A Pandemic of Silence

The ugly truth behind Ravi Zacharias’ global ministry. How well are we listening?

By Karen Huber

(From the April - June 2021 issue of VOX)

The shock was, quite literally, heard around the world.

When Ravi Zacharias died in May 2020, Christian leaders, pastors, and theologians grieved openly and with genuine affection. For decades, Zacharias had been their teacher, a trusted apologetic source for defending the faith, and a brother in Christ. He travelled around the world to speak at our churches and our ministry conferences. He was that heady mix of both spiritual authority and Christian celebrity.

And he was an abuser. A thief. A scoundrel. And a liar.

We may never know the true nature of Ravi Zacharias but an independent investigation into Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) – the organisation he founded – confirms what some suspected even before his passing. Zacharias used his spiritual authority to sexually abuse, harass, and perhaps even traffic vulnerable women. Furthermore, Zacharias funnelled large funds earmarked for humanitarian ministry to facilitate his abuse.

In a statement following the report’s release in February 2021, RZIM finally admitted to believing “not only the women who made their allegations public but also additional women who had not previously made public allegations against Ravi but whose identities and stories were uncovered during the investigation.” These allegations included instances of “sexting, unwanted touching, spiritual abuse, and rape.”

Since the release of the investigation, many of those Christian leaders who praised him so vociferously have redacted their support. “I was wrong,” starts one pastor’s letter to a large, multi-congregational church in the US where Zacharias often went on speaking tours. These leaders and teachers say they were as taken in as anyone would be, fooled by his charisma and intelligence, the wool pulled over their eyes so as not to see the wolf he really was.

These statements betray the fact that women began to speak up before Ravi’s death—women who were shushed, figuratively and literally. Women bound by non-disclosure agreements that continue to hold them to silence beyond the grave. Women in his own organisation who questioned his travel with a personal masseuse or his need for multiple mobile phones. Women who were ignored, belittled, and litigated by RZIM and a Christian culture which places the word of a man (particularly men in power) as sturdier than that of a woman.

Christianity Today first reported on allegations against Ravi Zacharias in 2017, when Lori Anne Thompson came forward, alleging six years of Zacharias soliciting nude photos and sexting. Thompson and her husband were vilified and countersued. “I knew the world to be an unsafe place before I met Ravi Zacharias,” Thompson wrote in a statement. “[B]ut I yet had hope that there were some safe and sacred spaces. I no longer live with that hope. I trusted him. I trusted Christendom. That trust is irreparably and catastrophically shattered.”

Women spoke up, but we drowned out their voices with loyalty and submission to a man who claimed to speak for God. In the cruellest of examples, Zacharias told an employee he had raped that she was his ‘reward’ for living a life of service to God... She said he warned her not ever to speak out against him or she would be responsible for the ‘millions of souls’ whose salvation would be lost if his reputation was damaged.

Who can stand against that?

“It was too easy to give him a pass based on his gifting,” says Sam Allberry, a pastor and former speaker for RZIM UK. “That’s something we need to learn something very serious from. Gifting is not a reason to think someone doesn’t need the same spiritual discipline as a means of grace that the Bible says all of us need.”

“Here in Ireland, we continue to bear witness to the deep pain endured by so many at the hands of ‘the Church’ for far too long.”

In recent months and years, moral failings and abuses by those in spiritual authority have been revealed with such speed and devastating force, it could take your breath away. From America to Australia, from youth leaders to megachurch pastors, men held in high spiritual regard have abused their authority particularly over women and children. Here in Ireland, we continue to bear witness to the deep pain endured by so many at the hands of ‘the Church’ for far too long. It is a never-ending cycle of terrible news, further shocks, guilty verdicts, and State apologies. Investigations, reports, and apologies often come decades too late, when buried physical, emotional and spiritual wounds can’t help but traumatise generation after generation.

“Mistakes were made,” we admit.
But we made them.
“We did not know,” we say.
But we know now.
“We will do better,” we promise.
But will we?

“Churches and faith-based organisations have a moral duty to respond in some manner to this story and others like it.”

Even now, many of our leaders remain silent, perhaps too embarrassed to admit they bought into the lie. Karen Garland, a lawyer working in Northern Ireland, says the silence from churches in Ireland and the UK on Zacharias’s crimes has been deafening. “[It] directly affects how easy or difficult it is for someone who has suffered abuse to feel safe and understood in a church community. Churches and faith-based organisations have a moral duty to respond in some manner to this story and others like it. The absence of a response tacitly communicates that abuse is tolerated, that abusive leaders can act with impunity and that faith settings are ultimately unsafe and unsupportive environments for abuse victims of any age.”

The truth behind Zacharias’s façade should light a fire under all Christians to hold our teachers, our churches, and even our doctrines accountable. We should test the actions of those in authority against the standards set in Scripture, and we must pay heed to the spirit of discernment.

May we heed the warning:

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:22-24)

Let justice roll on like a river, and may the truly righteous – the humble, the gentle, the peacemaker, the truth speaker – flow like a never-failing stream.