On Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Defending Ravi - Open Letter: https://defendingravi.com/2024/01/01/open-letter/


This is a rather sobering and not-unexpected response from Ravi's family. It is always best to examine single-sided accounts with a healthy grain of salt and critical analysis of the holistic picture.

I will admit when things first came out, I callously and jadedly thought, "sin never surprises me anymore". With more discernment and conversation, though, the more I see the work of the enemy to try and destroy the legacy of a faithful servant.

It takes a nontrivial amount of work to examine the motivations of involved parties because you have to do a deeper examination of what intrinsically drives a person to determine what their default trajectory is likely to be. Being Reformed, this is only marginally easier because we can start from the natural tendency towards total depravity. Bringing the evidence into contextual relation of a holistic overview gives us a better overall picture of what we're up against when trying to discern truth.

And the truth here is, despite the sinful motivations of those who were part of the RZIM organization, despite the rose-colored glasses Ravi's family look from, despite the actual sins of Ravi (and the general fallenness of humanity as a whole), his work for the kingdom should stand on its own as its own testimony from decades of evidence. Whatever Ravi did or did not actually do is irrelevant to the ideas that he preached that can be corroborated by scripture.

God's truth is universal and the actions of a man will not tarnish it, neither objectively or in the eyes of people that actually value truth for what it is above all. Those that would dismiss ideas simply due to the characteristics of the person that spoke them, and not on the merits of the ideas themselves, commit no less hypocrisy.

We are a condemning people, willing to exact judgment in the righteousness of our own eyes at transgressions we perceive. How much, do you think, is this an image-bearing aspect? How sinful, do you think, must this be to have the hubris to think we are capable of righteous judgment with our limited perception? Only the omniscient can make righteous judgment, for the only the omniscient is capable of knowing and seeing all.

Why then, do you think, Jesus was sent to exalt and hold high love as the synopsis of the whole of the Law (Mark 12:30-31), giving us license to judge the ideas while leaving judgment of people and acts of vengeance to God alone?

Because, as with Cain and Abel, we are more than happy to murder our neighbor (in heart or physically) for nearly any reason whatsoever.

To our own shame.


On medication

Over the past year or so, I've been seeing more advertisements for antidepressant medications such as Auvelity (a Wellbutrin/DXM mix) and Spravato (a ketamine-derived nasal spray). I find that particularly interesting.

What most people don't know about me is that, a little over 20 years ago, I experienced long-term depression. (This was likely more me being a whiny little kid, but I digress.. the experience was real enough.) The SSRIs I tried never worked, so I used my reasoning skills and interest in neurochemistry to.. self medicate. Most of the other group of people I associated with were just dabbling recreationally but I always had a reason behind it. Anecdotally, I can vouch for some of these psychoactive and dissociative substances having short-to-medium term effects on mood and increased post-administration cognitive clarity.

So it's interesting to see the medicine catch up. Two decades seems to be the average lag time.

Nonetheless, this sort of thing is not a permanent solution and I wouldn't suggest my route to others. It was dangerous, and I was desperate. There's a much better way.

It's a way that most would scoff at; a path that seems like foolishness to those unable or unwilling to consider it.

The only one that can take away your psychological pain and trauma is the mercy and grace of Christ Jesus. "Sure, whatever," you might say. Yet I am living proof of this.

You might chock it up to the psychological power of belief, but I can say definitively that this is far from the case in my experience. The conviction of my belief is not the progenitor of the peace - in fact, a lot of times it causes strife. Yet through it all, my mind is calmed beyond explanation or understanding.

You might be wondering how this can be; you might remember me from years ago as the perpetually angry, over-the-top, somewhat crazy guy.

The only thing I can say to that is: Come and See.


One Red Ray

When the crystal waters of grace
shatter into the shards of lost innocence
We will wonder
We will wonder
Should we have left it this way