I never knew much about Ravi Zacharias. Never learned his story or read his books or listened much to him. Just a few YouTube clips or tweets here and there.
I knew my parents loved him. Could hear his thick Indian accent playing in the background of various kitchens and living rooms growing up. When he died last year, I saw much of Christian Twitter and Christian Facebook offer their resounding support.
“Well done, good and faithful servant,” I saw being posted of him, again and again.
Sprinkled in with the high praise, though, some other postings caught my eye. Other believers making sure we knew this guy wasn’t some superstar saint, that he also had something of a shroud about him, having settled a nondisclosure agreement in 2017 with a woman over sexual texts exchanged.
Alas. If only that single case had been the entire iceberg.
After Ravi Zacharias died, several women independent of one another came forward with similar stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and even rape. Zacharias’s ministry, RZIM, finally commissioned an independent investigation and recently released a thorough statement, confirming he did in fact do awful things to many women.
Horrific things, evil things.
Hundreds of women’s photos were found in his possession. And beyond the digital realm, what happened in these spas he co-owned and frequented is horrifying — the masturbation, the fondling, the spiritual threats.
These last couple weeks, I’ve been processing it all: the double life, the anger, the grief, and the Christian response. My own response.
To start with a single positive, I’m grateful RZIM took the initiative to commission an investigation into their former leader (though it should have happened years ago). It’s easy, if not natural to assume you know somebody, when the reality is you don’t know anyone on a 24/7 basis. Not your best friend, not your spouse, and certainly not your ministry leader.
When future allegations emerge from other Christian leaders (and they will), I pray the desire for transparency and truth more readily triumphs over continuing to presume innocence and protect unknown assaulters.
And so, I’m grateful the truth finally found its way on this side of eternity. That these women can find some sense of closure or release thanks to these confirmed investigation findings, though nothing will ever undo the evil they suffered. I pray they find some sliver of healing, whatever extent is even possible in this life.
And I pray that some way, somehow these women discover or rediscover the true love of God despite the perverted misrepresentation and manipulation from a man simultaneously preaching His name.
And thus comes the onslaught of questions from this Ravi Zacharias investigation . . .
How do we reconcile the double life? How does someone continue to preach the name of Jesus while also doing wicked things to people? How does he hide his sin for years?
Why did he own multiple spas in Atlanta? Did nobody around him think to tell him this was an unwise thing for an evangelist to do? Why did he go to spas alone?
Why did he travel to Bangkok for days or weeks at a time, for years at a time — again, by himself? Did nobody around him think he could ever sin?
Was Ravi Zacharias assumed to be such a godly man having done countless godly things that he’d never experience sexual temptation? Or any temptation? Or loneliness? Or any other innately human quality or brokenness? Like he had somehow transcended his humanity for all the books and speaking gigs and souls saved?
Did Ravi Zacharias set himself up to be some untouchable Christian celebrity, or did the people around him do that, or perhaps both?
Shifting outward and inward, I need to resist the urge to pile on someone else without confessing my own brokenness. Because Lord knows I have that in spades.
On the one hand, the problem of Ravi Zacharias is the problem of King David is the problem of you and me and the rest of us. We are all sinful people; we all need Jesus. Yes, we are; yes, we do.
But.
On the other hand, we also can’t generalize and excuse Ravi Zacharias’s sin as something common to mankind, thus minimizing his offenses. Like the Jesus we follow, we believers need to stand united with victims, the marginalized, the hurting, the devastated. We can’t just shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, Person X was sinful like everyone is sinful” and move on.
We can’t be silent over blazing injustice.
If believers are more known for our united praise of Ravi Zacharias than our united lament, we have failed. We’ve failed his victims, and we’ve failed an entire watching world.
We need to renounce the evil done by a man we apparently exalted beyond reproach. We need to believe his victims. We need to grieve with them. We need to be unequivocally for them. And we need to be a Church always seeking justice, confessing and resolving such unrestricted evil in our churches, our ministries, our organizations, whatever the structure.
As someone leading a ministry of sorts, I’ve felt the flame of this fallout in a profound, personal way. I often hear encouragement and affirmation from friends and family and total strangers alike in my work with Your Other Brothers.
It means a lot that this blog and podcast and online community has made a meaningful difference in folks’ lives the world over. Truly.
But please don’t make me a hero. Please don’t make me a Christian celebrity. Please don’t make me some community-building superChristian who did a good thing, a great thing, or some combination of good-great things, as if I no longer experience temptation, no longer struggle, no longer use people, no longer need accountability, no longer need therapy, no longer need forgiveness, no longer need correction, no longer need humility.
No longer need grace.
Leaders are lonely at the top, and I’ve felt that loneliness firsthand. The more I digest the revelations from this Ravi Zacharias story, the more I resonate with his deep loneliness. That feeling of: “I’ve gotten so big and so well-respected, nobody can ever know about any of my darkness.”
Hiding begets hiding; darkness begets darkness.
The problem of Ravi Zacharias is the problem of pastors and ministry leaders the world over. They struggle, too. We all do. And this idolatry of certain Christians needs to stop.
God, I pray it stops.
Dear readers, I’m working through my own “stuff” more than ever. I’ve had some hard conversations over the years with precious folks in my life. I’m in therapy. I’m striving with everything in me to rise one more time than I fall.
When I die, I hope people say of me that I did my best with my broken self for the Lord. That I would one day hope to hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” or be known as a man after God’s heart.
But please, when I die, please don’t forget that I was also a dirty, awful sinner. Someone in desperate need of grace on a daily basis. Someone who sinned again and again.
That I wasn’t a super saint. That nobody is.
