Needless to say, right now nothing good is being said about the late, formerly-great Christian preacher and apologist, Ravi Zacharias. And unless there is some massive and explosive revelation that the recent reports about him are actually false, probably nothing good will ever be said about him again.
It is now well-known news that Ravi Zacharias International Ministries published a report earlier this month, after an investigation by an independent law firm, that during his career, Zacharias committed not only acts of sexual immorality and adultery, but even sexual abuse and rape against multiple women (RZIM).
But while fans and followers of Ravi Zacharias certainly (and justifiably) feel stunned and betrayed, none of this poses any real challenge to the Christian faith and worldview. None of this should cause doubt or trouble us at a greater, meta level. And I don’t just mean this because we put our faith in Jesus and not men, or because broadly everyone is a sinner or what have you (although those things are all true).
This kind of thing was predicted by the Bible itself.Therefore, when it happens, it is difficult to challenge the Bible’s veracity over it.
The Obvious But Necessary Caveat
Of course, this all assumes that the report and the accusations it affirms are largely accurate. That much should be obvious. And I believe that they are true (otherwise I would be defending Ravi Zacharias).
It is an unfortunate reality that in the current state of things, we can never completely dismiss the idea that an acclaimed conservative, Christian, straight, cisgender, practically-white man would be a target (I say “practically-white” because Asians and Indians are increasingly being considered to no longer be people of color because they tend to be relatively wealthy in the United States).
There is an increasing number of people, including in the professing church, who hold a worldview where people are defined less by individual character, individual actions, and individual beliefs, and more by broad systems and immutable (and supposedly immutable) identities like race, gender, and sexual orientation. To them, someone like Ravi Zacharias is ultimately responsible for all sorts of sins, regardless of what he actually did or didn’t do. Such a man is the epitome of the patriarchal oppression. This justifies false accusations against him because he is still an oppressor by virtue of his identity and teachings.
But in this case, the investigation here seems quite thorough, and at this point, just about all interested parties seem to have come to terms with the finding, without pushback, despite having conflicting interests in the matter. If ,in the end, this turns out to be a big scam, then God will vindicate Ravi Zacharias before the world on the day of judgment. But by all accounts, it seems that Ravi Zacharias really was just that horrible, and really did betray every person who ever saw him as any sort of an example.
The General Christian Worldview and Bible's Teaching On This
A fundamental aspect of the Christian worldview is that the whole world is marred with sin. Sin infects everyone. People are naturally inclined to sin, even if they are not constantly and egregiously sinning and doing evil things all the time.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not only essential to our salvation and forgiveness of our sins by dying for our sins and rising again, but He also sends the Holy Spirit to purify the hearts of believers and change them so that a person with real, genuine faith in Jesus will be led to righteousness and away from sin and evil.
But because sin is so prevalent, then just about any evil deed by anyone are consistent with a Christian worldview. Why would we not expect people to take advantage of good things in order to wickedly serve their desires at the cost of the innocent? Even in the secular world, people do that all the time. They lie. They steal. They falsely claim to be in need or be disabled or the like and milk the government and charities as a result, depriving people who have real needs from the help they could have had. This is nothing new.
Therefore, the idea of wicked people claiming to be believers and using religion for evil should not take any of us by surprise, nor should we be surprised that the Bible itself speaks to the issue.
For our purposes, I will focus on the New Testament and the church, although this pattern is quite applicable to the Old Testament and Israel under the Law of Moses. I will likely write more about that in the future.
Jesus's Warnings In the New Testament
It is not the case that the Bible speaks of all professing believers and ministers of the faith as being genuine and saved and made new by the Holy Spirit, and therefore things like this leave us flat-footed. It is not as though our defenses of God and the gospel depend on us speculating or saying that just because Christianity is supposed to make you a good and holy person, maybe it is real even if it sometimes doesn't do that.
On the contrary, the Bible knew that there would be false believers and ministers.
Jesus Himself attested to this. For example, regarding false prophets:
Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit (Matthew 7:17-17).
Although this passage specifically speaks of false prophets,
which is only a subset of false believers, it gives us relevant points to
consider. After all, who is going to seem more holy and devout than a prophet?
Nevertheless, Jesus calls them wolves in sheep’s clothing (in case you wondered
where that phrase came from). Their fruits (i.e. their actions) show you who
they really are – just as it would with international evangelists and
apologists.
Rather than saying to trust blindly anyone who claims to speak for God, the Bible says the opposite.
Furthermore, Jesus also reminds us:
Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."
Now, there is a bit of controversy within Christian circles about how this squares with passages that speak of faith in Jesus being sufficient to be saved (e.g. Ephesians 2:8-9). I am sympathetic to the view that the people in this passage never actually cast out demons or did real miracles, which I believe requires the Holy Spirit, but that they did fake works and even at judgment would try to lie to God. After all, if you fool people your whole lives, why would you not be that arrogant?
But whatever the case, Jesus already told us that people who seem to be holy and of God will in fact be damned to hell. So someone like a Ravi Zacharias is no surprise to the Lord.
God Using Wicked Ministers To Bring The Gospel And Salvation
One might fear that, due to the importance of morality in Christianity, the gospel message and the right teachings about God will lose their power if they come from a wicked person.
But this is not so, as we learn from the apostle Paul:
Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brothers and sisters, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking that they are causing me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice (Philiipians 1:12-18b, emphasis mine).
Paul talked about people who preached the gospel not out of devotion to God, but out of false motives. Such people probably were not even saved. They were snakes and preached a message for nefarious reasons. But Paul is basically just like “oh well, the gospel is getting preached either way.” The Bible is basically just like “the joke is on them.”
At worst, Zacharias’s situation is basically Philippians 1:12-18 in action. While he caused all sorts of damage to individuals behind the scene, the fact is that countless individuals around the world came to faith from his preaching. Countless others had their faith saved from doubt, or came to faith because people who listed to Zacharias became better apologists and Christians overall. At worst, he was a useful idiot who served God's plan in spite of himself.
The faith and salvation of the millions who heard his message doesn’t get retroactively cancelled just because it turns out that Ravi Zacharias were a snake.
The Book Of Jude is All About False Believers
The book of Jude is a very short book of the Bible. Nevertheless, the focus of this short epistle is pretty much entirely upon false believers in the church:
Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all time handed down to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (Jude 3-4).
Jude didn’t shrug his shoulders and say “well, we’re all sinners saved by grace.” He explicitly marks these people for condemnation, as he does latter in the epistle, comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah (who suffered the fate of eternal fire and serve as an example to others – Verse 7), and calling them “wild waves of the sea, churning up their own shameful deeds like dirty foam; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever” (Verse 13).
It is not the case that the Bible implies all professing Christians are genuine, saved believers (a distinction that may not matter to an unbeliever but does within a Christian worldview). It is not as though we have to come with speculative, ad-hoc explanations for how the Holy Spirit is supposed to change people but lots of people who call themselves Christians never change. Many such people are described above. Many who profess Jesus, even devoutly, even (if not especially) among minsters, are “hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear.” They are not part of Christ’s flock despite dressing in wool.
2 Timothy 3:1-9 and Ravi Zacharias
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.
Does not most of that description sound a lot like Ravi Zacharias, based on what is now known? He held to a form of godliness but ended up being arrogant, unloving, a lover of pleasure, brutal, treacherous, etc.
One might ask: didn’t Ravi Zacharias, unlike the men in that verse, make lots of progress in life? Wasn’t his folly not made obvious to all? I would counter that ultimately, this is not he case. How Ravi influenced almost everyone who had ever heard of him was by teaching them ways to defend the true, biblical Christian faith. What he did behind the scenes, as awful as it was, affected a very small number of people. He affected them quite terribly, which is why God’s wrath and hellfire exist, but what he ultimately did was take advantage of a small number of women, relative to those he (perhaps accidently) led to Jesus. And now, his folly (and evil of other sorts) has been revealed to the world.
Conclusion
Don't let anyone say that the Bible teaches that every person who identifies as a Christian is saved, and therefore we must own any evil committed by a professing Christian or try to reconcile a conflict with our beliefs. The Scripture says otherwise.
Men like Ravi Zacharias come and go in all circles and throughout all time (this side of eternity). But they will all have to stand before God at the great day of judgment. And while God knows everyone's hearts and all the things behind the scenes and is the ultimate judge in each case, we know that, broadly speaking, these kinds of men will face God's wrath and vengeance (as they should). God was not caught flat-footed.
The specifics of this story will no doubt continue to develop over time, including the fate of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, and the ways that believers around the world can contribute to help the women victimized why a once-renowned wolf in sheep's clothing.
In the meantime, trust in the Lord and be comforted by His word, even during such a dark time as this.
Works Cited
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission
- Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, "Report of Independent Investigation into Sexual Misconduct of Ravi Zacharias," RZIM, February 9, 2021 <https://rzimmedia.rzim.org/assets/downloads/Report-of-Investigation.pdf>
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