ‘friendship recession’, with numbers of those who have close friends falling. More books on male friendship are now being published, like Sheridan Voysey’s Friendship Lab Project and Phil Knox’s book The Best of Friends. We want church to be a place where we can form ‘sweet friendships [that] refresh the soul’ (Prov. 27). The Chosen’s modern take on the greatest story ever told provides a model of men who are enjoying brotherly love and banter, with backslapping and some impressive biceps, but who are also becoming vulnerable with each other as they continue to wrestle with anger, despair, guilt and more.

'...brotherly love, camaraderie. We see that in sports, but it’s good to see that in art as well.’

Noah James, who plays the disciple Andrew, said to en: ‘I think we are used to this view that we can’t show vulnerability around other men, we can’t show our love for other men in that way. No! Human nature is that we love each other. I’m so thankful that the show shows that friendship can be like that – brotherly love, camaraderie. We see that in sports, but it’s good to see that in art as well.’

Simon Peter’s struggle to forgive, learn compassion and manage his own anger, are seen as he steps up into a greater leadership role. Shahar Isaac, who plays Simon Peter, spoke to en about what the show teaches men about processing anger: ‘If you open your eyes and look, you see everyone is dealing with their own things and then you stop thinking that they’re trying to hurt you.

‘Simon is stopping to think only about himself, and instead starting to take a leadership role and look at the others. And once you do that, it deepens your empathy and compassion and softens you.’

Friendships are not always easy, and they may require an investment of time; the disciples learn about themselves and each other as they follow Jesus. But we are called to live in community, to be part of a wider church, however hard that might sometimes feel.

The Chosen is an incredible resource – it brings the Gospels to screens, with a focus on Biblical accuracy. There is some artistic licence taken, to create characters and a narrative that draws the viewer in. The attention to detail around aspects of Jewish culture and faith bring the Bible stories to life in a new way. It also shows us a very human man in Jesus, who knows love and loss, fear and frustration, and loves His friends even as they mess up time and time again.

There is much here for those of us of faith – but alongside the chance to encounter a version of Christ on screen, there is also a compelling story about faith and friendship. We are called to have faith in Jesus, but also to have faith in His gift of friendship to help us follow Him as best we can. And as we grow more like Christ, maybe even to have more faith in each other.