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Walter Ralston Martin
(September
10, 1928 – June 26, 1989), was an American Baptist Christian minister and
author who founded the Christian Research Institute in 1960 as a
para-church ministry specializing as a clearing-house of information in
both general Christian apologetics and in counter cult apologetics. As the author of the influential The Kingdom
of the Cults (1965), he has been dubbed the "godfather of the
anti-cult movement".
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Martin was born in
Brooklyn, New York to George Washington Martin II (1876–1948) and Maud
Ainsworth (1892–1966). His father was a prominent figure in the legal
profession who served as an assistant District attorney, before working as
a criminal trial lawyer. In 1920 George Martin became a county court judge
and presided over cases involving some of the notorious Murder Inc
criminals.
Martin's mother,
Maud Ainsworth, was born in Chicago to Joseph Ainsworth and Annie Young.
She was one of several children born of that marriage, but was put up for
adoption. She was adopted by her uncle and aunt James McIntyre (theatrical
actor) (1857–1937) a vaudevillian (one partner of the black-face duo,
"Thomas Heath and Jim McIntyre"), and Emma Maude Young
(1862–1935), a dancer and balladeer (known on stage as "Maude Clifford"
and "Maud Clifton").
Martin was raised in
the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, and was the youngest of six
children. In his earliest years the family lived on Macdonough Street, and
then from 1930 onwards on Bainbridge Street, Brooklyn. In the mid-1940s he attended The Stony Brook School where he
obtained his high school diploma.
EARLY CAREER
Martin's career as
an apologist began at the age of fifteen after being baptized in Hegemen Chapel at The Stony Brook School (Stony Brook,
NY). While in college and graduate school, he often skipped eating during
his lunch hours to answer a variety of tough questions about the Bible and
the Christian faith while standing on the corner of Wall Street and
Broadway, in New York City. [relevant? – discuss]
Martin has indicated in various book dedications and in audio recorded
lectures how he was mentored by Frank Gaebelein
(Headmaster, The Stony Brook School), Wilbur Smith (1894–1976) (author of
the apologetic text Therefore Stand), and the Presbyterian Bible teacher
Donald Grey Barnhouse (1895–1960).
Martin's
relationship with Barnhouse as his mentor grew
over the years, and he was appointed as a regular columnist to Eternity
magazine (1955–60). Barnhouse's support for
Martin's research and teaching abilities resulted in the reassessment of
Seventh Day Adventist theology, raising the profile of his early ministry
in the Evangelical movement. He also worked for a time as a research
associate for the National Association of Evangelicals.
Martin was ordained
as a minister of the Regular Baptists in 1951, but this was revoked in 1953
owing to his remarriage. However, Martin met with the key pastor involved
in this revocation and a restoration agreement was apparently reached, as
Martin began marrying couples on television and continuing in public
pastoral roles with the full knowledge of the Baptist denomination. His
status as a minister has been the subject of much controversy but his
daughter, Jill Martin Rische, has made more
information available that puts much of the controversy to rest. Walter
Martin served as a pastor in various churches in New York and New Jersey in
the 1950s and 1960s. He
also became a regular teacher of Bible study classes at Barnhouse's
Church in New York City. In later years Martin would serve as a preacher
and Bible teacher at Melodyland Christian Center
and then at Newport Mesa Christian Center in California.
Extract from en.wikipedia.org - Read More
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