Dallas Jenkins is a writer, producer, and director, best known as the mind behind The Chosen, the popular TV series depicting the life of Jesus. What you may not know about Jenkins is his story of overcoming pornography, and the role that Covenant Eyes and personal accountability have played in his personal journey.
Our podcast team had a conversation with Jenkins, and he shared what he called his “Covenant Eyes story.”
How He Fell Into the Pornography Trap
Dallas Jenkins told us:
“For most of my life, I lived in a pretty sheltered environment. I was protected from pornography, you know, I just didn’t have much access to it.”
“The first time I discovered that I was at a Christian college. I was a teacher’s assistant. I was in his office and browsing the Internet and I’m realizing you can go down this path that’s unending and no one knows.”
“I remember the first time I spent like 5 hours just unending looking at pornography on the Internet.”
His experience isn’t unusual. Many Christians struggle with porn.
How Porn Impacted His Marriage
Pornography hurt Dallas’s marriage. He explained:
“Now, fast forward two years later, it wasn’t a daily obsession, an addiction for me. But it was something that when I had the opportunity and when it was on my mind, I struggled with it. And I eventually got caught.”
“It was very damaging to my wife, of course. She never understood how this could be something that I could struggle with or that a spouse could struggle with while still loving their wife and still loving God.”
“For her, it was an all or nothing thing. How could you love me and how could we have a healthy sex life? I guess I’m finding out that we don’t in fact, love each other like I thought we did. And our sex life must not be healthy.”
“All of this was just completely a shock to the system.”
How Covenant Eyes Helped
Dallas Jenkins explained how Covenant Eyes helped him overcome pornography:
“Covenant Eyes was the thing at the time—I don’t remember how I discovered it. Someone you trust in, love is also going to see what you’re doing. That’s as close as it gets to knowing that God is watching what you’re doing.”
“It instantly made such a huge difference and a weight was lifted from me. In many ways, guardrails can make you feel even more free. That’s what I felt with Covenant Eyes. I could be on the Internet and know that my heart wasn’t at risk of stepping outside of God’s will for me.”
He went on to explain the freedom of being accountable:
“And now I can feel free to be less fearful. I used to sometimes get online and go, ‘All right, Dallas, don’t get tempted. Don’t get tempted. Focus on sports. Focus on your work. Don’t get tempted.’ And it was just so easy for me to fall back into it. Having Covenant Eyes gave me these guardrails that allowed me to actually feel more free.”
Getting to the Root
Even with Covenant Eyes, that wasn’t the end of the struggle. He shared:
“I had a relapse and devastated my marriage again. And I was like, ‘All right, I can’t do this again. I have to really get at the root of it.’”
“The root of it was narcissism: focusing on results and affirmation. Ultimately, it led to my career failing. I’ve got to focus on pleasing God and being in God’s will, not on the results.”
As vital accountability is to overcome porn, it’s also important to understand the root causes that draw you to porn in the first place. Check out our article, Why People Watch Porn.
“That is where God said, ‘All right, now you’re ready for The Chosen.’ And so the journey is a combination of Covenant Eyes along with this biblical principle that God gave me through a stranger and really ultimately changed my life and changed my heart and I’m a different person than I was.”
Being Accountable in All of Life
For Dallas Jenkins, being accountable isn’t just about having the Covenant Eyes app on his phone and computer.
“Covenant Eyes isn’t designed to help you with your, you know, your fitness, for example. But the principles of it, I do think, apply to getting your heart right. When it comes to your quiet time, when it comes to your health and fitness, when it comes to your relationships with others, when it comes to my marriage, I have lots of things that fall under the category of accountability. We are meant to be in relationship.”
He continued:
“God gives us people. Throughout Scripture, you see how often God put someone in someone’s life, either as a mentor or as a friend, to again, remind them of those guardrails and to confront them when they step out of it.”
Replacing the Bad with Good
Jenkins went on to talk about how it’s not enough to try to eliminate bad habits. You need to replace them with something positive.
“There are some people who have addictions, some people who have chemical imbalances. But the majority of it is habits. It’s poor habits that may be spurred on by something in your childhood, maybe spurred on by some of your proclivities and your DNA. But at some point along the way developed a habit.”
The book The Power of Habit was important for developing his understanding of this process, and how you can use habits to break free.
“And what The Power of Habit talks about is cue, response, and reward. And so what happens with pornography is we’re cued by something, whether it’s lust or seeing someone in public or something popping up on your computer or, you know, nighttime. For a lot of guys, you know, it’s just nighttime. We’re alone.”
“All these things can trigger this desire for something that’s going to give us a certain amount of pleasure. So then what’s your response to that? You need to replace at least one of those three things to create a new habit.”
How can Christians replace bad habits like porn, with better habits? Jenkins points to positive entertainment options, like The Chosen.
“The Chosen is in many ways my desire to replace in people’s lives the entertainment factor, because so often we’re entertained by the best creators, the most creative people in the world tend to come from Hollywood with their message, their dopamine hits that they want to provide you. And they are not godly, they are not biblical. I’m talking about the projects and so The Chosen can be and hopefully lead to other projects like this.”
Using the Available Tools
Dallas Jenkins concluded his conversation talking about tools that can help people on their journey—whether it’s Covenant Eyes or The Chosen.
“You know, I desperately hope people will use Covenant Eyes, use it well to its fullest extent while recognizing that Covenant Eyes isn’t everything. It doesn’t solve the heart problem. It can just be a tremendous tool—but use it.”
“The Chosen is similar. It’s not the end game. It’s not everything. It is not a replacement for the Bible, just like Covenant Eyes isn’t a replacement for the Holy Spirit work. But it is a tool that can be used to bring you closer to Christ. And so I do hope that you’ll check out both things and look them up.”
Want to hear the full interview? Check it out here.
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