Ray Comfort

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Ray Comfort open-air preaching in 2004.
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Ray Comfort open-air preaching in 2004.
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Ray Comfort (born December 5, 1949) is a New Zealand-born minister and evangelist.

Comfort is the founder of Living Waters Publications and The Way of the Master in Bellflower, California, and has written a number of Christian books. Comfort lives with his wife Sue in Southern California, and they have three adult children: Jacob, Rachel, and Daniel.

Contents

[edit] Early life and conversion

Born ethnically half-Jewish (via his mother), Comfort was raised with next to no religious experience; in his words: "I went through life without any Christian instruction at all. I think I went to church about three times in about twenty years. I hated it. I found it an insult to my intellect. I remember joking, 'If I couldn't sleep one night, I'd employ a preacher to come preach to me; and it would send me off.' I was serious; it seemed to me to be completely boring, except for one church, where they had communion; and they brought around real wine." [1]

He became a Christian on April 25, 1972, "... at 1:30 A.M. in the morning", aged 22 [1]. For many years, he served as an itinerant minister and associate pastor in his former hometown of Christchurch, teaching around New Zealand and Australia. In the 1970s, he began open-air preaching, which he has since done several thousand times. Comfort has no theological degree and has had no formal training.[2] Around 1981-1982, he started using the principles of what he calls "Biblical Evangelism" (see below) after reading Charles Spurgeon and the New Testament books of Romans and Galatians.

He has designed dozens of gospel tracts since the 1970s, leading to the tract ministry of Living Waters currently selling millions of tracts each year.[3] In 1989, he accepted an offer from Hosanna Chapel (of the Calvary Chapel fellowship) in Bellflower, California, to begin full-time ministry in the United States.

As a pastor in the Calvary Chapel fellowship Comfort believes he receives his teaching straight from Jesus Christ through the Bible. [4]

[edit] Open-air preaching

In his time in the United States, he has conducted open-air ministry in a variety of venues in southern California. At first, he worked in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, giving out sandwiches and preaching to the homeless there. At the same time, he led weekly outings to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica on Friday nights.

Most recently, he began in April 2006 open-air preaching at the base of the Huntington Beach pier on Saturday afternoons. [5]

For roughly two-and-a-half years, Comfort and his son-in-law LWP general manager Emeal "EZ" Zwayne would most weekdays open-air preach at the Bellflower courthouse a few blocks from their ministry. However, on September 30, 2005, Comfort and Zwayne were approached by two county police officers, who informed them that "Judge William A. MacLaughlin issued a court order forbidding public speech on the public property of any courthouse in Los Angeles County" (the judge had issued the order on September 13, 2005). They have sued the county for $25 and are being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.[6] Comfort expects the case to go to court some time in August 2006. [7]

[edit] Current ministry

In late 2001 and early 2002, Comfort paired up with celebrity Kirk Cameron to launch a ministry called The Way of the Master to teach Christians how to promote their faith "simply, effectively, Biblically ... the way Jesus did". Comfort and Cameron were also involved in rewriting some key scenes in the movie Left Behind II: Tribulation Force, which co-starred Cameron.

He believes that evangelizing the lost is the main reason that the Christian Church exists and that many of the evangelistic methods used by the church over the last century have produced more false conversions to Christianity than true. The key component Comfort uses is the "Moral Law of God" (The Ten Commandments) to show people their sin before presenting the gospel of Christ to them. (See Biblical Evangelism for a more detailed look into this.) His realization of this method led to him in the mid-1980s to formulate two sermons entitled "Hell's Best Kept Secret" and "True and False Conversions."

He currently continues in itinerant ministry as a preacher and speaker at many churches and evangelism seminars, including Worldview Weekend events. He is a frequent guest at Evangelism Boot Camps, sponsored by The Great News Network, a spinoff ministry from Living Waters and run by Darrel Rundus, and is also a co-host on The Way of the Master Radio several times a week alongside daily host Todd Friel. He also preaches most Saturday afternoons at Huntington Beach, California, with a mechanical gorilla named Link, which helps him to draw a crowd and argue against the theory of evolution. [8]

As well as co-hosting The Way of the Master Radio Show, he is, together with Cameron, the co-host of The Way of the Master Television Show, since December 2003. The show has aired two thirteen-episode seasons, and is currently filming the third season, expected to air in 2007.

On March 17, 2006, Martin Bashir interviewed Comfort and Cameron about The Way of the Master on a segment of Nightline.

He has recently challenged popular late-night talk show host and political satirist Bill Maher to a public debate on Intelligent Design versus Evolution but this is yet to take place. [9]

Comfort has experience debating atheists. At the 27th National Convention of American Atheists in Orlando, Florida on April 13, 2001 (Good Friday), Comfort debated Ron Barrier, the National Spokesperson for American Atheists. [10] Initially, Comfort offered to speak, but after reading his book God Doesn't Believe in Atheists, Barrier declined. Sometime later, Comfort communicated this fact on the AA Internet message board, calling the spokesman a "chicken," which led to other members of the message board calling for the debate. Barrier eventually acceded to their request. [11] Despite the hostile crowd, Comfort later stated that "[t]hey laughed at my humor, and although there was unified mockery at some of the things that I said, I was able to go through the Ten Commandments, the fact of Judgment Day, the reality of Hell, the Cross, and the necessity of repentance, and no one stopped me." [12]

One of his arguments for the existence of God is the comparison of a Coca-Cola can to the banana, noting what he perceives to be several similarities and proofs that the banana was intelligently designed (a perforated opening with a tab to open it up, for example). He then began using this banana argument (dubbing the fruit as "The Atheist's Nightmare") as a preaching tool, and it received considerable attention after widespread distribution over the Internet.

On the atheist web podcast The Hellbound Alleee Show, Comfort admitted that "the banana thing's kind of tongue in cheek; no-one should really take it too seriously" and conceded the argument to his atheist interviewers after they pointed out that the modern-day banana is a product of selective breeding. [13]

[edit] Supporters

Comfort's ministry has been commended by several prominent evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, Josh McDowell, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Bill Gothard, David Wilkerson, Joni Eareckson Tada [1]. He has written for Billy Graham's Decision magazine and Bill Bright's Worldwide Challenge. His literature is used by the Moody Bible Institute, Leighton Ford Ministries, Campus Crusade for Christ, Institute in Basic Life Principles, and the Institute for Scientific & Biblical Research.

He has also written roughly fifty books and is a regular platform speaker at Southern Baptist State Conferences. His videos were seen by over 30,000 pastors in 1992, and he has spoken in more than 700 churches from most denominations.[14]

[edit] Books

Comfort has written over fifty books [15]. Some of the more recent works include:

  • Intelligent Design vs. Evolution - Letters to an Atheist (2006), a collection of correspondence between Comfort and James D. Franz, an American atheist.
  • Springboards for Budding Preachers (2006), a transcript of Comfort open-air preaching with his son-in-law Emeal "EZ" Zwayne.
  • The Way of the Master (2006), which was republished by Genesis Publishing Group expanded and with a new cover (and a complementary CD of his sermon, Hell's Best Kept Secret), as opposed to the 2004 version by Tyndale House.

The 2004 version itself was a revised and updated version of Revival's Golden Key, which itself was a revision of God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life.

  • The Way of the Master Minute (by Comfort and Kirk Cameron) (2006)
  • How to Live Forever ... Without Being Religious (2006), a version of the Gospel of John with Comfort's commentary.
  • Whitefield Gold: Pure. Refined. (compiled by Comfort) (2006)
  • Spurgeon Gold: Pure. Refined. (compiled by Comfort) (2005)
  • Overcoming Panic Attacks (2005)
  • What Did Jesus Do? A Call to Return to the Biblical Gospel (2005)
  • How to Bring Your Children to Christ ... and Keep Them There (2005)
  • What Hollywood Believes: An Intimate Look at the Faith of the Famous (2004)
  • Hell's Best Kept Secret (updated 2004)
  • The School of Biblical Evangelism Textbook (2004)
  • 101 Things Husbands Do to Annoy Their Wives (2004)
  • Out of the Comfort Zone: The Authorized Autobiography (2003)
  • God Doesn't Believe in Atheists (2001)
  • How to Win Souls and Influence People (1999)

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Taken from the MP3 recording of his Christian testimony, downloaded from <http://www.livingwaters.com/listen.shtml#other>, accessed 8 May 2006.
  2. ^ From Nightline interview. <http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1735434&page=3>
  3. ^ As stated in his autobiography, Out of the Comfort Zone.
  4. ^ The Philosophy of Ministry of Calvary Chapel. <http://www.calvarychapel.com/?show=Resources.Ebooks.thephilosophyofministryofcalvarychapel>
  5. ^ Details of his time in MacArthur Park, and his story of gaining access to the Promenade, can be found in his "authorized autobiography" Out of the Comfort Zone. His recent work at Huntington Beach can be found here (accessed 8 May 2006).
  6. ^ <http://www.freespeechrights.com/>, accessed 8 May 2006.
  7. ^ As stated on the 5 July 2006 broadcast on The Way of the Master Radio Show, direct link at <http://www.wotmradio.com/2006/07/05/july-05-2006-hour-2/>
  8. ^ Information found at <http://www.livingwaters.com/pie.shtml>, accessed 7 July 2006.
  9. ^ <http://www.intelligentdesignversusevolution.com/>, accessed May 27 2006.
  10. ^ http://www.americanatheist.org/conv27/, accessed June 14, 2006
  11. ^ Comfort, Ray. Scientific Facts in the Bible, MP3 (http://www.livingwaters.com/listenwatch/scientific.zip, accessed June 14, 2006.
  12. ^ http://assistnews.net/strategic/s0104040.htm, accessed June 14, 2006.
  13. ^ Taken from an interview with Comfort which can be downloaded here, (the concession can be found a little more then half way through): <http://www.strongatheism.net/shows/hashow/show103.mp3>, last accessed 12 June 2006.
  14. ^ <http://www.livingwaters.com/bio/index.shtml>, accessed 8 May 2006.
  15. ^ <http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=150>, accessed 8 May 2006.
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