“What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar…” – Romans 3:3-4
This month, a final investigative report was released which detailed accounts of sexual abuse perpetrated by one of the most beloved Christian leaders and apologists of our generation- Ravi Zacharias. I waited to comment on these allegations until the evidence was published, and to my great distress, I am confident that the claims are true. It is literally unthinkable to anyone who followed his ministry over the years. Many in the community are experiencing real feelings of shock and grief, while I imagine the victims of his abuses are experiencing some small measure of relief and vindication mingled with their pain.
I personally listened to his messages for years, read his books, and even attended a live lecture. I have twice quoted his words in this blog in the posts Does Personal Holiness Still Matter to Millennials and Cheerleader Churches: Have We Reduced Christianity to Mere Friendliness? I don’t think I had more faith in anyone that I did not personally know than I did in Ravi. There could be no well-known Christian leader whose deceit would be more of a personal blow to me than Ravi’s deception is. For those who knew him personally, I can only imagine the depth of horror and grief at these revelations. Carson Weitnaeur, who worked for Ravi’s evangelist ministry RZIM, stated his feelings with these words: “The realization that Ravi Zacharias was not the greatest apologist of his generation – but rather one of its greatest frauds – has felt like a catastrophic betrayal. In dealing with this news, I have felt a sickening combination of revulsion and grief.”
Ravi is not the first Christian leader to fall, and he will not be the last. Christians are flawed people like anyone else- they just have hope in the promise of redemption. He was different, however, because his teaching was so sound, which makes the nature of his actions doubly inconceivable. He was an intellectual who had a uniquely multi-cultural viewpoint and a refreshingly cerebral yet compassionate approach to the Gospel. He had a way with words that most of us only dream of achieving. The fact that his teaching will now be effectively erased will be one of the greatest punishments for his private sin. It is a loss, indeed. While his words now contain an irony that can be seen in his own apparent deception and lack of (at least public) repentance, they still contain truth. When re-reading the transcripts of his speeches, I am hard-pressed to find anything that was not profound and ostensibly true. How a man who seemed to have such a grasp on meaningful realities could stray so far off the path himself will always be a mystery to anyone who followed him.
In the wake of these revelations, many are rushing either to excuse Ravi’s mistakes as the understandable weaknesses of an otherwise great man (likening him to King David or other great heroes with glaring failures), or they are condemning him to the eternal estrangement from God called Hell that he often warned about himself. I have nothing to add to the conversation except to say that I do not think either judgment is appropriate. The reality is that we have no idea what Ravi’s Maker said to him when he passed out of this world and into the next. We do not know if his sins were viewed as more serious than ours will be, whether his heart was beyond redemption, or what truth he still possessed.
We SHOULD be honest about his crimes in order to support and defend the women he hurt. We are not wrong to point out the hypocrisy in his public image and his private life- in fact I think it is necessary to reestablish any kind of credibility after following his teaching. We are likewise right to decry his lack of public repentance and choice to instead slander at least one victim by using his superior power and position to silence her.
What we need not do, however, is make any pronouncement on his soul. God has told us that He will judge teachers more harshly, and we can be sure that will be the case. I do not have the faith I once did that he was welcomed with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” but I still hope that he was greeted with the love and forgiveness of God that I want for myself. I strongly suspect that even in forgiveness, we will fully realize the depth of our sins, the impact they had on others, and perhaps even the future ramifications to all the generations that come after us. Just because he died without facing worldly accountability does not mean that he will not face it in the next life- even if God saves his soul.
I realize that hoping Ravi sees the realities of the salvation he preached is easy for me to say as a person who was not victimized by him, but nevertheless that is the Christian message. We are all capable of achieving God’s forgiveness, regardless of our offenses. That does not mean that we WILL all receive it if we did not seek it, however. Let us all pray that Ravi sought it in the darkness of his lonely moments, that the church recovers from the incalculable damage that his crimes against the faith will cause, that his family finds some measure of peace, and most of all that the women who were harmed by his actions will find healing.
After processing my own thoughts about these disclosures, I have revisited the quotes I shared in previous blogs, and I have decided to leave them as they are. They are no less true because of his failures, and his personal witness had no bearing on their use in the articles. I will include them again below so that you can judge the words for yourself. I will also include a final quote from one of Carson Wetnaeur’s articles. The quote was also Ravi’s, and it was meant to ironically underscore the ripple effect of Ravi’s own actions. Like I did, you will probably read his words with a measure of pain at their applicability to his own now-public failings and a pang of disbelief at their truth despite the information we now know. I will not be using his quotes in the future, and I will not be sharing any of his works. I have yet to decide what to do with his books, but I do not see how I could bring myself to continue reading the one that is unfinished. I think it will remain unfinished- an unfortunate testament to the way in which his influence was cut short by his own actions.
Ravi’s Quotes From My Article:
“If truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive.”
“If they compromise too much, there’s no substance left…Give up all the substance of the Gospel and think you’ll win them over. What are you winning them to? You’re winning them to the re-definitions, cast in the image of their own desires.”
“…No, we do not need to change the message, but I do think we need to think seriously of how poorly we have done in hearing the questions, in how poorly we have done in answering the questions, and how careful we need to be in navigating this terrain, because wrong words and wrong perceptions can have catastrophic ramifications for the message.”
Ravi’s Quote From Carson’s article:
“Sin has a ripple effect. You never, ever sin alone. Because when you sin, you are changed. And when you are changed you will affect somebody else. And when we talk about victimless crimes in our society, they might be legal, sociological, psychological terms. They are not Biblical concepts. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. If I victimize myself some way in sin, I am victimizing my children, you can be sure. Society is solid. It is connected. And the whole principle of Adam and Eve is the solidarity of man as through one man sin came into the world, so shall righteousness ultimately to the person of Christ. But man is not dismembered from society. He is not an island. He is connected. And please notice how David’s ripple effect is going to go through his home. And nobody sitting here will go untouched by the heartbreaking nature of this story.”
Further reading and watching:
Reasons for God Article: Was Ravi Zacharias Like King David?
Reasons for God Article: A Catastrophic Betrayal
Alisa Childers: Thoughts on the Ravi Zacharias Scandal
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About the Author
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Jackie Chea is a blogger from San Antonio, Texas who holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Community Counseling from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She writes on political and cultural issues from a conservative, religious standpoint. She lives in the Lone Star State with her husband Nick, her 5-year-old son Lincoln, and her rescue dogs. |
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