| Type | NGO |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Evangelism |
| Headquarters | Bellflower, California [1] |
| Leader | Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron |
Parent organization | Living Waters Ministries [2] |
| Affiliations | Todd Friel |
The Way of the Master (WOTM) is a United States-based Christian evangelism ministry, founded in 2002 [3] and headed by New Zealand-born evangelist Ray Comfort, American former child actor Kirk Cameron and American radio host Todd Friel. The organization produces a television show, a radio show, books and tracts, an online course in evangelism, small-group training courses, and a website. The ministry's logo incorporates the letters, WDJD, standing for "What Did Jesus Do?" and a reference to Mark 16:15: "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
The Way of the Master is an outreach of Living Waters Ministries, also headed by Comfort. [2]
The Way of the Master is a television show hosted by Cameron and Comfort. Production started in 2004. [4] Currently[ when? ], it has been released up to season four. WOTM is broadcast on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, FamilyNet, [5] Sky Angel, Christian Television Network, along with other media outlets, and can be watched in more than 100 countries. [6]
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 user-friendly features that were evidence of intelligent design. [7] Comfort retracted the video and claims upon learning that the banana is a result of artificial selection by humans, and that the wild banana is small and unpalatable. [8]
The show won the National Religious Broadcasters' People’s Choice 2004, 2005, 2006, and Best Program, 2005 and 2006. [9]
The Way of the Master Radio, WOTMR, was a syndicated two-hour, daily radio show hosted by former stand-up comedian Todd Friel. WOTMR was broadcast on various local radio outlets, internet streaming and on Sirius XM Radio. The show ran from January 2006 until November 2008, when it was renamed Wretched Radio, broadcast through FamilyNet. [10]
The Way of the Master Minute was a series of one-minute Biblical radio sermonettes made between 2006 until 2008. They still continue to air on The Full Armor of God Broadcast. [11]
Living Waters Publications (LWP) acts as an online store for WOTM.
On June 6, 2006, the United States Secret Service seized 8,300 copies of the "million dollar bill" tract printed by Living Waters Publications from the Great News Network headquarters because a woman in North Carolina attempted to deposit the tracts as legal tender (despite the fake bills being marked "This is not legal tender"). [12] [13]
Cameron and Comfort participated in a debate with two members of the Rational Response Squad (RRS) atheist activism organization at Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan, on May 5, 2007. Nightline correspondent Martin Bashir served as moderator at the event. [14] [15] [16] Nightline aired the debate online and included a short two-segment summary on its May 9 broadcast. [17] Cameron told the audience he would prove the existence of God scientifically, without resorting to faith. In reporting on the debate, Slate magazine pointed out that Cameron's declaration to prove God would have made him the first to accomplish this feat in many centuries of religious thought, besting scholars such as Thomas Aquinas. [18] Slate reported that RRS atheist debaters Brian and Kelly defeated the three main arguments of Cameron and Comfort which were: a) everything has a maker, b) the existence of the human conscience shows that there is a higher moral power, and c) Christ is revealed in the Gospel. [18] Although numerous Christians claimed that Comfort and Cameron went to the debate "well-intentioned but unprepared", the two were also widely commended for having a very "positive demeanor" during the debate, in strong contrast to their opponents. [19] In addition, some Christian debate viewers accused the moderator, Martin Bashir, of "being biased towards the atheist side." [19]
Kent E. Hovind is an American Christian fundamentalist evangelist and tax protester. He is a controversial figure in the Young Earth creationist movement whose ministry focuses on denial of scientific theories in the fields of biology, geophysics, and cosmology in favor of a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative found in the Bible. Hovind's views, which combine elements of creation science and conspiracy theory, are dismissed by the scientific community as fringe theory and pseudo-scholarship. He is controversial within the Young Earth Creationist movement; and, Answers in Genesis openly criticized him for continued use of discredited arguments abandoned by others in the movement.
Open-air preaching, street preaching, or public preaching is the act of evangelizing a religious faith in public places. It is an ancient method of proselytizing a religious or social message and has been used by many cultures and religious traditions, but today it is usually associated with evangelical Protestant Christianity. Supporters of this approach note that both Jesus and many of the Old Testament prophets often preached about God in public places. It is one of the oldest approaches to evangelism.
Ray Comfort is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist who lives in the United States. Comfort started Living Waters Publications, as well as the ministry The Way of the Master, in Bellflower, California, and has written several books.
Antony Garrard Newton Flew was an English philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught philosophy at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading in the United Kingdom, and at York University in Toronto, Canada.
Central Bible College (CBC) was a private coed Bible college affiliated with the Assemblies of God. It was founded in 1922 with the main campus located in Springfield, Missouri. The campus closed in May 2013 when the school consolidated with Evangel University and Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. All three institutions were located in Springfield and owned and operated by the Assemblies of God. The consolidated university officially began operating with the Fall 2013 semester and is known as Evangel University.
Dennis James Kennedy was an American pastor, evangelist, Christian broadcaster, and author. He was the senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from 1960 until his death in 2007. Kennedy also founded Evangelism Explosion International, Coral Ridge Ministries, the Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale, the Knox Theological Seminary, radio station WAFG-FM, and the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, a socially conservative political group.
Anthony Tyrone "Tony" Evans Sr. is an American Christian pastor, speaker, author, and widely syndicated radio and television broadcaster in the United States. Evans serves as senior pastor to the over-9,500-member Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas.
A tract is a literary work and, in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, a tract referred to a brief pamphlet used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. Tracts are often either left for someone to find or handed out. However, there have been times in history when the term implied tome-like works. A tractate, a derivative of a tract, is equivalent in Hebrew literature to a chapter of the Christian Bible.
Christians have used many different approaches to spread Christianity via the practice of evangelism. Christianity began with only a few different evangelistic approaches, but over the years, many different forms of evangelism have been employed by various groups to spread their faith. Many of these forms of evangelism are often employed in only certain parts of the world by Christians in different geographical areas. In particular, most new approaches to evangelism today have arisen out of Europe or the United States, especially when new technologies are used for the effort of evangelism.
Daniel Edwin Barker is an American atheist activist and musician who served as an evangelical Christian preacher and composer for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor are the current co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and he is cofounder of The Clergy Project. He has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper. He is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.
The Rational Response Squad, or RRS, is an atheist activist group that confronts what it considers to be irrational claims made by theists, particularly Christians. The most visible member of RRS is co-founder Brian Sapient. The Rational Response Squad, along with the filmmaker Brian Flemming, made headlines in December 2006 with their Blasphemy Challenge.
XXXchurch.com is a non-profit Christian website that aims to help those who struggle with pornography. It ministers to porn industry performers and consumers. The organization describes itself as a "Christian porn site designed to bring awareness, openness and accountability to those affected by pornography."
Annie Lobert is an American former call girl and sex industry worker, who founded the international Christian ministry Hookers for Jesus. In 2010, she produced and starred in a three-part documentary on the organization, Hookers: Saved on the Strip, which was broadcast nationwide on cable television's Investigation Discovery.
Kirk Thomas Cameron is an American actor, evangelist, documentary filmmaker, TV show host, producer, and author. He first gained fame as a teen actor playing Mike Seaver on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains (1985–1992), a role for which he was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards.
The crocoduck is a fictitious hybrid animal with the head of a crocodile and the body of a duck proposed in 2007 by young-Earth creationists Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron to be an animal that should exist, were their misconceptions about the theory of evolution true. The animal became an internet meme used to ridicule common misrepresentations of evolution, namely, that the theory predicts forms intermediate between any two currently living organisms.
The Atheist Experience is an American live, weekly televised webcast based in Austin, Texas. Listeners are encouraged to call in to discuss the existence of God and related topics. Calls from theists are usually given priority, as the aim of the webcast is to encourage theists to question their theistic beliefs and thus, theists are often asked to explain what they believe, and why.
Saving Christmas is a 2014 American faith-based Christmas comedy film. It was directed by Darren Doane and written by Doane and Cheston Hervey, based on an original story by Kirk Cameron. It was theatrically released by Samuel Goldwyn Films on November 14, 2014.
David Andrew Robertson is a Scottish Presbyterian minister and religious commentator. Robertson was the minister of St Peter's Free Church in Dundee, Scotland, from 1992 until 2019. He served as Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland between 2015 and 2016. Robertson is also a blogger, podcaster, and writer. He gained public attention following his critique of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and has since become a commentator on religious, social, and political affairs in Scotland, with an annual readership of over one million.
