Ravi Zacharias and the Survivor Blogs
March - May 2020
I hear news that Ravi Zacharias has cancer, and is dying. I once read a few articles on his site, and probably watched a few videos, but it must not have meant much to me, because I haven’t followed him closely. I have, however, been reading survivor blogs, and I know that his name comes up there. That’s not a good sign.
RZIM starts a campaign, #ThankYouRavi, and the posts start filling my Facebook feed. My heart sinks. I didn’t realize so many people I know appreciated his work that much.
I take another look at the survivor blogs to figure out how much substance there is to the allegations. There’s a suicide threat to cover a sex abuse scandal, and an illegal abortion. I’m not sure what to believe. There’s a screenshot of the suicide threat. That seems real enough. But how can I know for sure?
I look a little further, and find the part where he pretends to have an academic career that he never had. He’s not uneducated, of course. He has an M.Div, the standard academic qualification for a minister. And he’s clearly a talented public speaker. What’s up with all the claims about Oxford and Cambridge?
Should I tell my Facebook friends what’s really happening? The part with the most publicly available evidence is the pattern of lies about his qualifications. Maybe I should ask some questions about that. I try to figure out how to write something.
May 2020
Ravi dies.
I watch in horror as my feed fills with more tribute posts. People are comforted that he’s in Heaven now. My stomach turns. One Christian organization after another praises him1. I thought these were serious people, who work full time in ministry. Do they also lack the resources to vet someone before praising them? I’m not sure I really trust these people any more.
Well, this is getting awkward. I should really ask if anyone has looked into it. I continue thinking about how to write what I want to say.
But I back down from sharing.
Eventually my feed clears up. After a while, I forget about it.
September 2020
The Ravi Zacharias scandal breaks out to a broader audience. Vindication. The blogs weren’t just right about Zacharias being a problem in some general sense. They were right, even down to the details. They weren’t throwing things out and finally something stuck. They had it right. All of it. But then I remember my own silence. I failed this test of courage. And it wasn’t even a very difficult one.
Now What?
Let’s take a look at the Spiritual Sounding Board blog again. That’s the one who had so many facts exactly correct. Maybe I should search some other names that show up in my social media feeds on a regular basis.
It’s a lot of reading. I haven’t figured out yet what to think of the theological analysis. I am mostly interested in the evidence.
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Most of them have since cleaned up the evidence. ↩︎