The pain in her gentle, refined words arrested me instantly.
I didn’t know who she was or even how I had found her Twitter account. I’m not an avid Twitter user and was honestly surprised to find myself scrolling that platform a few days before Christmas, 2020. But her words struck a chord in me:
Yesterday I underwent a several medical procedures under general anesthesia to stop the persistent and excessive blood loss I have been experiencing for the past few years. The parallels to my personal life and personal health are not lost on me. Our bodies oft reflect our abuse.
Source
I stopped to pray and found myself typing out a response. This woman had clearly endured much, and I wanted to support her. Something in her seemed to connect instantly with me. Sobered, I continued scrolling.
Not five minutes later, I came across an article that made my stomach drop. It was allegations of sexual misconduct against Ravi Zacharias.
RZIM: The Apologist’s Standard
I had heard of RZIM (Ravi Zacharias’ ministry) for years. I always thought of them as the “top-tier” apologists, the final destination to be able to successfully and graciously set forth the truth of the Gospel in a fallen and confused world.
I listened to an RZIM podcast for most of my time in college. As lies of relativism and the lure of worldliness swirled around me, the sanity that filled my car during commutes helped to keep me grounded.
When I was interested in attending the Passion conferences, it was seeing the names of John Piper and Ravi Zacharias as speakers that convinced me, the one who never attended youth rallies, that it was worth my time.
I’d heard Ravi speak of women who would try to give him personal information and how he wouldn’t even look at it but would give it to his assistant. As someone who spent much of his life on the road, it was imperative for him to employ accountability.
I had admired Ravi for so many reasons. That he could have stooped to sexual sin felt too devastating to consider.
Encountering Truth
Such a possibility was nauseating, but the thought of scrolling past and not knowing was worse. I clicked on the article.
I don’t remember now which article I saw, but I do remember the process of reading it. I’d learned enough in recent years to know that perpetrators flourish in systems that protect them, and I began to see potential evidence of that in the report.
Then, as I read, one name stood out to me: Lori Anne Thompson.
Lori Anne was Ravi’s most vocal accuser. She claimed that he had spiritually manipulated and emotionally abused her with a sexual online relationship.
Lori Anne. Wasn’t she the one whose tweet I had just read and responded to?
The chance seemed too absurd, but I had to check.
I found my response. It was a response to Lori Anne Thompson.
In an almost impossible chance, I had extended words of grace to Ravi’s most vocal victim only moments before learning of his moral demise.
Calculated Abuse
Miller & Martin PLLC’s investigative report of RZIM has sent shockwaves through the Christian community. (You can read RZIM’s open letter here.) It is right to grieve. And it is right to question how this happened.
Note: if you prefer to avoid accounts of specific sins, skip to the next heading.
Ravi’s hidden sexual sin appears to be much more widespread than even I, who had been following the situation moderately, had grasped.
As the report showed, Ravi had sexual encounters with multiple massage therapists (and tried to initiate sexual encounters with many more). He used his back pain as a way to travel with a massage therapist on all his trips. The fact that he also traveled with a male RZIM team member gave a false sense of accountability.
Ravi channeled ministry funds to support women with whom he had sexual relationships. In other words, he used his position of power coupled with the woman’s vulnerability to make her feel and act obliged to him.
One woman who spoke to the investigative firm said that Ravi “warned her not ever to speak out against him or she would be responsible for the ‘millions of souls’ whose salvation would be lost if his reputation was damaged.” Ravi swung his spiritual weight around as a weapon of abuse.
Those are only snippets of the report.
Of the many stories I’d heard Ravi tell repeatedly, one stands out in my mind. It is the story of a man who looked across a waterway at a woman washing herself alone. The man gave way to lustful thoughts and swam across the water, intent on his desire to consume. As he neared the opposite shore and stood up from the water, he found himself looking into the distorted face of a leprous woman. His first thought was revulsion—and then he realized that, in his twisted desire, he was the one with a leprous soul.
How could a man tell this story while deliberately engaging in predatory sexual behavior and manipulating every circumstance to cover it?
I realized that Ravi’s sin was more than occasional error, which would in itself be reprehensible enough to necessitate his stepping down from ministry. Rather, this was deliberate, calculated abuse.
As I’m continuing to process this devastating situation, there are some specific areas that I’d like to address.
Can You Just Believe Any Woman?
I’ve heard that we can’t be too quick to believe an accuser because there are women who will tell a lie to ruin a man with whom they’re upset.
(For the sake of simplicity and since it fits this scenario, I’m referring to women as victims/survivors and to men as abusers. That is absolutely not true of every man or woman, and there are also men who are abused and women who abuse.)
Perhaps you’ve heard that, too.
The culture at large has been encouraging us to “believe women” in recent years. But how, as Christians, can we just flip the switch and start believing women at the expense of men?
But look at the other side of that argument. What we’re already doing is believing men at the expense of women.
In a situation with an accusation and a denial, there is no clear way to follow the path of love that “believes all things” and “hopes all things” (1 Cor. 13:6).
Since we cannot simply believe the best of everyone, we must seek to “not rejoice at wrongdoing” but rather “[rejoice] with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6).
And here’s the thing I’ve learned: we don’t just have to believe one side or the other without any evidence.
A woman (or man) who has suffered abuse will show symptoms. They can be hard to recognize, and sometimes even trained law enforcement miss the signs, but we can begin to learn them.
A victim won’t tell a cohesive story. Instead, they may have large gaps of their story missing. They may share the same account with contradictory details at different times. They may become confused, break down, or not be able to answer basic questions such as when or where an event happened. At first, they may not even identify as a victim.
That in itself is a clue. It’s trauma.
Trauma doesn’t look like evidence-gathering for a calculated robbery. It looks more like piecing together clues after an explosion. The debris itself is evidence.
In addition, due to the risk of re-traumatization (that often has more severe effects than the original event) and lack of being believed, survivors have little to gain from coming forward with an allegation. The vast majority of survivors who come forward do so with nothing to gain, except doing the right thing, and with much to lose.
When a woman or man comes forward with allegations, you don’t have to just take their word (although responding with compassion and support is always important). You can also become trauma-informed and look for the clues.
And there’s another major clue that deserves its own section:
Abuse Cultures & Power Dynamics
I used to think that abusers operated alone. That’s extremely rare.
(Boz Tchividjian and the organization that he founded, GRACE, are excellent resources to learn more about this phenomenon.)
There is almost always a culture that the abuser has created.
In order to continue perpetrating abuse with impunity, an abuser has two sides. Obviously, they have an abusive side. But they also have a side that sacrifices for friends, snuggles with children, responds gently to others’ concerns, and overall looks like a fine, upstanding person. That side subtly convinces their friends and family to believe that the abuser is a good person.
Because of the abuser’s manipulation, the community is primed to spring to the abuser’s defense with personal evidence of his goodness in their lives.
That’s in a good scenario. In a truly perverted scenario, there are people around the abuser who are aware of what is happening and who assist the abuser in silencing victims.
Abusers are calculating. They manipulate their circumstances to build power and protection for themselves, and they prey on vulnerable targets who have little chance of being heard.
Is there a power dynamic at play? Is there a group around the alleged abuser ready to defend their friend? That is additional, weighty evidence that an accuser is telling the truth—at great personal cost.
This happened in Ravi’s case. According to the Miller & Martin report, Ravi used his ministry to position himself as an authority. He used ministry funds to create a power imbalance between himself and targets that bought him the sexual favors he wanted. And any RZIM member who questioned how it looked for him to travel with a massage therapist experienced a fall from favor that maintained Ravi’s protective group.
Although this was not included in the official report, Lori Anne has shared that Ravi positioned himself as a “spiritual father” in her life and probed into her years of childhood abuse. He then exploited that abuse and twisted spiritual teachings to gain a sexual online relationship.
A Chance to Repent
Amid the real heaviness and amid the necessity of weeping with survivors, I see a glimmer of hope.
Repentance.
Abuse stories, even within the church, have become shockingly common. And the sickening rush to cover up and defend big names or organizations is a slap in the face to the Name of Jesus.
That’s why RZIM’s open report gives me hope. The International Board of Directors took responsibility for their failure, put victims first, humbly apologized, and are actively taking steps to address the situation from a survivor-centered viewpoint.
Survivors have said again and again that they don’t seek revenge; they seek to see other women protected and abusers stopped. RZIM has recognized a level of their wrongdoing and appears to be walking in repentance. For that, I am grateful.
And we?
Are we allowing the Spirit to search our hearts of any ways that we may have unintentionally silenced survivors, either in this case or in others?
Are we allowing God to open our eyes to ways that we would be quick to blindly protect an abuser whom we appreciate?
Are we allowing God to touch wounded areas in our lives that we’d rather keep hidden so that we may be whole and healed to more perfectly image Him?
I cannot tell anyone what actions to take. I can only invite you to join me in submitting myself to God and repenting as often as needed in order that we may be transformed into the image of Christ and so magnify God’s Name.
