It felt like I had been kicked in the gut. “This can’t be,” I thought to myself as I read a Christianity Today article addressing another sexual scandal.
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) was opening an investigation into allegations that world renown Christian apologist and RZIM Founder, Ravi Zacharias, had sexually assaulted massage therapists in a spa he co-owned in Atlanta, Georgia.
A few years earlier, when Lori Ann Thompson had gone public about her sexting relationship with Zacharias, I had scoured the internet trying to dig up dirt on Ravi to see if her allegations could possibly be true. The lawyer who had broken the Thompson story openly identified as an atheist and had garnered a track record of digging up dirt and going after well-known Christian preachers. I didn’t believe he had pure motives for breaking this story, and since I could not believe Ravi would do such a thing, I ravaged known sources to prove my point.
I couldn’t find anything.
The internet was squeaky clean of any dirt on Ravi. I couldn’t even find a smudge of guilt, a disgruntled employee, or jealous colleague. Nothing.
I remember a moment where it seemed slightly odd that I could not find anything negative on Ravi. Even men like Francis Chan, John Piper, and Ben Carson have people who don’t like them. However, I did not actually want to find anything negative on Ravi, so the moment quickly passed to feeling he had been exonerated.
A couple months later, RZIM came out with a statement saying they had “looked into” the allegations and found nothing indicting Ravi Zacharias.
Ravi, himself, published a statement on the RZIM website stating that never in his forty-five years of marriage had he been unfaithful to his wife, Margie. He claimed that he never allows himself to be in a room alone with another woman who is not his wife, and that he had been careless not to maintain such strict standards in his virtual communications as well. He said he had received illicit photos from Mrs. Thompson and had asked her to stop. Ravi admitted that he failed to communicate with the board of his ministry about receiving such photos, Thompson’s allegations were nothing more than an attempt to discredit a servant of the Lord.
I believed him.
I believed RZIM.
I believed Christian and Missionary Alliance, the denomination who had ordained Ravi Zacharias and had “investigated” the Thompson allegations.
Ravi Zacharias was the epitome of integrity and upright ministry, in my mind.
The Truth Comes Out
Then he died in May of 2020.
I remember feeling annoyed when Christianity Today published his obituary and mentioned the Thompson allegations and alluded to some other scandals he had been linked to.
“That’s been investigated,” I thought. “He was proven innocent.”
But now, on September 29, 2020, Christianity Today was coming out with more than a passing reference to Ravi’s name being linked to scandal. They had witnesses. They had one who was willing to go public. Ravi had used his well-known, chronic back problems and a partnership in the spa industry to cover soliciting sexual favors from massage therapists he had gotten to know over the years.
I sat there physically shaken. Struggling to breathe.
It seems there have been so many scandals in recent years of Christian leaders abusing their positions of power. Sexual abuse, bullying and intimidation, plagiarism—you name it, the church has got it. But the news of Ravi being one of them caught me more off guard than any of these modern scandals.
My family listened to Ravi on the radio growing up. His accent sounded so eloquent, and he had a way of bringing cohesion and robust intellectual thinking to the Christian faith. He saturated his speeches with stories well-crafted to land his points as poignantly as possible. I can remember as a thirteen and fourteen-year-old being invited to think more deeply about the implications of Christianity in all areas of life through his speeches and sermons on the radio.
But I remember clearest of all the time Ravi talked about being careful of the subtle lies of Satan suggesting we “deserve” certain pleasures because of our devotion or ministry to God.
That has stuck with me through the years. I’ve thought of it when I faced temptations to think I deserve something because of my “service” or “hard work.” I’ve thought of it when I considered potential situations I could find myself faced with in the future.
I just never thought I’d learn one day that Ravi, himself, used such an excuse to engage in serial sexual abuse. But that’s exactly what the Miller & Martin PLLC report revealed on February 8, 2021.
Making Sense of Everything
Much has been said and written about Ravi already in recent months. I’ve been simply trying to find my footing.
Many have warned of the dangers of being an effectively persuasive person and how that gifting can be abused to allure people into serving one’s selfish desires. Others have dissected the atrocious structural dynamics of RZIM that failed to hold Ravi accountable. Survivors and advocates have pointed out how far the church has to go in listening to and believing victims the first time, instead of maligning and denigrating them as trying to sabotage a servant of God.
We have so much to learn, as the body of Christ, and Ravi’s fall provides us with a graphic case study to learn from.
I’m not going to bother repeating any of the aforementioned evaluations of this scandal. I will link to them at the bottom of this article because they are definitely worth listening to and learning from.
In this article, however, I’m going to “process aloud” some things I’ve been wrestling with that I haven’t really seen or heard anyone else interact a lot with, yet. Perhaps you have also mulled over these things and can help me process by sharing some of what you’ve learned.
The church doesn’t handle brokenness well.
We desperately long for heroes, for messiahs of sorts. When a person rises up and appears to be that hero, we overlook the little bits of brokenness that are evident but seem harmless.
When someone stands up and challenges the integrity of our hero by sharing how the hero broke their life, we attack them. And I think we attack them because we are not sure how to handle brokenness—grotesque brokenness evidenced in the abused, or subtle brokenness leaked by our heroes.
I’m going to process a few things I think we could learn about how to handle brokenness in a much more holistic way that could save “heroes”—and the rest of us—from living pretentious lives.
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