The Director and Dean of what was formally called the Ravi Zacharias International Ministry have announced their resignation via Facebook, after a season of “lamenting, listening, and learning” in light o the Ravi Zacharias scandal.
Jo and Vince Vitale announced that they are leaving next week, leaving precious few souls still there. Vince is the head of RZIM in the United States and also co-authored a recent book with Ravi, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Counter-Cultural Claims of Christ, and Joe is a frequent speaker and Dean of Studies. They wrote:
Ever since the release of the interim report of the investigation into Ravi Zacharias on December 23rd, 2020, we have lived with three very strong convictions. One of these convictions was that God was leading us to take seriously what we personally needed to repent of—to spend far more of our prayers, thoughts, and words on our own mistakes and failures than on those of anyone else.
They explain they’ve stayed on since the news broke out of their concern for justice and the victims because they “felt the importance of journeying with the team during this season when we had the opportunity to speak directly into significant decisions.” Now that things are on the mend and they feel victims will be taken seriously and care for, they’re resigning so that they can enter “a substantial season of reordering” in order to “embrace the time and space needed to allow ourselves to be deeply formed by all that we have been humbled by and wrecked over in the last year.”
They conclude:
We want to thank God, most of all, for allowing us to begin this journey. Conviction and repentance are indeed gifts of amazing grace. We will always deeply grieve the suffering and the ways in which we contributed to it, but it is our prayer that the grief we carry from this will serve as a lasting reminder of our duty to care for the many whose wounds are far deeper than our own. Christ’s ability to redeem gives hope that healing is worth fighting for and bears witness to the full and final restoration that ultimately awaits.
