Person

Ray Comfort

New Zealand-born American street evangelist, author, and founder of Living Waters Publications. Best known for the Way of the Master evangelism method (co-developed with Kirk Cameron) and for popularizing the conscience-based evangelistic approach, using the Ten Commandments to bring conviction of sin before presenting the gospel. His technique is widely referenced in the codex's Evangelism cluster as a model for direct, law-then-grace proclamation.

Biographical sketch

Born December 5, 1949, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Raised in a nominally Christian household; converted as a young adult. Began street preaching in Christchurch before relocating to Southern California in 1989.
Living Waters Publications, founded 1974 in New Zealand, expanded in the US. Produces tracts, books, and evangelism training materials. Flagship resource: The Evidence Bible (NKJV study Bible annotated with apologetic and evangelistic notes).
Way of the Master, TV show and training curriculum (2003-present) co-hosted with Kirk Cameron. Named after a phrase attributed to Charles Spurgeon describing evangelism that leads with God's law to create conviction before presenting grace.

Evangelistic method

Comfort's approach follows a consistent pattern:

Swing the conversation to eternity, "Do you think there's an afterlife?" or "If you died tonight, where would you think you'd go?"
Walk through the Ten Commandments, "Have you ever lied? Stolen? Used God's name in vain? Looked with lust?" Each admission establishes the person as a self-confessed lawbreaker.
Introduce the courtroom analogy, God is the judge; the person stands guilty; the fine must be paid.
Present the gospel as the pardon, Christ paid the fine on the cross; repentance and faith receive the pardon.

This structure parallels the Romans Road evangelistic framework but leads with law (conviction) rather than love (need). Comfort explicitly teaches that presenting grace before conviction produces false converts, a point of contact with the Lordship Salvation debate (MacArthur side).

Apologetic relevance

Moral argument deployment, Comfort's Ten-Commandments walkthrough is a street-level deployment of the Moral Argument: the universality of moral conscience (everyone admits lying is wrong) is leveraged as evidence for a moral lawgiver.
Conscience as diagnostic tool, connects to Argument from Conscience and the Diagnostic Doorways framework in the Evangelism cluster.
Repentance emphasis, Comfort insists on metanoia (change of mind/direction) as integral to saving faith, aligning with lordship-salvation advocates against easy-believism.

Criticisms

Oversimplification, academic apologists note that Comfort's arguments bypass philosophical nuance (e.g., the "banana argument" for design, later retracted as misguided). His strength is populist accessibility, not philosophical rigor.
Confrontational tone, some evangelism practitioners find the law-first approach alienating in post-Christian contexts where the Ten Commandments carry no assumed authority. The codex's Psychology of Lowered Defenses and Listening Tools pages represent alternative rapport-first methods.

Key works

The Way of the Master (Bridge-Logos, 2006), with Kirk Cameron
God Doesn't Believe in Atheists (Bridge-Logos, 1993)
Hell's Best Kept Secret (Whitaker House, 1989), the foundational law-before-grace evangelism manifesto
The Evidence Bible (Bridge-Logos, 2001), NKJV study Bible with apologetic annotations