Sober Reflections on the fall of Ravi Zacharias

A Day for Mourning

The fall of the Indian-born American-Canadian Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias should bring every true follower of Jesus to tears.

 

Because the Name of Jesus has been dragged through the mud. Because enemies of the Gospel have more ammunition to attack the Good News. Because an untold number of young Christians could be stumbled as a result of his fall. Because his family will be in utter turmoil: not only mourning his death but now mourning his honour, and perhaps even questioning his salvation. Because women were abused by a powerful manipulative man. Because no-one loved Ravi enough to hold him accountable. Because it is possible for there to be such a preposterous thing as a 'Celebrity Christian.'

 

A day of mourning. And sackcloth. And weeping. For all of us. 

 

How has he fallen? You really do not want to know.  

 

My first reaction when the rumours emerged was 'not yet another big-shot Christian fall.' There have been a string of them lately, we do not need to name names.

Lessons we should all Learn

There are many lessons from the fall of Ravi.

 

First and foremost, Paul's injunction to all Christians in 1 Corinthians 10:12, "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall."

 

If we read the story  of Ravi with a Pharisaical 'tut tuting' we shall miss the lesson Paul exhorts of us all. If we think 'I would never do that' we are surely arrogant. 

 

I will never forget a godly pastor looking glum one morning when I met up with him. It turned out that a good Christian friend of his had just fallen and he was prayerfully and searchingly pondering the saying "there but for the grace of God go I."

 

"Search me O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-34)

 

Sober reflection should mark our first and main response.

 

Second, the peril of riches. Although the possession of wealth per se is not sinful, and may be used to advance God's kingdom, wealth comes with so many perils that it leads the wise man of Proverbs to write:

 

“Two things I ask of you, LORD; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God." (Proverbs 30:7-9)

 

People who want to get rich put themselves in spiritual peril, says the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 6. Let's be completely content with whatever we have been given, whether little or less little.

 

The longer I am a church pastor, the more I see the destructive effects of wealth on Christians. Money can make a man proud "I must be something special since I have more dosh than most." Wealth enables a man to ponder and make choices that he simply could not make if he were poor. Some of those choices may be laughable but others are lamentable.

 

Ravi was very rich (Google tells me he was worth $7.5 million)  and those riches enabled him to make disastrous choices, choices he simply could not have made if he were poor. No Christian in ministry needs to own health spas, for example.

 

No wonder Paul in 1 Timothy 6 and James in James chapter 2 not only warn of the dangers of money, but exhort rich Christians sharply, "Command those who are rich," and "Is it not the rich that are exploiting you?" Rich Christians need sharper admonitions than poor Christians because they are subject to unique and additional temptations.

Third, the evangelical church has aped the world in setting up a celebrity culture which includes 'big shot celebrity speakers' whose books and podcasts and what nots are paraded at conferences and sold in their millions. (Whether their names will even be remembered in 20 years' time is quite another matter). 

What is even more disturbing is that the traits the evangelical world look for to establish their celebrities, are no different from the world's and bear no resemblance to the traits of those who are honoured in Scripture.

 

We look for educated chappies people with degrees and passing qualities like that - Jesus looks for ordinary people, filled with his divine power

Obsessed by numbers, we look for people who run big churches or have thousands of 'followers' - Jesus is quite happy with just 12 people in his church

 

We look for those who are praised by men - in the New Testament every godly leader, without any exception, was hounded, hated and persecuted

And so, aping the world, we have set up Celebrity Christians - and have therefore established the perfect breeding ground for pride and failure. 

 

Shocking as this may seem, had we been alive in Paul's day, not one of us would have honoured that Christian giant, had we used the modern metrics of greatness. Everywhere Paul went he was despised and rejected by men. (That is sounding a little like... )

 

Let us remember that there are no big-shots in the Christian church - none whatsoever. And the  moment we begin 'following' some figure because they are popular or clever or numbered (i.e. by the number of hits they receive, the number of books they sell, etc.) we put ourselves at the same risk as the followers of RZ. We follow One Man and One Man alone.

 

In Galatians 2:6 Paul makes a passing comment on the disease of big-shot-itis, a scourge, it seems, in every age: "As for those who seemed to be important - whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance - those men aded nothing to my message." Paul is not being dismissive of a James or a Peter or a John; he is just telling us not to judge by seemly opinion and reminding us that the Lord makes the judgement of who is great and who is not. 

 

Men should leave off the business of judging. 

 

We say it again, there are no big-shots in the church of Jesus Christ. Not Lloyd-Jones, not Stott, not Keller, not Piper, not MacArthur, not...

Fourthly, we sometimes big-up men who clearly have no accountability in their own local churches. I cannot find anywhere on the web the local-church accountability structure Ravi put himself under. There is no such thing in the church of Jesus Christ as a sheep who is not in a local flock under local undershepherds. No parachurch 'Christian organisation' including RZIM has the authority to shepherd even one sheep in God's flock. 

 

To what pastor and to which elders was Ravi accountable?

 

Sadly he is not the only Christian big-shot who is allowed status and influence within evangelicalism without any accountability to a local church.

 

Fifthly, and back to money again, how outrageous that in 2015 Ravi was paid over half a million dollars, approximately ten times as much as the average American. As if the Gospel was something to become rich from. Pastors and Gospel workers should be paid so they can live (occasionally churches fail to do so) and the national average is a ball park figure. But never ten times as much.

Sixthly, had Ravi been accountable to his local pastor, that said pastor would have challenged him about leaving his wife and family for long periods of time and about owning health spas.

 

Is there a pastor reading this who needs to challenge a rich Christian in his own church? Fearful of losing income? God will more than make it up. Our task is to be faithful and leave the consequences with God.

A New Reformation

What western evangelicalism desperately needs is a new reformation, a reformation that will separate us from the passing methods and idols of the world in which we live. A Reformation which will send us back to the Scriptures for all belief and practice.

 

A Reformation that will end the very idea of Celebrity Christianity.

 

A Reformation that will begin to honour servants of the Lord who bear the true attributes of Christian greatness, which range from godly character to servanthood, all the way to the higher qualifications of unpopularity, rejection and persecution and even martyrdom.

Perhaps that is what the fall of all these Celebrity Christians will lead to. 

 

In which case good will come out of evil.

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