“The Chosen” can be a dividing show amongst the faithful, with some claiming the show’s excellent production value, moving storylines, and loveable characters makes it the perfect vehicle for inspiring interest in the Bible. Others, however, have grave concerns that some of the creative licenses the showrunners have taken give the wrong idea about the true Biblical account.

Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus, however, has no questions about the show’s effectiveness. “Every so often, I randomly go through DMs on Instagram, for instance, because that’s the platform I’m most active on and I just randomly will just pick – I pick two different people and both of these people that wrote to me, happened to have been lifelong atheists and never had any interest in God,” Roumie told the hosts of “The View.” “And somehow, somebody sent them the show and all of a sudden it’s like that first episode just kind of grabs hold of you. And if God wants to, He will find you. He will follow you. He will go after you.”

Roumie went on the detail the progression of these two atheists’ move toward faith. “Through the process of the show, they became interested in the Bible and then they started going to the church and they had both converted to Christianity,” said Roumie. “Lifelong atheists. To me, that’s remarkable.”

Roumie said that his own faith, as a Catholic, informs his depiction of Christ. “I don’t think it would have the same kind of authenticity. I think what I bring to the role is my relationship to Christ, is my relationship with Jesus, and my love for him,” he told them. “And so, by taking on his love for humanity and trying to recreate that, it’s made me a better person. It’s made me want to love people.”

The upcoming season sixth could be the toughest one yet for Roumie as it deals with the crucifixion. “And so it’s not just the physicality of recreating that, it’s the emotional impact that that has, it’s the mental, the psychological impact of entering into Christ’s crucifixion and his torture, that once you participate in that, and I asked God to allow me some sense of what that would be like, and He didn’t disappoint,” he said. :And it’s something that I’m still actively processing right now.” In an Instagram post, Roumie opened up about the difficulty of the upcoming season. “I’d be lying if I said it’s ‘business as usual’. Or easy. Or ‘fun scenes to film.’ It’s not. It’s heavy. It’s humbling. And it’s holy,” he wrote. “But in preparation for, and amidst this profound responsibility, I’ll be uniting myself more intentionally to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the very heart that broke for us.”