Ravi Zacharias Scandal Shows Why Our Reputation is in the Toilet
As evangelical leaders trip over each other in a mad dash to condemn Ravi Zacharias, the disappointment is palpable and the surprise at such an unexpected turn of events bleeds deep into every op-ed they write. There is shock, disgust, and dismay. Well-known Christian leaders from well-known Christian ministries are asking themselves one question, as they stand on the cultural battlefield in shellshocked disbelief – dazed at such a betrayal that they never saw coming: how on earth could this have happened?
They do this as they furiously condemn the indefensible, yet they were never there in the thick of the battle. If anything, they can be likened to the victorious soldiers walking the battlefield after a hard-fought war, taking their bayonets and sticking them into any wounded enemy lying in heaps on the ground, men and women who have already been crushed and exposed.
Rachael Denhollander, who will be helping the investigation and the setting right of RZIM, wrote about this phenomena on Twitter:
For every leader who has written a blog post, tweeted, commented on, the steps being taken by RZIM, how good they are, how important the truth is, or how to prevent this, please hear the grief you are compounding: You have written about how God and right these steps are, but not until they were already taken. Not until the facade was removed.
You did not lift your voice to cry for the truth you now applaud. That fell on the shoulders of the victims. The women. You applaud the independent investigation, but never pressed for it when it needed to be done.
When your voice was desperately needed in 2017 and all the years that followed, you were silent.
That’s true. But some of us weren’t.
We have been pursuing justice and rattling this cage before this was a blip on their radar, as Pulpit & Pen, and then later on as Protestia. We’ve been on Ravi Zacharias’ case for three years now, when in 2018 we published his emails showing that he threatened to kill himself if Lori Anne Thompson told her husband about their interactions, which Ravi claimed were innocent and pure as the driven snow. But even we didn’t get the information out of nowhere. The whole push to expose Ravi was led by Steve Baughman of RaviWatch, who was instrumental in any and all movement on this.
In fact, we were the first news organization to break the story of the abuse of the Spa workers, (with information from Baughman) which kick-started all this back on September 9th, nearly 3 weeks before Christianity Today or anyone else did their piece and gave it national attention.
We likewise wrote about Zacharias multiple times in 2019, and 2020, asking why no one else was covering this. We wrote the following three years ago:
What’s of more significance is that few Christian publications have written about the adultery of one of the most – if not the most – prominent Christian apologists in the world. When the Christian Press has covered the topic, they have done so only in the most shallow of ways, mostly refusing to publish the evidence and allowing Zacharias or his ministry to dismiss the concerns without any moderately tough questions asked.
Consequently, they crucified us for it. Here is a small sampling of the vitriol and anger that was sent our way.
Because we were saying it three years before anyone else was, we were labeled “divisive.” We were declared to be one stirring up discord, attacking a paragon of saintliness and virtue. Commenters ripped us up and down, decrying us as mean-spirited and liars. Bloggers condemned us and said this is more of the same slander, that we’re always going after good people, even great people, for the smallest things.
“Ravi is a great man and apologist. How dare you attack his character. How unloving can you get? Don’t you have anything better to do? You’re wasting your time. Typical Pulpit & Pen – always taking shots at everyone,” and on and on.
We called it three years ago because we saw it three years ago when few people did and when no one was talking about it.
In the same vein, we’ve criticized rapper Lecrae before it was cool, seeing an obvious trajectory as he was being unfaithful and unfruitful in the little things. We raised our hand back in 2016 and all the years since then when he was still gladly frolicking in reformed circles and being given praise for his maturity, humility, and theological astuteness.
What a change 5 years brings. Nowadays, he’s giving fundraising concerts at the rallies of pro-abortion Democrat senators, helping to get out the vote and win them the election. He said the Democrats are on the “right side of history” and are actually the pro-life ones. A few months ago he was sputtering like a fool when asked whether homosexuality is a sin or not, unwilling to say it, all the while embracing woke ideologies.
He is fully compromised, a sell-out, and pretty much everyone sees it and will acknowledge it.
But being right in 2021 doesn’t help our reputation in 2017 when we were getting beat up for questioning Lecrae’s discernment and theological direction when he endorsed the anti-trinitarian and blasphemous book The Shack. Or in 2018 when we were being yelled at by fanboys for asking why he was praising and promoting pro-abortion Democrat Stacey Abrams. Or in 2019 when he was making racialist and Cultural Marxist comments about Kanye and Christianity. Or in 2020 when he made shocking comments on whether or not Christians ought to go to church.
And again with Carl Lentz and Hillsong NYC. We’ve been writing about them since 2015, and were called meddlesome lovers of quarrel and strife. All until he went and had several affairs. Vindicated in the end, but maligned in the interim.
How about SBC, TGC, ERLC, Lifeway, well-known preachers like JD Greear, Albert Mohler, Karen Swallow Prior, John Piper, Jen Hatmaker, Thabiti Anyabwile, Matt Chandler, or Tim Keller?
Pick your poison.
Who here believes the SBC is gaining credibility as they become more and more united in mission and purpose? Who doesn’t think the Gospel Coalition writers have sold the gospel out for pennies on the dollar?
Who believes that J. D. Greear has become more conservative and less susceptible to wokeness and the influence of BLM? That the SBC has become more complementarian and more intolerant towards women preachers?
That Tim Keller has become more coherent? That Piper has become less charismatic and less likely to partner up with charismatic whackadoodles at some busted Christine Caine-headlining conference?
We’ve been pointing out problems with these characters for years, explaining why they are deeply compromised and only becoming moreso, seeing it and saying it before anyone else did. More and more people are seeing it now, and many more will do likewise in the future. Until it reaches critical mass, however, we’re just a slander-factory needing to be blown up.
Pointing out the progressive trajectory got us tarred and feathered, all for the sin of calling a devil a devil while the rest of the world saw them as a saint.
So for some, our reputation is in the toilet. Some people hate us and will have nothing to do with us. We’ve been banned from several pages, such as the Reformed Pub, where any article linked there will get removed and the person who posted it kicked out. Or in the r/reformed and r/christianity subreddits, which have likewise banned anyone from quoting us or linking our article, even as we frequently break news stories and provide information no one else has.
There’s a lot of people who see the work we do and absolutely despise it and us, and make it their mission to bring us down. We can even write about something benign like the sins of transgenderism, and like clockwork they’ll report our posts, seeking us get us cancelled and off the internet. Even being associated with us can be toxic, whereby speaking approvingly of what we do will likely garner a cringe and a cold stare.
This pushback is one of the reasons we’re so grateful for our patrons and supporters. While many people hate us and wish we’d close up shop, they love us.
They understand the importance of the mission, that we are willing to name names and call them out before the well-known evangelical leaders will. We operate in a niche where we’re years ahead of everybody else, and we serve our local churches through this gifting. There’s almost nobody else who does this on the level that we do, and we praise God for their sacrifices that let us do it.
Furthermore, their support lets our website function as a repository and archive, reporting stories and highlighting compromises of note that no one else will, as a gift to other Christians wanting to know what to think about this person or that.
In this case, with thousands of articles written over the last decade, there aren’t many names that you can’t plug in and see whether or not they’ve been faithful of fraudulent, or where a Facebook status or a revealing tweet might otherwise be lost if we didn’t screenshot it and comment on it for posterity.
Charles Spurgeon said it best. “Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”
We see the “almost right,” and we tell the world why it’s wrong before they realize it.
Ravi Zacharias is just one example of that.
About Author
Well said!
There’s a thing which I call the Savile Syndrome (I’m in the U.K.). If you don’t know, there was a very popular DJ and tv personality called Jimmy Savile. The moment he died lots of people came forward and said he had abused hundreds of children and young people. Apparently everyone knew what was going on, but no one spoke out – except Johnny Rotten from The Sex Pistols, who was banned from tv for saying awful things about a national treasure.
Same in the case of RZ – as you say, there are now lots of Christian leaders and commentators saying ‘I always had my suspicions’, but never put them on video. So well done Pulpit and Pen/Protestia for making public your doubts about a Christian‘national treasure’ at the time, rather than waiting until they’ve conveniently passed on.
Keep up the great work! Hopefully some of these examples will awaken people that you are on the right track about the other phonies.
P.S. I realize why you are on Facebook and Twitter, even though they are the enemy of all things good. But if you ever want platforms like Mewe or the now-deceased Parler to thrive, I encourage you to have a presence on them as well.
Update: Parler is back! Please get an account.
Y’all are the evangelical equivalent of a catholic site call Church Militant. That guy is a lone voice calling out their bishops and priests for all manner of abuse, cover up, and heterodoxy in general in their church. Keep up the good work!
PS- it’s not so much that I believe RZ or any other leader as much as I tend to disbelieve their accusers because of the enormous social and monetary pay off that goes with accusing any church leader. We must continue to be wise as serpents.
Kitty – Google the RZIM Home webpage and go there and READ the reports.. It’s too bad those girls didn’t get LOTS of money for what they went through. Sorry, again, no discernment. Believe NONE because of money issues? GOOD thing Jesus doesn’t judge that way!
PS — That is absolutely NOT at all being “wise as any serpent”. Read the Bible, and please learn some discernment.
Shouldn’t be your (P & P) reputation “in the toilet” because you called it first – look at those old comments above. ZERO discernment, and you have ol’ Conrad there SO lacking in discernment that he took Matthew 5 verses TOTALLY out of context! (People refuse to read their Bibles, and I won’t stop beating that drum!) Reading and learning Scripture builds discernment. You DID call it and you were RIGHT, and after what I heard from a guy with Ravi in 2019, I’d have nothing to do with anyone who lauded him. (The one who said Jesus had sexual identity issues!) You’re okay by me brother! Have you seen the FULL report? Don’t know that I want to. God bless and KEEP the faith!
We have a serious issue with accountability in the what has become American evangelicalism. Might I suggest that it also has to do with ecclesiology and the lack of “in total” subscription to creeds and confessions? The SBC is a prime example, demonstrating that a statement of faith and practice is useless of their is not a church structure in place to enforce it. Shall we continue down this path of loose affiliation, or shall we put fences around Christ’s body and protect it?
Your reputation is in the toilet because of the way you write:
https://protestia.com/2021/02/02/mike-miller-of-central-baptist-church-in-jacksonville-tx-should-resign-his-pastorate/#comment-4997
While 2016 – 2018 was a serious wake-up call for me to the cracks forming in the greater evangelical church in America, I’ll admit I was one who inwardly scoffed at the article about Ravi. It was my intro to (then) P&P, and was among those who thought, awkward as the emails were, that there was more to the story that wasn’t being reported. I am loathed to be correct, only because the “more” was indeed much worse than anyone knew.
I’m not sure what to make of Piper, Mohler, Chandler, et al, but I frequent this site much more often and listen now. I wish none of this were correct, and can only hope in the redemption of the cross. God have mercy on us.
I’ve always taken what you’ve written about with deep admiration for what you do. I’ve never once thought, like you’re so often berated for, that you were being terribly rude or unnecessarily brash. Truth hurts— it cuts, & you speak & write about it with no regard for your reputation. For that you have my respect. I may disagree with what I see as some compromise on your part with some of your staff, but I’m praying for you & the ministry.