On the Ravi Zacharias Scandal
Firstly, I want to pray for all of the victims involved. I pray that they find healing in God, that they find true joy and comfort in Him. I hope they get all the help they need, and get over the horrific abuse they were subjected to.
I was personally a huge fan of Ravi Zacharias, his sermons helped me through my toughest times. He was a great speaker, very erudite, charismatic, and arguably an intellectual. I was introduced to Philosophical arguments and answers to the existential questions of life — of origin, meaning, morality and destiny — through him. His sermons spoke not just to the mind, but also to the heart, and left me more knowledgable, comforted in God, and teary-eyed more often than not.
He always seemed like a gentleman’s gentleman and I was reluctant to believe the allegations against him until the release of the initial report on December 23rd of last year, by the firm hired by RZIM to investigate the claims of sexual misconduct against him.
In hindsight, we see that he put his ministry above his own spiritual life. He was more reliant on himself and his own hard work (he kept himself very busy, travelled around 200 days a year), and not so much on God.
Contrast this with preachers like Paul Washer, who are very God-centric. In one of his sermons, Paul Washer said (and I paraphrase,) “Some of the most fruitful times of my ministry have been when I didn’t work very much. It’s God who decides how much impact a person will have, no matter how hard you work.” RZ probably sought to bring a revival through his own hard work, without relying on God.
From the reports of the investigation, we learn that he saw sexual releases (even outside of marriage) as something needed for his ministry, as a concession God would grant him. As if God would ever need a leader engaging in premeditated unrepentant sin (even sexual abuse!) to spread his Gospel. I couldn’t believe a person so seemingly pure (in one interview he said he doesn’t even watch any TV shows/movies that contain any immorality) would be not only a hypocrite, but a manipulative sexual predator.
On the other hand, I think lay Christians like me had a role to play in this. Matt. 10:16 asks us to be harmless as doves, and witty as snakes. We left out the witty, and became powerless sheep in need of charismatic leaders. We outsourced all the thinking we were supposed to do, to academics and those who seemed more capable of it. That’s at least true of me. I was too lazy to do my own research, and I heavily relied on speakers like RZ to give me the truth, without verifying their claims and wanting to learn for myself. Such an attitude, that puts leaders on so high a pedestal and seems to demand perfection of them, would put a lot of pressure on them, making them unwilling to confess their private sins when they first commit them.
God would never need you to sacrifice your own relationship with Him for the greater good or for His ministry. We need to stop trying to accomplish things through our own strength and hard work, remembering that God’s strength is made perfect through our weakness. God doesn’t need ANY of us. He’s self-sufficient and can raise up rocks to tell of His glorious deeds. To quote my favourite artist Rich Mullins, “God used an ass to speak to Balaam, and he’s been speaking through asses ever since.”
Here’s David Wood’s video on this topic, it’s long but definitely worth watching, I promise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArlP-NuFCig&ab_channel=Acts17Apologetics
