Brandon Kimber Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Show Introduction and Guest Background

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth.

And for those of you that listen, I think that Baker's dozen or so of those of you that listen, you know that the program is pretty simple. Sundays, I've been preaching through Hebrews, so we play that sermon on Mondays.

Tuesdays, I talk to my associate pastor about issues in the local church. Thursdays, I usually talk about Jesus in the book of Hebrews. Fridays, sometimes we critique people. But on the Wednesday shows, I like to have authors and theologians and other people who are in ministry and like to bounce ideas off of them and see what the Lord is doing through them.

And so today is no different. Although, I think this could be the first filmmaker I have, the first person who is on the International Movie Database, Brandon Kimber. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. Thank you for having me, Mike.

Did you, have you gone to your IMB deal and take a look and see how they've done? I check it every once in a while. Okay. Well, normally when I want to see a movie, I go to that website and scroll down for profanity or, you know, how much nudity or whatever.

And so I think if I scroll through Christ Alone or Christ Crucified, American Gospel, that'll probably be a pretty small segment, right? It'll be the empty set.

Yeah. I think Netflix gave it a G rating, but it does mention drug abuse, suicide, and I can't remember the other thing.

Well, I'm not really wanting to talk to you about ratings, although it's interesting because you're in filmmaking. I was watching some of the background stuff for Planet of the Apes in 1968. And I'm surprised when I watched a few of the scenes that they gave it a G rating, but that's beside the point.

How American Gospel Began and Why It Was Made

So you and I met each other in Cleveland, I'm guessing two or three years ago, there was a conference there and we met each other and you were, were you working on the first American Gospel movie at the time, Christ Alone?

Was that what was going on?

Yes, correct. So that was probably 2017 or 2018, I'm thinking. I started working on this, I think in 2015, so.

Okay, well, what I wanna do today, cause you've been interviewed by quite a few people and the other day I was on the bicycle and I listened to the White Horse Inn interview. People try to come across from a different perspective, but I want people who are my, who listen to No Compromise Radio to be able to watch both Christ Alone and Christ Crucified, excellent movies, documentaries, I don't know the official title of the American Gospel.

And Brandon, are you the director, writer, producer? What do you call yourself when people discuss the movie?

Well, I mean, I wear a lot of hats. I edited, you know, overall you can say creator. Essentially, it's a passion project that my boss gave me permission to do. And so, you know, the research and everything is all from me, kind of based on experience that I had growing up in church and just wanted to make that into a film.

So my question now is, after your boss, I'm assuming a secular company, gives you permission to do this movie, what has been his or her response after both of these movies? Have they been watched by them?

Are they Christian people? If they're not Christian people, what has been the response? I'm sure there's an interesting story in there somewhere.

Yeah, so when I first met my boss, my first impression was that he was a nominal Christian and his own admission would say things like, he would say that he doesn't live it out, but he believes he had some experience similar to mine.

And he had a lot of negative experience in that. And I would say maybe walked away from the church. So when I started working for that company, we started having conversations about this. And, you know, I started sending him some sermons and, you know, this continued until this idea for this project of American Gospel came up.

He, of the films, says that he's learned a lot in attending that church that we both met each other at in Olmsted Falls. So he's now attending church again. And I think it's had a very positive faith, definitely.

What's the pastor's name there?

Really a nice guy. I appreciate him a lot at Olmsted Falls.

Yeah. And the, what's that?

Yeah, I remember him, his face and his voice and kept in contact with him for a while, but I have forgotten his name. Yeah.

Why can't I remember his last name?

Chris Hinkley. Yes, that's right. Yes. So if he's listening, sorry, Chris. Brandon, when you, this is, we'll start maybe from a different perspective. After you've done all this work, because I really loved the movies and I loved them.

It wasn't just one of those, well, it's Christian, so therefore it's bad, but I mean, it was done so well. Is there a movie out there that now that you've done this work, you think to yourself, now that I've done a lot of this production and filming and editing, I can, I didn't really appreciate such and such secular movie beforehand, but now after all this work, when I watch that or think about that particular show, I think, you know what, that was excellently done.

Is there a show out there that you think that way about?

I don't know if I have secular in mind. As many movies as I'd like, having four young children who pretty much don't go to sleep until midnight makes that difficult. But yeah, I do have an appreciation for films.

Like I, you know, have definitely have a good understanding of what it takes to make something. And I, you know, there's a difference in documentaries and, you know, narrative films. There, as far as planning and we, I would say it's very different.

You know, documentaries can multiple years. In my case, that we're working on other projects at the same time, which is kind of why it took so long and doing American Gospel like part-time.

Yeah, did that answer your question? Yeah, I just was curious. I was watching a Jim Jones documentary last night on Hulu and the credits came up. It was fascinating to look at all his social justice focus and everything else.

And he was filmed a lot. But anyway, at the end of the show, when the credits rolled, I could understand how difficult making a documentary would be because you've got all these moving parts and you've got to go to these different places and interviews and everything else.

So I'm sure it's taken a lot of work behind the scenes. How about this, Brandon? What's the question when somebody interviews you like this that you think, I'm just waiting for that question. I wish they would ask that question.

They asked me all these other questions and what did you do growing up and filming and all that stuff. But is there a seminal question that you wish I would ask you? And if so, what is it so that I can ask you?

Oh, I liked the gospel and some of the distortions of it. That seems to fire me up.

Distortions of the Gospel: Additions and Subtractions

Good, well, let's talk about that then. Let's go down that rabbit hole. As I think about Paul's mandate to gospel ministers to preach the gospel and to preach the word, I could go to 2 Timothy 4 or 1 Corinthians 15.

There are additions to the gospels and to the gospel and subtractions. Do you think we struggle in America these days with additions to the gospel? Jesus did live, die, was buried, raised and ascended and will return.

But you have to do this. Or do you think it's more of a negation where we take away maybe his life or we take away something about, we take away substitutionary atonement or penalty substitution? Which one do you think is a bigger problem, if there is?

That's a tough question.

They're both definitely a problem. And I think I consider the subtraction part. If you're talking on a spectrum of, I'd say that's more of a problem in the progressive area. It's not to say that doesn't exist in more conservative evangelicalism, but when it comes to adding to the gospel, it's not just, adding works is definitely the main problem.

But in the first film, Christ Alone, we talk about adding in the sense of you're giving, you're holding out a promise to people that if they come to Jesus, that he's gonna give them these certain things.

Whether that be health, wealth, prosperity, your dreams coming true. In that sense, you may hear those preachers affirm essential truths about the gospel, but what they preach weekly, it doesn't focus on those essential truths.

They're, the gospel is being covered up by all these other things. And so the people sitting under that preaching, they're not hearing it, and it's just being assumed that they know it. And these churches are attracting people with a message other than Christ.

As a result, they don't know the gospel.

Yet their statements of faith, of course, would affirm the deity of Christ, his virgin conception, his perfect life, a substitutionary death, literal resurrection. They've got it all down in terms of paper.

But if it's in paper and it's a statement of faith, but it doesn't flesh itself out in weekly preaching, then like you said, what's gonna happen to the congregation? I've also been thinking a lot about with your second movie, the Christ Crucified edition.

You've got, Jesus is this great example. And of course, if I look at the life of Christ and his death, was his death an example of love? Yes. Was his death the death blow to Satan and his minions? Yes.

I mean, you could go through those lists. Did his death show that in fact, God's justice was upheld? The answer to all four of those is yes, or three. But at the center, at the hub, if you deny penalty substitution, then you've gutted the entire gospel.

And this goes back to a generation ago where some of the Bibles were translated, the Greek word where we get propitiation, a wrath, a swaged. It was just translated with expiation, that there's just forgiveness.

When you talked to the men who affirmed penalty substitution, was that, well, maybe I could rephrase it. Did you know going ahead of time, this is the issue? This is the cut and dry issue here where if you deny penalty substitution and go to example only, you're off the deep end.

I mean, what was your framework going into it? Because that theme, of course, was obvious in the second movie.

Yeah, started this film. I wasn't really, was a problem. I started seeing a few friends of mine who went off to college come back with this view that says something like, it doesn't mean he's taking the penalty for our sins in our place, but they would say he just died because we were sinful, because we killed him.

And I was kind of shocked that their view of the cross just kind of gave up the objective of accomplishment that Christ did in the gospel. He paid a penalty that we owed to the justice of God. And they're just embracing moral example view.

So I started researching this and noticing men like Tony Jones, sources that I was seeing, at least in my circle of friends. And I started reaching out to some of these guys and the film would be more compelling if I interviewed people on the other side and kind of presented it as a debate.

And you told all the folks that you interviewed that they would be able to see everything and then give the final sign off before you put them in the movie, correct? Yeah, correct. Okay, so I'm sorry to interrupt you, excuse me.

No, that's fine.

Yeah, that's really the only way I could gain their trust.

Right, how, did you ask other, let's call them liberals, liberal theologians, did you ask other liberals to be in the show and they said no? Who'd you ask that said no?

I believe. Top of my head, I think that's all I can.

Okay, how about evangelicals? Who did you ask. And then they said no because of, it could be anything. It could be timing or something like that.

I'm not sure I can remember many other declines, honestly.

Okay, who was nicer behind the scenes, the liberals or the conservatives? Who was more high maintenance?

Definitely the conservatives. I mean, the liberal were friendly when it got to having these conversations on camera. There were moments where they seemed to be agitated, were kind of raged. They'll say they were kind enough to allow me into their home to interview.

The Shift from Courtroom to Therapy and the Value Gospel

Excellent, we're talking to Brandon Kimber today, director, creator, American Gospel, both the first movie and the second movie. And if you go to AmericanGospelFilm .com, AmericanGospelFilm .com, you can see the trailers and there are one hour shows, I think, that are free to everyone.

Brandon, when I think of this idea of Jesus and substituent atonement as the centerpiece, as it were, of Christ's death, I've been watching American evangelicalism and we've moved essentially from a courtroom to the family room.

So we've moved from judicial language, standing before God, forensic alien righteousness, credited, reckoned, imputed, that kind of language of justification. And people have moved into this therapeutic kind of family room.

And of course we are children of God, but that has nothing to do with justification. Adoption is something separate. Have you seen that drift as well? Was that something that you were really trying to focus on?

We've moved from courtroom to therapeutic psychology room. Is that something that, have you seen? Yeah, definitely.

The very last chapter of the film focused on the topic of what was God's motivation for saving man? And one popular charismatic teacher named Todd White is known for what I call the value gospel. And this gospel says that, well, I'll just say Todd White says, the cross to him isn't a revelation of your sin, it's a revealing of your value.

And what he's saying is that something underneath your sin attracted the love and grace of God and caused him to want to save you. And I think there are many problems with this view. The first, it destroys grace.

If you're saying something within you is meriting God's love, then you're deserving it. You're saying you are worth saving or worth dying for. The second problem is that it's elevating man to a place, it's essentially denying like original sin.

The third is it's really weakening our view of the love of God so much greater when he is setting his love upon people who are unlovely, not lovely. And so, if you have changed the focus to be about man's value, you essentially start worshiping yourself or glorifying yourself instead of glorifying God who loved and saved us while we were his enemies, while we were yet sinners.

So, I see a lot of pushback on this topic and people will say, are you saying we're not valuable to God? And I say, the question isn't whether we're valuable, it's why we're valuable. And the phrase that I use in the film is I'm valuable because God loves me.

God doesn't love me because I'm valuable. There's a big difference between those two phrases.

That is a great point. And when I think of Hosea chapter 14, verse four, kind of a verse that not many people will go to, but it talks about the free, unconditional love of God toward sinners, not based on who they are, but based on who God is, the triune God.

He says, I will love them freely. And Brandon, I love that verse in Hosea 14, four because that's God's love, it's free. It's not anything in us. If I were teaching junior high kids something, I'd probably tell them about people that do makeovers, right, and if you're gonna do a fashion makeover with hair and makeup and everything else, they don't usually pick the pretty people to do makeovers on, do they?

Yeah. And when you alluded to Romans chapter five, it's interesting, while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. So we've got weak, ungodly, that's, you know, ungodly is simply, we're just unlike God in every area.

For one would scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows or demonstrates or makes conspicuous his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And then later he calls us enemies. So we have weak, ungodly, sinful and enemies. And of course, when I asked my wife to marry me 31 years ago, it was because she was pretty and lovely and godly and funny and all these other things.

And that's why I chose her. And there's nothing wrong with choosing a wife or a spouse for those reasons. But that's not how God chooses. And I think once we turn everything to a human perspective, I mean, that's really could be the theme, right?

For the whole, for the shows. You start looking at, well, you know, what did Jesus do? And sinful people killed him. And we forget the divine perspective. And that is God the Father treats his son as if he were sinful.

Although Jesus was not. And you think about the wrath of God poured out. Think about Isaiah 53. It pleased the father to crush the son. Jesus, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Once we take the divine perspective out and only look through the human lens, everything goes south.

Closing Reflections on the Film, Christology, and Ministry

Well, time has gone fast here, Brandon. Did you know that I have the last word in the second movie? Yes. I, you don't know how many times, I kind of forgot about it because we, you know, you didn't come here to film me or anything.

And when you did want to film, it was Cleveland. And I did just had some radiation. And so I was too tired for that. And so this summer, I want you to know, I have received so many texts and phone calls from people who probably because of COVID, I didn't mean the summer, sorry, the last few months.

They said, we saw you in the gospel, American gospel movie. And how'd you get in that? And how much did you have to pay? And I just said, well, Brandon, he was scraping down to the bottom of the barrel.

But lots of people have responded. And I also did another no-co video recently, Brandon, because in the movie, I say he was fully God and fully man or a hundred percent man, a hundred percent God. And that's the Lord Jesus.

And of course, that's the language we use. The more I study the reformation, they use words not of quantity, fully, 100%. They use words of quality. And so a lot of confessions say that Jesus was perfectly God, perfectly man, truly God, truly man.

And so I said to myself, while my pride is, I made it into the American gospel. The part that I made it into, I think, well, I would probably try to qualify that just a little bit.

Yeah, I like to say fully and truly God, fully and truly man.

Amen. Well, Brandon, thank you for your ministry. It's amazing to me, as I think about what radio has done and even some cheesy little no-compromise videos in the early days, and now Ben has done a much better job.

But we don't know what the Lord will do with his word. He blesses his word. And I remember Paul would say, Lord, may your word run swiftly. And that word can run swiftly through social media, through movies, through the pulpit.

And I know that's your desire, is to come alongside of local churches and help them understand what the difference between Christ is and Christ alone, and the difference between the death of Christ and the death of Christ alone type of thing.

So anyway, Brandon, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. I appreciate you and your ministry.

Thank you for having me, Mike. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org. Or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.