Ravi Zacharias was a serial sexual predator for many years, with many women. If you’ve been paying attention to the story, that’s not news.
A report was released today by his ministry which outlines his patterns of behavior.
I have a few thoughts on this story.
Churches need to respond
As we’ve seen mounting evidence, many Christians have continued to make excuses for Ravi, ignore the facts, point to his success in ministry. It is for that reason, that I believe that major ministries who worked with Ravi and well known pastors and ministry leaders who worked with Ravi need to all be addressing this report. I’m not blaming those people. But if they don’t call this out, they’re giving license to their followers to continue supporting, watching, and listening to Ravi’s material.
Ravi routinely exposed himself and assaulted massage therapists. He used his ministry to funnel them money. He engaged in inappropriate online relationships. And he continued to do all of this until shortly before he died.
Don’t give his ministry too much credit
Ravi’s ministry had these claims investigated. I think that should be appreciated, but I think we should also take that with a grain of salt. There were allegations during his lifetime that were not seriously investigated. Questions still linger about who else was aware of Ravi’s behaviors. Ravi’s dead. It’s easy for the ministry to just focus on him, but if others also acted inappropriately, that needs to be investigated as well.
If the investigation ends here, then they haven’t done enough. There’s more to all of this. Today’s report was a major step. I hope it’s not the final step in investigating this predator, but my concern is that it will be.
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Josh Benner 