Abuse, Betrayal, and the Perils of Pedestals

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One of my heroes died back in May. He died again last week.

I never met Ravi Zacharias, but he has been a giant to me since in my earliest years of ministry. I used to do the dishes with him back when podcasts were just becoming a thing. I’ve heard many preachers at the top of their game, but never one who could make the truth so beautiful. His sermons, while vivid and forceful, were shot through with the poetry of grace. Everything about him, from his rich accent, to his perfect diction, to his surgical use of quotes, made me want to be be a better preacher. In fact, sometimes when I write, I still hear his voice narrating my prose.

This past week, then, has been a bit of a gut-punch. An independent investigation confirmed that the man in the podcast was not the man I believed him to be. Suffice it to say that Ravi, like so many before him, abused his position by abusing vulnerable women who trusted him like the rest of us did.

There is nothing new here, of course, and that’s part of the tragedy. Recent flameouts by Christian leaders have jump-started new discussions on sexual abuse, local accountability, the responsibility of institutions, and the rancid nature of Christian celebrity. They are hard discussions to have, especially for those of us who are still feeling sick to our stomachs, but they are essential. Men need integrity. Ministries need transparency. Victims need advocacy. And preachers of the gospel need their feet held to the ground.

It is only this last point that I feel qualified to speak to. I’m only an associate pastor of a mid-sized church in small town Oregon—I’m not even the lead guy—but I’ve felt the pull of the pedestal, too. We all have.

I put a book out a couple of years ago, and I had two concerns that kept me up at night. First, I was worried what might happen if the book bombed. I didn’t want it to crush me. After all, my identity was supposed to be rooted in Christ, not in book sales or Amazon reviews. I didn’t want that to change.

I was also worried about the opposite scenario: what would happen if my book became a huge success? What if it became a bestseller, and people treated me like a rockstar? More to the point, what if I started to agree with their accolades? I knew that was a less likely scenario (there are only so many bestsellers, after all) but it was the more perilous one, too. After all, the greatest stories of human implosion never begin with shady massage parlors or cheap hotel rooms, but with feeble men who believe their own press. That progression is as clichéd as corruption itself. We’ve seen it happen a hundred million times, and yet it still surprises us when the bloated giants collapse beneath the weight of their own heads. I didn’t want to fall victim to that same lunacy.

So, in the months before my book release, I decided to bring my fear to the light. I sought out the wisdom of a spiritual director. I found solace with him, and I found comfort in the prayers of our church elders. But you know where I found safety? In the cackling of my closest friends, who mocked me incessantly with the precious love of Jesus. I’m serious.

“What, you think we would ever let you believe you’re something special?” They laughed. “Uhhh, no. Remember, we actually know who you really are.” And I almost wept with relief, because it was true. I knew as long as I kept them in the center of my life, I would be safe. (It turns out I need not have worried. The book didn’t sell particularly well.)

My boss and senior pastor, Joshua Rivas, was one of those people. He likes to say, “You’re never as bad as your worst critics, and you’re never as good as your biggest fans.” He’s right, too. True validation doesn’t come from crowds. It comes from those who lift you up when you’re low, and who take you to task when you get too big for your britches. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

This leads me back to Ravi Zacharias. I don’t think he had anyone in his life who did this. And that’s a shame, because if the reports are as bleak as they seem, Ravi didn’t just have old skeletons in his closet, he carried them in his suitcase. He wasn’t a man who went off the rails one time years ago; he was actively living a different story than he preached, leaving a trail of damaged lives in his wake. All this despite having countless colleagues, a board of directors, and a ministry network like few people in all Christendom. By all indications, none of these people was permitted to wound him.

Or maybe they tried, but it was too late. Maybe he was already out of reach on his pedestal. Maybe the adulation of his fans—people like me—had already worked it’s terrible magic.

God help me, but maybe I was part of the problem.

Can I ask a favor of you, dear reader, on behalf of other preachers and writers who have no desire to wreck their lives or the lives of the innocents? Who desire to be faithful in every way to the call of Christ? While we’re figuring out things like organizational accountability and transparency, there is a small thing you can do as we move forward: you can help us by refusing to build us pedestals.

I know, sometimes we all think we want to balance atop such stages, but they are too high, and we know it. We have been tasked with teaching worship, not receiving it.

Please understand, I’m not asking you to hold us to a lower standard. God Himself demands a lot of us. If we’re going to teach a truth, we’d better at least be doing our best to live it. And if we fall, the guilt is ours and ours alone.

Still, the pull of celebrity is a poisonous thing, and not at all suited to ministers of the gospel. We are most settled—most grounded and secure and, well, safe—when we are sharing life not with followers and fans who don’t question us, but with brothers and sisters who do; with friends who know all our secrets, and love us enough to wound us when they must.

In the meantime, what do I do with all the things I learned from Ravi? He introduced me to the maxims of Chesterton, and the pummeling prose of Muggeridge. He taught me the power of story, the magic of metaphor, and how to hold a long “S” at the end of my money quotes. But more than all that, he showed me how to embrace mystery and wonder in the good news of Jesus Christ.

What am I to do with all that? And what am I to do with his narrative voice, which still plays in my mind when my fingers are hammering out something good?

I don’t know the answer. But I know the power of redemption is great. While the man I revered will doubtless receive a hefty judgment for his crimes, his words themselves might still produce fruit in hungry souls. So maybe it’s okay if I still hear him.

For now, all I can do is learn from the tragedy of my distant mentor; to write and speak with urgency, but without ambition, and to keep my feet planted in the sacred soil of glorious community.

The Things We’re Waiting For

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I almost lost my dad last week. Covid-19 knocked over his door and pushed him into the I.C.U. He was alone in there for days and days. Even my mom, his wife of fifty-one years, could not be with him.

I think of my dad and all those like him, forced into cruel medicinal isolation for their own lives’ sake. They lie face up in their confusion, tangled in tubes and ominous beeping. They have to work, now, even for their breath—something that’s always been free to them before. Their loved are kept away, and even the empathy of nurses, the fallback comfort of the afflicted, is hidden from them behind sterile masks. How many thousands have slipped away in that lonely anguish?

I think of all this, and shake my head. Because it’s not supposed to be this way. And one day, it won’t.

***

We need to get one thing straight: Advent is not Christmas. Christmas is about celebration. Advent is about waiting for that celebration.

Every December, Christians of every shade get busy waiting. We do it by lighting candles and reflecting on the meaning of hope. We put ourselves in the shoes of two ancient women: Mary and Elizabeth, the unlikeliest mothers that ever were. Both women received a promise from upstairs, and both had to wait receive it. Their sons would turn the world on its head: John would prepare the way, and Jesus would open the gates of a kingdom with no limits.

So these two cousins, what did they do? They got busy waiting.

There’s a reason we call pregnant women “expectant.” I remember when Sara was pregnant with our oldest. I remember getting the nursery ready. The baby showers, the bassinet, the jogging stroller, and the teddy bears.

We got all ourselves ready, too. We read books, sought advice, and asked for grace. My dear wife was uncomfortable (duh), but to borrow a phrase I often hear women say of one another, she was also glowing.

Waiting is not a popular hobby. But when you’re expecting something wonderful, it takes the shape of joy.

You can choose to wait without expectation, of course, but it isn’t pretty. There’s a specific word we use in English for that kind of waiting. We call it loitering.

I remember how I used to loiter in Broadway Square Mall in Tyler, Texas. I didn’t shop. I didn’t have a plan. I would just go there with my friends and wait. For what? For nothing. I was just there, existing. I remember once, going to the music store with my cousin, and I passed some kid about my age. He spun around and yelled, “hey man, you’re walkin’ too close to me!” I didn’t turn around, so he said it again, only louder, and more Vanilla Ice-ish. I ignored him again.

That was the day I realized what a dismal place the mall was.

But this, I fear, is how too many of us roll. We loiter through life, breathing and out, waiting to die. We go to work every day and look forward to nothing except for maybe the weekends. Maybe there will be enough diversions to numb the longings buried in bellies. Maybe we can exist for long enough to find something like meaning. But until then, you can find us on a bench between the food court of presidential politics and the Sun Glasses Hut of Netflix.

But there is a better way.

I am waiting for something very specific. You can call me a fool, I don’t care, because I’ve made up my mind: I am waiting for the return of the one who was born to Mary in a manger. She waited for his first advent; his arrival. I await the second. This is the truth that defines me most in this life.

Why do I wait for Him? Because when He comes, I believe He will bring with Him the restoration of all things. All the broken places will be made new.

This, I believe, is the reason we have all these longings in the first place. As Mr. Lewis pointed out, we don’t ache for things that aren’t real. We don’t desire a thing unless that thing actually exists. So why would our stubborn hearts go on like they do, continuing to cry out for a relief to all suffering, unless that relief is coming? Why do we desire justice? Why peace? Why forgiveness? Why connection? Why do we long to be fully known and fully loved?

It’s because those things are on the way. Christ has come, and He’s coming again.

Today, we work toward healing in all it’s forms, because that’s what He will do. But we will always come to the end to our efforts. We are human. Limited.

When Christ returns, He will finish it all. We won’t have to rely on vaccines and ventilators because viruses will be eradicated. Disease will be undone. Pandemics will be forgotten. Our father will never again ache alone in houses of suffering. The pain, the terror, the isolation… all of it will be a distant dream.

***

My dad didn’t die last week. He’s home resting now with my mom. I talked to him yesterday, and he’s giddy like Lazarus, grateful for the gift of every new breath. I heard him laugh and he sounded like Santa Claus, the man who he’s always mistaken for, and a tear came to my eye.

Dad’s rally is not the final restoration, I know. We are the lucky ones. One day, I will still have to let go of him, just as thousands have let go of their fathers these wretched months. But his turnaround, like every temporal healing, is a foretaste of what is to come, when all will be made new.

I ache for that reality, but I ache with joy. I am expectant, with my friends, Mary and Elizabeth, and with all those who call upon the name of Christ this Advent season. Together, we close our eyes and pray the prayer of Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

(I preached on this at my church last Sunday, and thought I’d post it here for those who are interested. That interpreter, by the way, is my wife, Sara. She’s ridiculously good. Just watch her on the mall story…)