Monday, March 01, 2021

On abuse and the responses to the Ravi Zacharias scandal

In light of the Ravi Zacharias scandal and the responses to that scandal from within Evangelicalism, I would like to offer this article as a way to think more about the issue of abuse and Evangelicalism's failure to deal with abuse. An excerpt:

The Ravi Zacharias scandal rocked Evangelicalism, since Zacharias was a prominent Evangelical apologist until his death in 2020. In response to the scandal, Evangelicals reacted with sorrow and grief over the wickedness of Zacharias’ sins. The more common refrain from many leaders however is some variant of “there but for the grace of God go I,” as seen in Michael Brown’s article, and reposted on Charisma News, a leading news source for Charismatics. While they sorrow over the victims of sins, the focus is on “not throwing stones” and empathizing with Ravi Zacharias to some extent. The most egregious piece here can be found in Singapore by Rev. Edmund Chan of CEFC (Covenant Evangelical Free Church), who ended his note with a confidence that Ravi Zacharias is indeed in heaven now, an article which epitomizes a major problem within Evangelicalism

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