{"id":28712,"date":"2020-12-13T21:27:40","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T02:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=28712"},"modified":"2020-12-13T21:27:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T02:27:40","slug":"jeremiah-179-applies-even-to-ravi-zacharias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/jeremiah-179-applies-even-to-ravi-zacharias\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremiah 17:9 applies even to Ravi Zacharias"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s not much I have to say about this. Other than, \u201cit\u2019s best not to have heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read it all here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"Ravi Zacharias International Ministries needs to rebuild trust, rebrand and consider reparations for victims of the evangelist and apologist it is named after. A series of allegations about Zacharias has only grown since his death this year, involving his interactions with women employees at a spa company he invested in. Earlier cases involved sexting, with new information coming at the time of his death, and exaggerated credentials.<\/p>\n

So writes Dr. Max Baker-Hytch, a senior tutor with RZIM\u2019s OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and a lecturer at Wycliffe Hall \u2013 a private hall of the University of Oxford \u2013 in a five-page letter in which he outlines a poor response to each of these scandals. The letter, which was first reported by blogger\/journalist Julie Roys, details that:<\/p>\n

RZIM had a slow response to the credential scandal which he investigated internally. Warren Throckmorton, Psychologist, Professor and blogger uncovered this issue of the inappropriate use of the title Doctor and claims to have lectured at Oxford University According to Baker-Hytch RZIM exhibited \u201cslowness and reluctance to set the public record straight, which finally happened only after a great amount of external pressure was brought to bear on the issue.\u201d He adds the the RZIM foot dragging on this issue was \u201ca source of embarrassment for me as an academic.\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the sexting scandal, according to Roys, Baker-Hytch asserts that \u201cRZIM President Michael Ramsden stated in a December 4, 2017, all-staff update that \u2018no money had changed hands between Ravi and the Thompsons [the couple involved].\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in September 2020, Baker-Hytch says he learned that Zacharias paid the Thompsons $250,000 as part of the 2017 settlement of the apologist\u2019s lawsuit against the couple.\u201d He recounts other gaps in the RZIM narratives of the issue.<\/p>\n

Strike three for Baker-Hytch was the emergence of the \u2018spa story\u2019. Steve Baughman, a long time investigator of Zacharias, gave the story to Christianity Today, which did an intensive investigation showing sexual misconduct by Zacharias at the spa. (Eternity gave more details in our earlier story.) Baker-Hytch says that comments by RZIM leaders undermined the credibility of the witnesses including an allegation they had been coached.<\/p>\n

The letter inches a plea for RZIM to offer a wholehearted apology to Zacharias\u2019 spa victims should their testimony be confirmed. He calls for\u00a0 \u201cmeaningful reparations\u201d to these women. And says that RZIM should set up a support group that any further victims could come forward to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s not much I have to say about this. Other than, \u201cit\u2019s best not to have heroes.\u201d Read it all here: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries needs to rebuild trust, rebrand and consider reparations for victims of the evangelist and apologist … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[2657],"class_list":["post-28712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","tag-ravi-zacharias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}