Abuse, Betrayal, and the Perils of Pedestals
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.
Thank you for this Jason.
Thanks for reading, my friend.
Yes … let’s all keep our feet planted in the sacred soil of glorious community.
Yes!
Such a sad shock. When these scandals break, my response is often something like, ‘it must be Tuesday,’ or ‘did no one else see the multiple google-able pictures of the treasure trail leading away from perfectly sculpted abs as foreshadowing?’ With Ravi, I was truly surprised.
“There’s some real utility in knowing that you’re a monster…and just because you’re a monster doesn’t mean you have to be a monster. But it’s really useful to know that you are one” -JBP
May we all maintain friendships that remind us that we are monsters AND still love us enough to walk with us as we daily submit our monstrousness to the Lordship of Christ.
You, sir, are one of my favorite monsters.
This was a good read Jason. Thank you.
Thank you, Val
Really good post Jason.
Thank you, friend.
Excellent read!!Thank you!
Gracias, hermana.
Dear Jason,
I wish you could see Christians through the eyes of an outsider. The Ravi story was no shock to us. The victims are real and the abuse horrific. Because we don’t personally know any of the “good” people in a ministry we can quickly identify the conditions that lead to abuse. The self-aggrandizement, the love for the spotlight, the undue reverence of their followers, the accumulation of wealth, the defensive posture towards any criticism, and a board of friends, family, and “industry” insiders. Christians are supposed to a light to the world, but to their shame their behavior is so often beneath that of secular organizations. We see Christians as frauds and every day they give us more evidence to support this view. The last few years have been particularly horrific as we watch Christians embrace a culture war and enthusiastically support political candidates whose lives and platforms are not at all Christ-like. The problems are systemic and far reaching. Christian reaction to this scandal is also predictable. There will be a little hand-wringing, and maybe some attempts at oversight in some organizations, but by and large things will stay the same. Parents will write tuitions checks to Liberty University for the spring semester, the board there that coddled and enable Falwell will never be held accountable. The many organizations will that have the same conditions that incubated the latest Christian scandal will remain intact. Somewhere the next Ravi, or Lentz will create a new ministry named after themselves and no one will bat an eye. Some pastor or Christian celebrity whose name you know is leading a double life that we will only discover later.
If you could see what we see, you would tear your clothes and cry enough and refuse to associate with such a group of people. You would want to tear down the entire American Christian infrastructure and start over. The word redemption would not entire your mind for a while. You would question what you have been taught (particularly about gender roles) by the hero’s that betrayed you.
Jason, you are a great writer and have the heart of a pastor. My hope is that you always stay that way. That if you have 100 under your pastoral care that would be enough. Your book was a blessing to me, and I hope that you always remember that economies of scale should not be be a goal of a ministry. That you remember that to the good shepherd the 99 sheep in the fold are not more important than the one that is missing. That ministering to two people isn’t twice as good as ministering to one.
John, I am so thankful for your comment, and I just wrote a lengthy reply which WordPress somehow deleted. Gah! I don’t have time this morning to re-write it, but I’ll get back to you. A comment like this deserves attention. I’ll try again in the next day or two. Just wanted you to know…
Jason, I am sorry for your disappointment. I won’t go into detail but I can relate on a very deep level. I learned from my experience that even though our mighty Abba works through people at different times, reverence is reserved for God/Jeshua/Holy Spirit alone. If I feel myself admiring someone for whatever reason I stop and bring it before my Father and He guides me. Blessings to your sweet innocent heart. God knows all. Happy New Year
Thanks so much for writing this Jason. As someone who had also followed Ravi for years I have been trying to process this, and how if what many consider “the best of us” can succumb to these temptations, what hope is there for the rest of us? This post brought me a lot of clarity on that question, in that we have to remember that none of us are the best of us, and if we start to believe that we are we are in real trouble.
I’m part of a very small group that knew Lori Anne before Zacharias. I’m a minister, but come from a tradition where apologetics are more for easy reading than theological transformation.
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this for months. I’ve been pulling articles, reading books, and digging deep. You wrote that he was actively living a different life than he preached, but I don’t know about that. I think he preached lies too.
Like, how he was born into a Christian home, but he writes in a way where (if you don’t know his story) you think he was born Hindu and converted. And, he wouldn’t say otherwise unless specifically pushed to it. How he’ll quote scripture, but won’t give the actual scripture either so you can’t easily look it up.
I found his words far more dangerous than helpful, especially as a woman.