瓦尔特·拉尔斯顿·马丁

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 parachurch ministry specializing as a clearing-house of information in both general Christian apologetics and in countercult apologetics. As the author of the influential The Kingdom of the Cults (1965), he has been dubbed by the conservative Christian columnist Michael J. McManus, the "godfather of the anti-cult movement".

Birth and early years

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 blackface 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.

Continuing education

Dr. Martin held four earned degrees including a Master of Arts in Philosophy from New York University, where he was a student alongside television evangelist D. James Kennedy. Kennedy confirmed the fact that Martin had completed all of the coursework for his doctorate, with the exception of his dissertation. He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in 1976 from California Coast University, which was approved (not accredited) by the state of California at the time the degree was awarded.

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). 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 M. 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 because of 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.

Evangelical-Adventist controversy

Perhaps the greatest public controversy of his early career arose from his studies of Seventh-day Adventist theology. From its earliest days until the 1950s, the Seventh-day Adventist Church was regarded by Evangelical Christians and mainstream Protestants as either an extreme sect or heretical cult. Martin had initially accepted the prevailing Protestant opinion about the heretical status of the Seventh-day Adventists. He indicated his opposition to Adventist teachings in a brief paragraph in the inaugural edition of his book The Rise of the Cults, published in 1955.