JE - PEOPLE-FILES
JE: |
Amanda Jenkins |
Jack Jenkins |
Cal Jernigan |
Brad Jersak |
Kevin Jessup |
Skye Jethani |
Russell Jeung |
Ezra Jin |
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==amanda jenkins======
Amanda Jenkins
Amanda Jenkins is an acclaimed American Christian author, speaker, and the lead content creator for the extra literary material for the hit historical drama series The Chosen. She is married to Dallas Jenkins, the creator and director of the series. Amanda holds a degree in Biblical Studies and Communications from Northwestern Bible College. She leverages her background to bridge the gap between media and deep scriptural study. She leads the creation of all auxiliary written content for The Chosen, including official devotionals, companion books, and children's books. Alongside co-writers like Doug Huffman, she develops targeted seasonal Bible study guides (such as God's Goodness for the Chosen and The Stronghold of the Chosen) to help viewers transition from watching the show to directly engaging with scripture. Before her work on the show, she published several books, including her widely recognized memoir Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist, which explores her personal struggles with perfectionism and vanity. Her books are widely distributed through publishers like BroadStreet Publishing and available on platforms like Amazon. Amanda and Dallas Jenkins have been married since June 1998 and share four children. In late 2025, Amanda was diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently underwent a double mastectomy. She has been recovering well and has spoken openly about finding faith amidst health crises. Her daughter, Maya, has suffered from a painful, chronic condition known as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) for nearly a decade. Amanda’s personal hardships deeply influenced the themes of grief and suffering embedded in Seasons 4 and 5 of The Chosen. She frequently speaks on how real-world pain has forced her to seek God through desperate honesty rather than superficial platitudes.
Christian Devotional Books: 10 Faith-Based Daily Companions
God's Goodness for the Chosen by Amanda Jenkins: Amanda Jenkins has teamed up with her husband Dallas Jenkins, director and founder of the hit Christian TV show The Chosen, on a powerful devotional guidebook! This interactive eight-lesson Bible study follows each new episode of Season 4 of The Chosen. The book's lessons cover Scripture-based themes seen on the show - like overcoming grief, releasing pain and trusting in the fullness of God's plan. The study helps remind readers that even amid uncertainty, God can turn difficulties into joy and use hardships as a rich soil to grow goodness and hope. (MSN 7/2/24) READ MORE>>>>>
God's Goodness for the Chosen by Amanda Jenkins: Amanda Jenkins has teamed up with her husband Dallas Jenkins, director and founder of the hit Christian TV show The Chosen, on a powerful devotional guidebook! This interactive eight-lesson Bible study follows each new episode of Season 4 of The Chosen. The book's lessons cover Scripture-based themes seen on the show - like overcoming grief, releasing pain and trusting in the fullness of God's plan. The study helps remind readers that even amid uncertainty, God can turn difficulties into joy and use hardships as a rich soil to grow goodness and hope. (MSN 7/2/24) READ MORE>>>>>
==jack jenkins======
Oct 21, 2022: Religion News: Best In Religion Journalism: Religion News Association Presents Its Annual Awards
Among the highlights:
Other big winners included Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Large Newspapers and Wire Services, Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Small-to-Mid-sized Newspapers and PJ Grisar of The Forward for Excellence in Religion Feature Writing.
Among the highlights:
Other big winners included Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Large Newspapers and Wire Services, Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Small-to-Mid-sized Newspapers and PJ Grisar of The Forward for Excellence in Religion Feature Writing.
==cal jernigan======
April 20, 2023: Roys Report: IL Megachurch Pastor Who Resigned Amid Scandal Launches Online Ministry
Meanwhile, Mike Baker helped Caleb get a fresh start and a new job at Arizona megachurch Central Christian Church (CCC). According to CCC Pastor Cal Jernigan, the elder Baker told him that someone had made an accusation against Caleb Baker, but that it was unfounded.
Meanwhile, Mike Baker helped Caleb get a fresh start and a new job at Arizona megachurch Central Christian Church (CCC). According to CCC Pastor Cal Jernigan, the elder Baker told him that someone had made an accusation against Caleb Baker, but that it was unfounded.
March 3, 2023: Christian Post: Eastview Christian Church pastor resigns after son is fired from Central Christian Church for adultery
Mike Baker, the longtime senior pastor of Eastview Christian Church in Illinois, has resigned from the megachurch weeks after his son, Caleb Baker, was fired from his job as a pastor at Central Christian Church after he was caught in an extramarital affair with another church staffer.
“Caleb Baker, our lead student pastor and associate preaching pastor has been involved in an extramarital relationship for the past six months. And it involved a woman on our staff,” Cal Jernigan, lead pastor of Central Christian Church in Phoenix, Arizona, told his congregation near the end of his sermon at the megachurch on Feb. 19.
Mike Baker, the longtime senior pastor of Eastview Christian Church in Illinois, has resigned from the megachurch weeks after his son, Caleb Baker, was fired from his job as a pastor at Central Christian Church after he was caught in an extramarital affair with another church staffer.
“Caleb Baker, our lead student pastor and associate preaching pastor has been involved in an extramarital relationship for the past six months. And it involved a woman on our staff,” Cal Jernigan, lead pastor of Central Christian Church in Phoenix, Arizona, told his congregation near the end of his sermon at the megachurch on Feb. 19.
==brad jersak======
Rene Lafaut
Brad Jersak’s book called, Can You Hear Me? (Copyright Permissions granted) Gives a working model on how the imagination works and is very helpful in taking healthy control of it. He views the imagination as an interior screen that we use to project images on. We can project good images with the help of God. Or bad images with the help of the devil. On the contrary, we can conceive a mixture of the two when we have a divided hearts. Initially, we hold the power over what we project or imagine. But if we give ourselves over to darkness in an area, then what is imagined takes on bad energy and can hurt others, self, and be very unwelcome by God. The more we believe in the bad constructs of our imaginations, the more they will lock in our expectations, desires and judgments. They will create an unhealthy faulty reality in our interior lives. Once the structures are created via our imaginations they make their presence felt in our hearts and minds as powerful forces for good or evil. But we can sense the pursuit of the Good Shepherd and His call on our lives. We can begin to see some of the created structures as unwelcome and begin to petition God to dismantle them from within our lives. Because we often don’t know how to pray, repent, and renew our minds correctly we can feel stuck in this area. So how do we clean up our imaginations and what they make us do? In conclusion, we in part get healthy imaginations through confessing to God the sins we create through them. Next, we repent in prayer from these sins with God’s help. Then we begin to renew our thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and attitudes in conversations with God, His Word, and close sisters and brothers in Jesus. When we imagine good stuff God joyfully enters into the process. When we imagine evil stuff the devil enters into the power of our imaginations. And he robs us of the joys the imagination was intended to be. --Rene Lafaut; Christian Learning; Have You Ever Overlooked Cleaning Up a Dirty Mind? 1/20/21
==kevin jessup======
Jan 23, 2023: New Republic: The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right
A final point on the politics of Spirit Warrior Christianity: It is an easy fit for those who wish to dismantle democracy and entrench minority rule. Election denialism and other conspiracies find a comfortable home in the paranoid mindset of spiritual warfare in a demon-haunted world. An organizer of the Jericho March that preceded the attack on the Capitol of January 6, Robert Weaver, stated that God wanted Americans to march around “the spiritual walls of this country.” The Reverend Kevin Jessup, who spoke at the event, said, “This battle cry is a Christian call to all Christian men … as we prepare for a strategic gathering of men in this hour to dispel the Kingdom of Darkness.” Father Greg Bramlage, who conducted an exorcism on stage, told the crowd, “We are in a spiritual battle, this cannot be solved by human means” and prayed that “no demonic bondage, door, entity, portal, astral projection, or disembodied spirit may enter this space.” Bishop Leon Benjamin, senior pastor of Richmond, Virginia’s New Life Harvest Church, said, “The demons we kill now, our children will not have to fight these devils. These are our devils, and we will kill them now.” NAR leadership networks served as key mobilizers.
A final point on the politics of Spirit Warrior Christianity: It is an easy fit for those who wish to dismantle democracy and entrench minority rule. Election denialism and other conspiracies find a comfortable home in the paranoid mindset of spiritual warfare in a demon-haunted world. An organizer of the Jericho March that preceded the attack on the Capitol of January 6, Robert Weaver, stated that God wanted Americans to march around “the spiritual walls of this country.” The Reverend Kevin Jessup, who spoke at the event, said, “This battle cry is a Christian call to all Christian men … as we prepare for a strategic gathering of men in this hour to dispel the Kingdom of Darkness.” Father Greg Bramlage, who conducted an exorcism on stage, told the crowd, “We are in a spiritual battle, this cannot be solved by human means” and prayed that “no demonic bondage, door, entity, portal, astral projection, or disembodied spirit may enter this space.” Bishop Leon Benjamin, senior pastor of Richmond, Virginia’s New Life Harvest Church, said, “The demons we kill now, our children will not have to fight these devils. These are our devils, and we will kill them now.” NAR leadership networks served as key mobilizers.
==skye jethani======
Skye Jethani (MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is an award-winning author, former pastor, and speaker. He is cohost of the popular Holy Post podcast, with over 600,000 downloads per month. Jethani has written numerous books, including the What If Jesus Was Serious? series, and served for more than a decade in numerous editorial and executive roles at Christianity Today. He also writes a daily devotional called With God Daily.
"The “church” is the community of God’s redeemed and empowered people. The church institution and its leaders exists to equip God’s people. God’s people do not exist to equip the institution. Ministry is not what we do within the church institution, but what we do to manifest the reign of Christ in the world".
--Skye Jethani
--Skye Jethani
The first clue that Jesus’s map of heaven is different from ours is found in the word itself. The Hebrew word for “heaven” in the Old Testament is shamayim, and the Greek word in the New Testament is ouranos. Both words are plural and are usually accompanied by a definite article. Therefore, they should more accurately be translated into English as “the heavens.” This means, according to the Bible, heaven is not a single place or a proper name, and we should not speak about heaven as a singular location the way we speak about London, Wrigley Field, or even something as vast as the Pacific Ocean.
The ancient cultures that shaped the Bible, and to which Jesus belonged, understood “the heavens” to be a vast realm surrounding the earth. First, they spoke of the heavens when referring to the sky or atmosphere. When Jesus said “the birds of the air,” the actual language he used was “the birds of the heavens” (Matt. 6:26). The heavens are also where the celestial bodies abide—the sun, moon, and stars. Modern people distinguish between the atmosphere and outer space, but ancient cultures did not. Therefore, the heavens were simply everything in the air and above the earth.
“The heavens” also carried another important meaning in the ancient world. It referred to the dwelling place of God. The heavens are the invisible, intangible realm occupied by the Lord and his hosts. When this meaning is intended, our English Bibles will often ignore the plural Hebrew or Greek word and use the singular instead. For example, Isaiah 66:1 is translated as “This is what the Lord says: ‘Heaven is my throne.’” When modern people read this verse with our mental map, it conjures images of God occupying a celestial city far away from the earth. But in Hebrew the verse says, “The heavens are my throne.” The Lord is saying that he occupies the air/sky/atmosphere immediately surrounding us. Unfortunately, most of our translations of the Bible do not help us grasp this more immediate and accessible vision of God’s heavenly presence.
The reason is simple. Our modern scientific knowledge has influenced how we translate these ancient texts. We want to differentiate the natural realm of the atmosphere from the supernatural realm of the spirits. Therefore, our English Bibles will say birds, clouds, thunder, or rain occupy “the air” but that God and his angels occupy “heaven,” when all of these verses actually use the same plural word—“the heavens.” By imposing our mental map of heaven onto the Bible, we obscure or erase the mental map of the biblical writers and of Jesus himself. Instead, we come to believe that heaven is a distant place accessible only after death and that God could not possibly be as near as the air filling our lungs.
The implications of this, as Dallas Willard notes, are a warped understanding of God, his kingdom, and the message of Jesus. “The damage done to our practical faith in Christ and in his government-at-hand by confusing heaven with a place in distant outer space, or even beyond space, is incalculable. Of course, God is there too. But instead of heaven and God also being always present with us, as Jesus shows them to be, we invariably take them to be located far away and, most likely, at a much later time—not here and not now.”
READ MORE: Acts 2:42–47; Ephesians 2:11–22
Content taken from What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven? by Skye Jethani, ©2023. Used by permission of Brazos Press.
The ancient cultures that shaped the Bible, and to which Jesus belonged, understood “the heavens” to be a vast realm surrounding the earth. First, they spoke of the heavens when referring to the sky or atmosphere. When Jesus said “the birds of the air,” the actual language he used was “the birds of the heavens” (Matt. 6:26). The heavens are also where the celestial bodies abide—the sun, moon, and stars. Modern people distinguish between the atmosphere and outer space, but ancient cultures did not. Therefore, the heavens were simply everything in the air and above the earth.
“The heavens” also carried another important meaning in the ancient world. It referred to the dwelling place of God. The heavens are the invisible, intangible realm occupied by the Lord and his hosts. When this meaning is intended, our English Bibles will often ignore the plural Hebrew or Greek word and use the singular instead. For example, Isaiah 66:1 is translated as “This is what the Lord says: ‘Heaven is my throne.’” When modern people read this verse with our mental map, it conjures images of God occupying a celestial city far away from the earth. But in Hebrew the verse says, “The heavens are my throne.” The Lord is saying that he occupies the air/sky/atmosphere immediately surrounding us. Unfortunately, most of our translations of the Bible do not help us grasp this more immediate and accessible vision of God’s heavenly presence.
The reason is simple. Our modern scientific knowledge has influenced how we translate these ancient texts. We want to differentiate the natural realm of the atmosphere from the supernatural realm of the spirits. Therefore, our English Bibles will say birds, clouds, thunder, or rain occupy “the air” but that God and his angels occupy “heaven,” when all of these verses actually use the same plural word—“the heavens.” By imposing our mental map of heaven onto the Bible, we obscure or erase the mental map of the biblical writers and of Jesus himself. Instead, we come to believe that heaven is a distant place accessible only after death and that God could not possibly be as near as the air filling our lungs.
The implications of this, as Dallas Willard notes, are a warped understanding of God, his kingdom, and the message of Jesus. “The damage done to our practical faith in Christ and in his government-at-hand by confusing heaven with a place in distant outer space, or even beyond space, is incalculable. Of course, God is there too. But instead of heaven and God also being always present with us, as Jesus shows them to be, we invariably take them to be located far away and, most likely, at a much later time—not here and not now.”
READ MORE: Acts 2:42–47; Ephesians 2:11–22
Content taken from What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven? by Skye Jethani, ©2023. Used by permission of Brazos Press.
==russell jeung======
'Threat to democracy' or media phantom? Christian nationalism debate takes violent turn
Russell Jeung, a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and speaker on the Evangelicals for Harris call, told AP that the group doesn’t “agree with everything that Harris stands for” and that evangelicals can “hold the party accountable by being involved.” Others on the call noted they would use their vote to pressure Harris on issues where they disagreed, with Latina evangelical activist Sandra Maria Van Opstal saying she’d push the potential Harris administration “to do better on Palestine-Israel and do better on immigration.”
(Seattle Times 9/19/24) READ MORE>>>>>
Russell Jeung, a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and speaker on the Evangelicals for Harris call, told AP that the group doesn’t “agree with everything that Harris stands for” and that evangelicals can “hold the party accountable by being involved.” Others on the call noted they would use their vote to pressure Harris on issues where they disagreed, with Latina evangelical activist Sandra Maria Van Opstal saying she’d push the potential Harris administration “to do better on Palestine-Israel and do better on immigration.”
(Seattle Times 9/19/24) READ MORE>>>>>
==ezra jin======
Ezra Jin (also known as Jin Mingri) is the founder and pastor of the Zion Church of Beijing, one of China's largest and most prominent independent Protestant house churches. He is known for his leadership of this large, unregistered church network and his advocacy for religious freedom, which has led to ongoing persecution by Chinese authorities. He is based in Beijing, China, though he was recently detained in Beihai. He is a graduate of Peking University and Fuller Theological Seminary, Jin converted to Christianity after witnessing the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent crackdown. He initially served in an official state-sanctioned church before founding the independent Zion Church in 2007. The Chinese government shut down the physical building of Zion Church in 2018 and placed Jin under house arrest and an exit ban, preventing him from joining his wife and children who are U.S. citizens. In October 2025, Chinese authorities detained Pastor Jin and dozens of other church members and staff in a coordinated, nationwide crackdown on the church network. He is currently facing charges related to "disseminating illegal information online". His detention has prompted international calls for his release from U.S. government officials and human rights organizations, who view his case as a significant example of religious suppression in China.
Pastors and staff from underground church are arrested in China
A Christian pastor and father of U.S. citizens along with dozens of church staff and members have been arrested in China amid a crackdown, his daughter and the church say. Ezra Jin, founder and pastor of Zion Church, a large "underground house church" with congregations across China, was arrested Friday while at his home Beihai in the country's Guangxi region, his daughter Grace Jin Drexel told NPR. "It's been extremely shocking and … very scary for our family," Jin Drexel said. "But we also have faith in the Lord and we know that he [Ezra Jin] is doing God's work." (NPR 10/12/25) READMORE>>>>
A Christian pastor and father of U.S. citizens along with dozens of church staff and members have been arrested in China amid a crackdown, his daughter and the church say. Ezra Jin, founder and pastor of Zion Church, a large "underground house church" with congregations across China, was arrested Friday while at his home Beihai in the country's Guangxi region, his daughter Grace Jin Drexel told NPR. "It's been extremely shocking and … very scary for our family," Jin Drexel said. "But we also have faith in the Lord and we know that he [Ezra Jin] is doing God's work." (NPR 10/12/25) READMORE>>>>
