Fundamentalist Exchange: The evangelical pipeline between New Zealand and the United States

Part 4 - Ray Comfort - Part 2

Source | Ray Comfort preaching in Hawaii in 1985

Ray Comfort's life seems quite blessed. His office in Regent Street survived a fire; footage confiscated from Comfort was not only returned but the police were happy to participate in a dramatic reshoot; and a job in America came the very same day he was fired from his pastoring job.

Imagine how different things would be today if Comfort hadn't been saved and stuck to making fringed, leather cowboy jackets in New Brighton and producing surf films *. Or pursued education, if he was top of his class in high school as some sources claim.

The offer to preach didn't come out of thin air. As Comfort retells in his autobiography, he had met Pastor Garry Ansdell of Hosanna Chapel Church in Hawaii in 1988 and proved to the American that he had some decent bible knowledge. In the Early to mid-80s, Comfort wrote one of his best known sermons, Evangelical Frustration (now known as Hell's Best Kept Secret), in which Comfort bemoans the tropes of modern evangelism in winning the hearts of converts, as in Christ will give you peace, joy, love, and fulfilment. Instead, Comfort advocated for a return to the likes of Spurgeon and using God's law to convict converts of their sin and transgressions and showing them how the Saviour helps them escape God's wrath. It was this sermon that Ansdell heard and what led to an invitation to speak at Ansdell's church in California in May 1988. During that visit Comfort suggested that they do an open air outreach with Ansdell volunteering to dress up as a Gorilla as part of Comfort's sermon on the Theory of Evolution. Comfort claims he demurred about relocating to the USA and wanted time to pray on it and think about whether earlier he had received any prophecies. Of which he claims to have received a few, including a couple of coincidental playings of Richard Harris' song, MacArthur Park. The song's title was significant for Comfort as an American he had met months early had suggested said Park as a good place to do open air speaking in his hometown of Los Angeles.

Or, maybe it was a semi-shrewd business decision. While Comfort claims to have rejected the title of Pastor at that time, he did use it on his Immigration documentation as his official form of employment. In his documentary, The Fool, Comfort includes a clipping from an issue of a People Magazine. It is on screen for several seconds, most of them blurry but at the 00:1:50 point, it sharpens enough to be read if you pause it. In the article, it states that Comfort offered his new church financial support to base his ministry there.

Source | Tell me you've never been to Cathedral Square without telling me you've never been to Cathedral Square

On his last day of preaching in Cathedral Square's Speaker's Corner, it appears to have been a chaotic send off. The Wizard and the Bible Lady took the opportunity to steal a little of Ray's spotlight for themselves but one man in particular seems to have ruined Ray's day, even 30 years later.

Some heroes don't wear capes and for the people of Christchurch, that guy might be Steve who is alternately described as nasty, totally unreasonable, and a homosexual or simply as an atheist who would heckle Comfort and not let him get a word in edgewise

Source | Steve: Nasty. Atheist. Homosexual. Icon.

But, did Steve let us down or was he setting Comfort up for an inevitable fall? See, throughout the 80s, Comfort claims that he was using Coke cans and Bananas to parody Atheism.

This act was a longtime shtick for Comfort and he claims one that always landed with Christians. Ray describes the joke here. It has the hallmarks of a Comfort-style sermon, a reasonable-sounding fact followed by parables that work only if you don't think too hard. Ray starts off with:

Millions of years ago there was a massive explosion in space. It was a big bang. No one knows what caused it, but from this bang issued a huge rock, and on the top of the rock formed a sweet, brown, bubbly substance. Then, over millions of years aluminum crept up the side of the bubbly substance and formed itself into a can, then a lid, and then a tab. Millions of years later, red paint and white paint fell from the sky and formed itself into the words “Coca-Cola, trademark, 12 fluid ounces

Followed by the part we all know and love:

Behold, the atheist's nightmare. If you study a wellmade banana, you'll find on the far side there are three ridges. On the close side, two ridges. If you get your hand ready to grip a banana, you'll find on the far side there are three grooves, on the close side, two grooves. The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other.

You'll find the Maker of the banana, Almighty God, has made it with a non-slip surface. It has outward indicators of inward contents: green, too early; yellow, just right; black, too late. If you go to the top of the banana, you'll find, as with the Coca-Cola can, the makers have placed a tab at the top, so God has placed a tab at the top. When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face.

You'll find that the wrapper is biodegradable and has perforations, usually three or four. Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. It's just the right shape for the human mouth. It's chewy, palatable, easy to digest, and it's even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. That's if you get it the right way around

Comfort had a steep learning curve when he crossed the other ditch; his initial attempts to give out money and sandwiches turned into chaos and, allegedly, violence. His venue of choice, MacArthur Park, posed some difficulties for his preaching; some of his standards like the faux funerals might have sent the wrong message to the down and out. But, it did bring him closer to the headquarters and epicentres of major evangelical organisations that he had worked with on a smaller scale in Australasia such as harassing Mormons alongside Youth With a Mission (YWAM).

Of his time at Hosanna or the depth of his association with Hosanna church is unclear; Comfort prefers to write about his street evangelism. However, the association Hosanna was a part of was no small potatoes in the American evangelical scene. Hosana was part of Calvary Chapel, a fellowship of evangelical churches in what their WIkipedia page calls the Moderate Faction of the Charismatic Movement or even Neo-Charismatic, with pentecostal origins. While not holding to strictly defined practices they are more than partial to miracles, signs & wonders, and supernatural gifts such as prophecy and healing. Speaking in tongues (glossolalia) is also nice but not required as evidence of baptism with the holy spirit. What really puts Calvary Church on the map is its role in the Jesus movement (aka Jesus Freaks or Jesus People) of the 1960s and 1970s. New Zealand was not spared from this movement and a freshly converted Comfort screened the film The Son Worshippers after he premiered his own Surf film.

Comfort's initial years in the USA were sedate in Comfort's own words. His “friends” would have a go at him now and then and pretend they were Billy Graham and invite him to crusade. But Comfort's first, true brush with evangelical fame came in 1991 with a call from Bill Gothard (click the link to read my item on the IBLP), with a genuine invitation to record Comfort's preaching for posterity. After being screened to 30,000 pastors (or, given what we know about Gothard, fathers and husbands?)

2001 would be a truly pivotal year for Comfort. On a positive note, Comfort sent copies of Hell's Best Kept Secret to co-authors of the Left Behind series, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, in separate meetings several months earlier. An associate of Comfort's got one into the hands of Kirk Cameron who was starring in the original film series, which was also released that year. As the story is currently told, Cameron reached out to Comfort and the rest is history. In late December 2002, Kirk Cameron promoted Comforts and his Living Waters Ministry on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The resulting server crash garnered Comfort an interview on TBN and increased the profile of Comfort's ministry more than any step ladder, soapbox, or trash can ever could. The two men would go on to establish The Way of the Master with radio host Todd Friel, which serves as the outreach arm of Comfort's Living Waters Ministries.

The Way of the Master tv show had its problematic aspects and would include clips of Comforts evangelising, including violent encounters.

On a that-might-not-have-been-a-great-idea-after-all note, Comfort had published a book called God Doesn't Believe in Atheists. This led to an invitation from the American Atheists to debate one of their members at the 2001 conference. There's a bit of drama around the debate initially being cancelled, it goes ahead and Comfort performs his Coke and Banana bit to a middling, but not definitively unreceptive response. Ray “any attention is good attention” Comfort saw it as God opening doors to the gospel.

After decades of practice of what he thought was a well-received routine, Ray recorded the Banana parody in September 2003 for the Way of the Master. The gist of the episode, which no one really cares about, was about how intelligent design was the most logical response. Surprisingly, Kirk was not a fan of the bit and expressed his concerns about being mocked. Having been raised in the mean streets of Christchurch, Comfort seems to have given Cameron a typical “She'll be right' response.

2006 proved to be an interesting year for Comfort. I have been unable to determine whether Living Water Ministries invented the million dollar gospel tract or not but they are the ministry best associated with it. Regardless, someone had taken the novelty bill to a bank. It was brought to the attention of the Secret Service and in turn they confiscated several thousand copies of the tract from Great News Network, which had been distributing them.

Source | The tracts that fooled the US Secret Service

Source | Other examples of Living Waters Gospel Tracts

These bills are the bane of poor, underpaid wait staff everywhere. And also had enough points where it was obviously fake that there was no way they could be seen as legal tender, so the case was dismissed. In 2010, Comfort would stir up trouble with his tracts in NZ when senior citizens received appointment cards for their death.

According to Comfort, it wasn't until 2007 that he became aware that a clip of the banana joke was making rounds on the internet, sans Coke Can. While Ray argues that without the Coke part the parody is loss, one industrious atheist pointed out that the yellow banana was the product of evolution. Because it was the late 2000s, Richard Dawkins got involved and threw shade at Comfort, refusing to enter into a debate with Comfort despite the cash money on the table. Some skeptics may recall Dawkins 2010 flying tour of New Zealand being accompanied with free copies of the Ray Comfort edition of the Origin of Species being distributed.

You know, the edition where Comfort omitted the very four chapters that provided evidence for evolution?

Aside from these blips of activity, Comfort doesn't make a big splash if and when he returns to NZ. In many ways he has truly left his NZ ministry in the dust in favour of the opportunities presented by America. But not all good things last forever, even for the man who sees an opportunity for sharing the gospel everywhere. Eventually, the Bananaman controversy and the Dawkins feud died down. Kirk moved on from The Way of the Master and furthered his Christian movie career but as of 2018, Comfort felt that he had to reassure the Atheists that him and Kirk are still on good terms. The Way of the Master has reverted back to Living Waters and as of writing, 8 seasons of the show have been produced thus far, totalling over 159 episodes. Ray has embraced podcasts and YouTube, posting hundreds of videos of him owning the atheists and random people trying to enjoy their day at Huntington Beach. It is incredibly hard to find a video about Ray Comfort as he has carpet bombed YouTube with his own clips and documentaries. To this end, an interesting question to ask is how much money Ray earns; his videos can bring in anywhere between 60K to over 1 million views. Living Waters Publications paid Comfort $144,825 in 2020. You can read the full tax filing here.

*No, seriously. Comfort produced a 8mm surf film called A Place of Our Own, which had a premiere. I very desperately want to see it; and All My Friends Are Dead. Who knew Ray Comfort could be the king of NZ lost media.