Ray Comfort

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Ray Comfort

Ray Comfort Open-air Preaching

October 2015
Ray Comfort[1]
Born
December 5, 1949 (age 65)
New Zealand
Ethnicity Jewish (mother)[2]
Christian Evangelist, author, television
Occupation
host
The Way of the Master, Living Waters
Known for
Publications, Christian Evangelism
Religion Evangelical Christianity
Spouse(s) Sue Comfort (1970-present)
Children Rachel, Jacob, Daniel[3]
Website Living Waters
Ray Comfort (born December 5, 1949) is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and
evangelist. Comfort started Living Waters Publications and The Way of the Master in
Bellflower, California, and has written a number of books.

Contents

1 Early life
2 Career

3 The Way of the Master ministry

4 Debates

5 Publications
o

5.1 Tracts

5.2 Books

5.2.1 Controversy over abridged version of On the Origin of Species

5.2.2 List of notable books published

6 Film
o

6.1 Filmography

7 References

8 External links

Early life
Comfort was born December 5, 1949, in New Zealand[3] to a Jewish mother and a father
whom he has described as "a Gentile [who] was open to the things of God". According to
Comfort's autobiography, his parents put "Methodist" on his birth certificate because his
mother feared the possibility of "another Hitler", but he was given no religious instruction
as a child.[3][4] Comfort identifies himself as Jewish.[2] According to Comfort, he was in the
top class of his high school in Christchurch, where he attained a School Certificate, the
standard certificate given out at the age of 15 (Year 11). He did not pursue higher
education.[5]

Career
Comfort worked in a bank after finishing high school, and later started a business at age 20.
Ray Comfort converted to Christianity on 25 April 1972, when he was 22. He then began
seven years training at a local church, after which he was ordained as a full-time pastor.
Comfort then spent three and a half years as a pastor in Christchurch, New Zealand, and 12
years preaching open-air in the city's Speaker's Corner. He has no formal training nor
theological degree. In his mid-20s, he began receiving invitations to speak internationally.
In 1989, he accepted an invitation to join the pastoral staff at the non-denominational
Calvary Chapel in Southern California.[5]

The Way of the Master ministry

An inedible wild banana, cut to expose its many seeds.

In the mid-1990s Comfort persuaded Kirk Cameron, star of the cancelled hit sitcom
Growing Pains, to become an evangelist. The pair formed an organization called The Way
of the Master, with the intention of teaching the church to more effectively preach the
message of evangelical Christianity.[6]
Comfort says that evangelism is the main reason the Christian Church exists and that many
of the evangelistic methods used over the last century have produced false conversions to
Christianity. Comfort often uses the Ten Commandments to speak about sin before
presenting the gospel of Jesus. In the mid-1980s he formulated two sermons entitled "Hell's
Best Kept Secret"[7] and "True and False Conversions."[8]
Comfort speaks professionally at churches and evangelism seminars, and preaches in
Huntington Beach, California. As well as co-hosting the former The Way of the Master
Radio with Kirk Cameron, he is co-host of The Way of the Master Television Show.
In 2006, Comfort recorded a segment for The Way of the Master's television show in which
he argued that the banana was an "atheists' nightmare", arguing that it displayed many userfriendly features that were evidence of intelligent design.[9] Comfort retracted the video
upon learning that the banana is a result of artificial selection by humans, and that the wild
banana is small and unpalatable.[10]

Debates

Comfort, seated behind Kirk Cameron, at a debate on the existence of God at Calvary
Baptist Church in Manhattan, 5 May 2007
On 13 April 2001, Comfort appeared at the 27th National Convention of American Atheists
in Orlando, Florida, where he debated Ron Barrier, the National Spokesperson for
American Atheists.[11] Comfort later stated that "they 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."[11]
On 5 May 2007, Comfort and Cameron participated in a televised debate with Brian
Sapient and Kelly O'Connor of the Rational Response Squad, at Calvary Baptist Church in
Manhattan. The debate focused on the existence of God, which Comfort claimed he could
prove scientifically without relying on faith or the Bible. Nightline correspondent Martin

Bashir moderated the event.[12] During the debate, Cameron and Comfort repeatedly
referenced the Ten Commandments and denied the theory of evolution.[12]
In February 2009, Comfort challenged Richard Dawkins to a debate, offering to donate
$10,000 to him.[13] Dawkins, who had previously stated a general policy not to debate with
creationists,[13] said he would agree to do it if Comfort made a $100,000 donation to the
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science non-profit organization. Comfort
raised his offer to $20,000, which according to PZ Myers was "not enough."[14]

Publications
Tracts

Gospel tracts produced by Ray Comfort's ministry, Living Waters

According to Comfort, he has designed dozens of gospel tracts since the 1970s, and sells
millions of Living Waters tracts each year.[15] Some of his tracts are designed to resemble
paper money, including fake $100, $1,000 and $1 million bills. Others employ novelties
intended to amuse, such as a "ticket to heaven" that invites the reader to tear it if they do
not need it; the ticket is printed on a polymer substrate, making it extremely durable.[16] The
tracts typically attempt to persuade the reader that on judgment day, they will certainly be
found guilty of breaking one or more of the Ten Commandments, and therefore will be sent
to hell, unless they say a prayer to acknowledge Christ's substitutionary atonement.
In June 2006, agents of the US Secret Service confiscated thousands of Ray Comfort's
"Million Dollar Bill" gospel tracts from Darrel Rundus, president of Great News Network.
A federal district court judge ruled that the tracts, which were marked as "not legal tender",
did not violate federal law and ordered their return.[17]
In October 2010, The New Zealand Herald reported that elderly people received
"appointment cards" by Comfort's California-based publishing company, Living Waters,
asking them to fill out information regarding the date and time of their deaths, and advising
them to contact evangelists in order to avoid hell. Recipients of these cards expressed anger
and horror over receiving them, and contacted police over the matter, with one of them
commenting, "It's disgusting. It was quite spooky. I just couldn't comprehend why anyone
would ask you to predict the date of your death." The New Zealand Herald summarized a
statement from Living Waters spokesperson Lisa Law as saying that "the cards were a way

of raising awareness of human mortality in order to spark discussion about Jesus", and that
Law "did not know who sent [the tracts]".[18]

Books
Ray Comfort has authored more than 80 books and tracts.[19][20] His 2009 book You Can
Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think, ranked #1 in Amazon.com's
atheism and apologetics categories when it debuted in February 2009.[21][22][23]
Controversy over abridged version of On the Origin of Species

Cover art of Ray Comfort's edition of The Origin of Species, with subtitle "Special
introduction by Ray Comfort"
In November 2009, Comfort released an edited and abridged version of Charles Darwin's
On the Origin of Species, with a 50-page foreword detailing creationist arguments against
the theory of evolution.[24] Stan Guffey, a biologist at the University of Tennessee, has
alleged that most of Comfort's section on Darwin's life was plagiarised from his work.[25][26]
The book was given away for free at selected schools around the United States.[27]
According to Comfort's website, "nothing has been removed from Darwin's original work",
[28]
but Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education,
noted that Comfort deleted four chapters by Darwin that described the evidence for
evolution, adding that two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcased
biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution.[29] She wrote that
Comfort's foreword is "a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments, teeming
with misinformation about the science of evolution, populated by legions of strawmen, and
exhibiting what can be charitably described as muddled thinking".

On his website, Comfort said that the four chapters were chosen at random to be omitted in
order to make the book small enough to be affordable as a giveaway, with the absent
chapters available for download, and that the missing chapters were included in the second
edition, which had a smaller text size that made printing the entire book as a giveaway
affordable. The second edition still lacks Darwin's preface and glossary of terms.[30][31] The
National Center for Science Education arranged a campaign at colleges across the US to
distribute an analysis of the Comfort introduction, a one-page flier,[24] and "the NCSE
Safety Bookmark" in the shape of a banana, a reference to Comfort's presentation of the
banana as an argument for the existence of God.[32][33]
List of notable books published

(1989). Hell's Best Kept Secret. Whitaker House. ISBN 978-0883682067.[34]

(1993). God Doesn't Believe in Atheists (revised ed.). Bridge Logos Publishers.
ISBN 978-0882709222.[35]

; Cameron, Kirk (2006). The Way of the Master. Bridge Logos Publishers.
ISBN 978-0882702209.[36]

(2008). Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups. Bridge Logos Publishers.

ISBN 088270432X.[37]

(2008). World Religions in a Nutshell. Bridge Logos Publishers. ISBN 9780882706696.[38]

Darwin, Charles (September 2009). Comfort, Ray, ed. The Origin of Species (150th
Anniversary ed.). Bridge Logos Publishers. ISBN 978-0882709192.[39]

(2009). You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think:
Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics. WND Books. ISBN 978-1935071068.[21]
[35]

; LaHaye, Tim (2012). Hitler, God, and the Bible. WND Books. ISBN 9781936488247.[40]

Film

Ray Comfort open-air preaching at a Great News Network evangelism boot camp in 2004

In 2011, Comfort wrote and produced a 33-minute documentary film called 180: Changing
the Heart of a Nation. The film was criticized by The Huffington Post for its comparison of
abortion to the Holocaust.[41]

Filmography

The Secrets of Nostradamus Exposed (1995): Writer, producer

True Fiction (1999): Writer

The Way of the Master series (200314): Self Host, writer, producer

180: Changing the Heart of a Nation (2011): Self, writer, producer

Genius (2012): Self, writer, director

Evolution vs. God: Shaking the Foundations of Faith (2013): Self, director

Noah and the Last Days (2014): Director, producer, writer, self, runner, sound

Audacity (2015): Writer, executive producer