I won’t lie. I am struggling with the news yesterday. I was stunned for a while. Foe me, that is surprising since I had prepped myself up all my life for it. I have even written about it, fallen myself, and yet, I still can’t wrap my head and heart around it.
This is the news on CNY first day: The great apologist Ravi Zacharia (who passed on in May last year) had been investigated posthumously for sexual misconduct, an investigation commissioned by his own ministry helmed by his beloved daughter. And he had been found wanting, to put it mildly.
Alas, what would Christ say to Ravi then, “Welcome into my eternal rest, my good and faithful servant?”
More than ten years ago, I held in my hand a book entitled ”Can Man Live Without God?” (by Ravi himself). I devoured that book, highlighted, dog-eared and quoted the book excitedly in my cell group. His style of writing, though highly academic, was indeed living wellspring to my unsettled heart looking for unshakable faith in a world of fallen souls, including myself.
(I even purchased the book and gave it to my elder brother, who was then an atheist, a staunch one. He still is, and I guess that book, in the light of the dark revelations of Ravi’s carefully concealed private life, has lost a significant lustre in convincing my brother that he is not like the rest who have fallen. Alas, he is no exception, and I should have known better).
Anyway, yesterday, I read it, highlighted it, that is, the “Report of Independent Investigation into Sexual Misconduct of Ravi Zacharias” dated 9 February 2021 written by Lynsey M. Barron, Esq, and William P. Eiselstein, Esq, from Miller & Martin PLLC. And I was ashen in reaction, thinking how a defender of faith, and such a sagely one, with voice and sincerity that have melted hearts, could fail so shockingly to defend his own virtues and marital oath to God and man.
Yes, I know we serve Jesus. He is our unshakable anchor. Misplaced faith thus pays a heavy price. I have asked for it. Indeed, I should have known better. I should have seen it coming. But I have not. Sorry, I have not. Woe to me then.
Ravi was someone I looked up to. His faith bolstered my faith. I felt then we were connected by our common hope, an eternal hope.
At this point, I recalled a little girl kneeling by her bedside, and her father came in and asked her what she was praying about. She said that she is praying for a God with more skin so that she could see and touch him.
Similarly, Ravi was someone with skin to me, and for a long long time, I admit that he stood as a proxy of my faith with God. Whenever I felt a hole in my faith, I remember his writings, including C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller, for example, and I comforted myself, muttering under my breath that I had someone who had gone before me, with legs and heart firmly grounded, unshakeable. Silly right?
Anyway, Ravi’s life and writings shone a light on my cobblestone pathway. It was a journey for me to be more like Christ and Ravi went before me. In his ministry, he had made an impact, and I always wanted to follow some of the steps he had taken because I believed they were the same steps our Saviour had taken in His road to Calvary. But alas, Ravi, according to the report, made many detours in that shared journey,, and as I read them, I was crestfallen.
There were in fact many allegations made. And one of my loved ones who read it yesterday squirmed, and remarked: “He gave me the impression of a dirty old man.”
Well, having read it myself, I shared her sentiment. Mind you, it is not about Ravi being a “silent investor” of two spas (ironically named “Touch of Eden” and the other “Jivian Wellness” - Jivan is of Hindi origin and it means “life”). It is not about him taking time away for massage treatments since he did have significant back problems. It is not even about him always starting his massages “completely naked” and “almost always (having) an erection”.
It is however about his multiple indecent touches, “rubbing them inappropriately”, and “his request to masturbate him.” One account had him talking to a woman “about her career plans and efforts to improve her financial situation” while massaging her breast.
He had also offered them financial support (from ministry funds), paying for culinary tuitions and supporting them on a monthly basis, even settling large debts, in return for secret friendship, physical intimacy and sexual gratifications. It reports that “only one of the witnesses...said Mr Zacharias engaged in sexual intercourse. (And) this witness reported details of many encounters over a period of years that she described as rape.”
It is also about how he did it, over the hidden-away years. That was something that gripped my heart. But his MO is quite typical. He always made his young victims think of him as a “father-figure”. According to (a) witness, "Mr Zacharias used religious expressions to gain compliance as she was raised to be a person of faith. She reported that he made her pray with him to thank God for the “opportunity” they both received. She said he called her his “reward” for living a life of service to God.””
And Ravi acted like any leader desperate to burnish and protect his clean image would, that is, he treated those who dared to talk to him about some questionable practices with extreme prejudice.
“A high-level RZIM staff member expressed concerns to Mr Zacharias about it and encouraged him to stop travelling with her (his personal messeuse). In response, Mr Zacharias grew angry and barely spoken to this staff member for a long period of time. He was effectively “sent to Siberia,” as another staff member recalled. Their relationship ship never fully recovered.””
Ravi even called his critics “nasty people” and “lunatics” who were engaged in “satanic-type” slander and falsehood. In his ironclad denial, Ravi declared: “In my 45 years of marriage to Margie, I have never engaged in any inappropriate behavior marriage of any kind.”
While all the allegations from the victims can be challenged under cross-examination, what kept me dumbfounded for sometime were the photographs in 4 of his phones they managed to recover. It was from his own communication devices, kept by him, with carnal-fueled requests written by him. That is pretty damning. How do you then cross-examine yourself and then stubbornly maintaining a wall of self-denial? No court of self could ever be impartial to self, right?
The investigation found photos and communication that simply defied "characterization as innocent”. There were “200 photographs of women much younger than him.” One set contained “nudes images of a young Malaysian salon employee” dated as early as August 20, 2017. FYI, he passed on in May 2020. According to the report, the “photographs grew increasingly more suggestive, culminating in two photographs showing her bare breasts dated October 27, 2018, and a video of her fully naked and touching herself dated January 8, 2019.”
Two women said that Ravi asked for their nude photos, but they refused.
Some of the messages were also deeply disturbing. They were also incriminating. Mind you, from his own hands, he typed them. From his own heart, he put desires into words, lust into action.
In one case, he purchased a necklace for a woman living in Seoul, and told her he wished to put it around her neck personally. He wrote: “May I say to you- you are beautiful. Just so beautiful...I cannot help but miss you even more, after seeing your picture. It brings a tear of longing in my eyes. Longing to see you again.”
In another hand-typed message, he used pet names to address a massage therapist, such as “sweetheart”, “baby”, “darling”, “angel”, “my precious little girl”, and “honey”. He told her this: “I know more than ever that you have become the love of my life. I’m waiting to hold you close to my heart again. Please be safe my angel. I Love you and goodnight from here.” He told her to keep him “as the only one in (his) heart" and said, "I love you my dearest xxxxxxx.”
In yet another bout of messaging to his victim, Ravi wrote that he loved the way she smiles, laughs, the way she loves, her work, her heart, her skills. And she responded: “I love you and kiss you everywhere xxxxxx.”
In the 12-page report, this was the brief conclusion: “...we are confident that we uncovered sufficient evidence to conclude that Mr Zacharias engaged in sexual misconduct.”
When I read that conclusion, I felt a certain numbness in my already weary, jaded faith. I wondered how he could pen every good word defending the faith so convincingly while penning words that defaces it with equal damning effect. I also wondered how he was able to deal with facing the world of mostly eager young students looking for an elderly anchorage of faith to plant theirs and the numerous private sessions he had with young girls mostly from impoverished backgrounds struggling to satisfy his desires for sexual gratifications. One victim even said (and I paraphrase) that she is a nobody, who would then believe her words against the eloquence of a giant of the faith.
Yes, I know we are all fallen. We are only human. Even King David had committed adultery and conspired to murder. I hear you. But mind you, he repented. David was at first clueless about Prophet Nathan's accusations, but finally cried out in remorse and accepted the very dear price he had to pay - which he did. For didn’t the scripture read: “David burned with anger against the man. “I solemnly swear, as the Lord lives,” he said to Nathan, “the man who did this certainly deserves to die! And he must pay back four times the price of the lamb because he did this and had no pity””?
Alas, Ravi had lived his life. He had made his choices, choices to live for God, and choices to die with so much unsettled questions left unanswered. Usually, when a man (or woman) of faith, like Billy Graham, leaves this world, he (or she) carries with them a candle, so that even in their absence we can still feel the warm of their testimony and the light that guides us.
But, with a broken faith, I can’t say the same with Ravi Zacharias, at least not at this moment, even though he was the one who had written many books I secretly go to every now and then to find a small estate of uncharted territory to stand on as I cling on to faith and hope in the many storms of disappointments.
Ravi had in living taught me many lessons about growing strong in the faith, and looking straight into the eyes of an atheist, telling them that my faith is worth defending because there are still genuine leaders out there who had lived a life of integrity, honesty and overcoming (And there are undeniably many who have died with their faith intact).
Personally, I still believe that, or want to believe that, but it just gets so much harder with a life that has given me so much cause to hold on, and yet, at the same time, so much cause to put it down in serious quiet reflection.
Let me end with the words of Ted Roberts in his book, “Pure Desire: How one man’s triumph can help others break free from sexual temptation.”
“God doesn’t bring us into a time of testing in order for Him to see what’s in our hearts. He already knows that better than we do! The trials are for us to discover what’s in our hearts. God set up the trial so we can discover that we can make it.”
We are forgetting that a man, leader or otherwise, goes through many trials in his brief life. Some trials are very public. And before a crowd of witnesses, he often comes up shinning. He then becomes a city on the hill, for all to see, for all to marvel.
There are also some trials (if not just one) that are hidden. They are hidden for a reason. They are hidden so that we don't need to give an account of them. And they are hidden so that he who diligently hides them can garner the strength to go through trials that are more visible to the public eye.
From Ravi, quite ironically, I have learnt that faith is therefore not about winning public trials just so that we can hide (or indulge in) private ones. One can never be a means to the other in the same way that one cannot serve two masters. Stop deceiving ourselves!
If we as believers are really serious about our faith, and desire to set the example for people who look up to us (with skin) for hope (like I had looked up to Ravi for anchorage), then don’t ever boast about coming out - like gold - in trials we secretly desire people to see and then wallow in our own private trials that we do not want anyone, not even our loved ones, or especially our loved ones, to see.
If you want to boast in public, then settle first your own private, signature sin you have endearingly kept in the private chambers of your heart. For some demons are jealously preserved by us so that we can continue projecting an "overcoming" image many hope to emulate. The attention we get is often the fuel we need to nurture our darkest fantasies. But the insatiable appetite for popularity often backfires, even if the seeds we plant bear a bountiful harvest.
For that is the worst kind of deception, a deception that betrays not only our faith and the faith of our loved ones, but our God to whom we declare publicly we have nothing to hide.
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