Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. In this episode, we are going to identify a true conspiracy, a conspiracy which turned out to be true. I'll actually reference a number of unbelievable stories that turned out to be true throughout this season, but today, I'm going to focus on one in particular. Today, we're going to focus on the story of Ravi Zacharias. Now, I don't know the story of Ravi Zacharias if it counts as a conspiracy theory by the standard definition.

It's not like the sexual abuse scandal that turned out to be true in regard to the Catholic priest abuse scandal, which was was a lot bigger and more complex, which by the way is another story that you should probably research as a true conspiracy story on abuse. But whereas the Catholic abuse scandal was more of a conspiracy because of its complexity, the abuse that we are going to focus on here is more about focusing on seeing propaganda as wielded by individual abusers. We'll get more to a larger group conspiracy as the seasons progress, but here I think it's important that we begin to see how lies and abuse can fly under the radar on a more individual level. It's a more manageable level to kind of dig through. So that's why I wanted to focus on the story of Ravi Zacharias.

Now, I did also debate discussing the story of Larry Nassar as Rachel Denhollander's book, What Is a Girl Worth? Is a fantastic book, and it shows you how abuse occurs and how hard it is for individuals who are abused to be believed. I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend that book. However, I'm holding out hope that I can actually get an interview with Rachel, so I'll tell the story of Ravi here instead for this episode and hold out hope to talk to Rachel later. So Ravi Zacharias was an extremely charismatic Christian apologist.

I absolutely loved Ravi's content. One of the things that I loved about him was, as I told everyone that I talked to about him, Ravi isn't arrogant like a lot of the other apologists. He's humble and gracious and loving. So when initial reports came out about someone accusing Ravi of sexual abuse, and especially because he was being sued for money, I thought I was just a gold digger going after Ravi. However, because I had just started to come around to the issue of abuse, there's a little room in the back of my mind that maybe it was true.

In fact, knowing that John Howard Yoder, someone who was extremely influential in my Christian walk, had sexually assaulted women, I was open to the idea that maybe, maybe this was true about Ravi. But if it was true, then it was probably just a sexual fall, a misstep, you know, sexual immorality. It wasn't something like rape or abuse. Of course, time has proven my initial thoughts very wrong. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one that Ravi hoodwinked or the only one that allowed himself to be hoodwinked.

A lot of Christians called Ravi's accuser terrible names and despised her. Lots of people hated her. But how are so many so duped? For today's episode, I'm going to be using a few sources which I'll link in the show notes. And please make sure to check those out as I'm going to get into everything.

I'm not going to get into everything here. I'm only gonna highlight what fits into our season for propaganda. There's so so much more here that is worth learning about in regard to abuse. The first thing to understand about abuse is that it hinged on his persona. It relied on the image and information that he showed to the outside world, what he chose to show.

The Christian language that Ravi used and the humble air that he exuded were a part of what made him so believable. One of the women that Ravi hurt was Shirley Steward, a woman who Ravi counseled to have an abortion in order to save his family face in their Christian community because the child that was conceived was Ravi's brother's child. Shirley did what Ravi said because she trusted him as the result of who Ravi had shown himself to be, a caring and loving pastor. He also leveraged his persona with one of the women that he assaulted at his massage parlor. When asked about why she didn't come forward, the woman said, Well, who would believe me against a famous Christian leader?

She knew that the information she received from Ravi was enormously inconsistent with the information that Ravi shared with everyone else. There's no way that this woman would be believed up against Ravi. But Ravi also used who he was as a cudgel against some victims. Another woman that Ravi assaulted said that Ravi, quote, 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, end quote. Ravi wielded his selective information against different people differently.

Against his base, he wielded his humble Christian persona, against his victims, he wielded their smallness against him when compared to his stature in the community. But Ravi did more than wield information about himself. He also garnered information about his victims. From the report on Ravi, one citation read, quote, He elicited information about her faith and her financial situation. She reported that after he arranged for the ministry to provide her with financial support, he required sex from her.

According to this witness, Mr. Zacharias used religious expressions to gain compliance as she was raised to be a person of faith. She reported that he made her pray with him to thank God for the opportunity they both received. She said he called her his reward for living a life of service to God and he referenced the godly men in the Bible with more than one wife. And as another example, quote, a number of aspects of this account involved similar behavior and escalation as the accounts of other therapists who would not have known each other and who treated Mr.

Zacharias in different contexts over time. The therapists he reportedly targeted for more than a massage discussed a similar modus operandi of building their trust and making them feel at ease. As one put it, he wasn't frisky initially. Some therapists described a process that began with probing conversation and him asking about their families and backgrounds, often delving into deeply personal issues like financial struggles or emotionally broken backgrounds. For example, one therapist reported that Mr.

Zachariah spent the first half of their first massage session asking about her spiritual journey and prior abuse. This set her at ease and made her feel that he cared about her as a person before he later asked her to massage his genitals. Another woman reported that he would talk about her career plans and efforts to improve her financial situation while he was massaging her breasts. She never came forward because she thought, Who would believe me against a famous Christian leader? Some therapists also reported that Mr.

Zacharias paid very well or would leave large tips and gave gifts that were at times lavish, like a Persian rug or a Louis Vuitton wallet with $500 inside. End quote. So Ravi would groom women, find out their weaknesses and where he could prey on them, and then use this information against them. In most cases, he made himself look like their savior as he was supplying for their needs, while in reality, he was domineering control over them for his own self gratification. Alongside the positive information Ravi wielded against his followers and against his victims, Ravi also controlled the flow of information going out.

He had phones that others were not allowed access to, as well as a fund that he could use at his discretion without oversight. Ravi also maintained the right to strict control over his massages, traveling with a personal masseuse. Now if you think back to our previous episode, you'll remember that abusers are loving and charismatic until their control point and abuse are touched upon. Just listen to this quote from the report about an instance where this happens. Quote, Mr.

Zacharias spent much of the year on the road and typically had at least one male RZIM staff member travel with him. These travel assistants provided the appearance of accountability. So Mr. Zacharias could say that he did not travel alone and was never alone with a woman. Indeed, all of the travel assistants we interviewed said that they never observed anything improper.

Most of them were aware, however, that Mr. Zacharias had a massage therapist who was often with him to provide treatments during his travels. Several RZIM staff reported to us that they were concerned about Mr. Zacharias traveling with a personal masseuse, not because they feared actual impropriety, but because they feared the appearance of impropriety. A high level RZIM staff member expressed concerns to Mr.

Zacharias about it and encouraged him to stop traveling with her. In response, Mr. Zacharias grew angry and barely spoke to his staff member for a long period of time. He was effectively sent to Siberia as another staff member recalled. Their relationship never fully recovered.

End quote. Clearly, there was something wrong here for Ravi to be so touchy about this confrontation. But I also want you to notice something that we'll bring up in our false prophet episode for the season. The concern here wasn't that Ravi might actually be doing something bad, but that it appeared that he was and people might use that against him. Nobody thought that he was really doing it, right?

That wasn't something that would would actually be investigated. Nobody had access to his phones, his fund, or his actions. They couldn't be questioned. So Ravi had absolutely no accountability. Everyone was beholden to the information that Ravi chose to disclose.

And when that information was brought into question, was potentially approaching questioning, Ravi snapped. Now that indicates abuse and propaganda right there. They don't like alternative sources of information, alternative views. Another issue brought up in the document was Ravi's use of phony science. Now the report said that Ravi told the one masseuse that she had to massage his genitals because he had some ligamental issues.

That's so bogus. But I mean, the masseuse was not in a power position, right? And the man that she was to massage was extremely powerful. This reminded me so much of, Dunhollowender's book because Larry Nassar used the exact sort of approach, you know, that he had to get inside of Rachel and and all these girls and women because of some bogus medical stuff. Abusers and propagandists don't simply control information, they create and shape it for their purposes.

And their charisma often allows them to do so, to not even be questioned by their own victims while they're victimizing them. But here's the thing, one of the the most important aspects of propaganda that we've highlighted is this idea that propaganda is social. Now, what what allowed Ravi and most abusers? What allows them to continue to get away with what they do? It's not that nobody comes forward, it's not that they couldn't be found out, right?

I mean, think about Ravi's phone or his fund if it would just be investigated. Right? People often do come forward, though a lot of people don't. But the problem, what the real problem is is that many victims don't come forward because they're not believed. They know they won't be believed.

While the abuser wants to propagandize his victims, his ultimate strength is in propagandizing those on the outside, just like we saw in our last episode. If the abuser looks good to friends, family, judges, lawyers, the majority of people, right? Then who's going to believe a gold digging, emotional, unstable woman? Take two instances from the report on how Ravi responded to allegations against him. Quote, because Mr.

Zacharias was able to convince members of the RZIM board and management that he was the victim of extortionists, RZIM did not investigate the allegations. A full investigation might have uncovered evidence of misconduct at the time when Mr. Zacharias was alive to explain himself, end quote. Another quote, quote, Mr. Zacharias was strident and inflammatory.

He described his critics as nasty people and lunatics who are engaging in satanic type slander and falsehood. Some RZIM staff told us that he expressed frustration with having to issue an apology at all. He was able to convince many that not only was he innocent, he was the victim of malicious evil, end quote. So Ravi didn't have to put people under his thumb. He didn't have to violently control any situation.

He he never had to to hurt anybody to keep this information secret because the people in power were on his team. Public opinion was on his team. I was on his team at one point. Shirley Stewart, the woman that Ravi counseled to have an abortion, once told her cousin about Ravi. When Shirley's cousin went to her pastor, her pastor told her that Shirley was a liar.

There's no way that Ravi could have done that. Laurie Ann Thompson had similar experiences, receiving a lot of hate mail and threats herself because of what she was doing to poor Ravi. And of course, there were those in Ravi's family and on Ravi's team who still deny the truth or minimize it, like Ravi's own son, Nathan, who said, quote, even if these allegations are true, there's no doubt that God actively blessed my dad. So what these individuals are saying is that God was wrong to do so, so we must now correct God's blessing slash mistake by erasing my dad and his voice, quote, end quote. So Ravi's sway is still very powerful because he was a great propagandist.

Conspiracies like the one about Ravi Zacharias, Larry Nassar, Jeffrey Epstein, or the Catholic Church reveal some important things to us. They reveal that people in power are often able to abuse those with lesser power, like women, children, or those who are dependent, in large part because they control the situations with their image, and they develop their image with selective information. They control the narrative. Truth is only uncovered when people are willing to speak truth to power, like Lori Ann Thompson or Rachel Denhollander, and when others begin to listen to them. Propaganda seeks to allow only one narrative, meaning that the only way to test and see if something is propaganda is to be open to alternative narratives.

If anyone is protecting a narrative against investigation or against competing narratives, you're likely seeing propaganda. Sadly, for Shirley Steward, the church was not a place that she was able to find a community of truth that would counter propaganda. After her experience, Shirley said, quote, If this is what Christianity, what Christians are like, if you are an example of what Christians are like, I want nothing more to do with the church. And I walked out, and I still believe in God. I didn't stop believing in God, but I've stopped believing in the church and Christians, end quote.

The church is supposed to be the community where power is held under a microscope of skepticism and where the lowly are treated as equals. The church is supposed to be a place where truth is discerned and claims evaluated. But that's not what Shirley found. She found the church to be a place just as susceptible to propaganda as any other place, and perhaps even more so when allured by the promises of the charisma and power of a smooth talking apologist. Some conspiracies remain conspiracies because they're crazy and untrue, while others are revealed as true because someone's crazy enough to seek truth over power.

That's all for now. So peace and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.