RZIM, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in the metro Atlanta, Georgia area, was stunned to learn that the ministry’s late founder and namesake, Ravi Zacharias, after intensive independent investigation, was confirmed to have been a long-term sexual predator who craftily and skillfully covered his tracks by using the ministry as a front for his sexual predatory and criminal behaviors on a global scale.
Zacharias, who for 40 years was previously held in high esteem in Christendom as an apologist – one who gives a reasoned, rational, and logical defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the sinless resurrected son of God, miracle worker, etc. – died 19 May 2020 of a rare form of bone cancer located in his spine. It was an altogether ironically telling end to his life, that the foundation upon which he built his religious empire was a corrupted, and diseased fraud, just like the cancer in his spine.
Ravi Zacharias () was a liar, fraudster, international sexual predator, swindler, and all-around miserable scumbag who got away with his crimes by using a front as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
During his lifetime, there were unverified rumors – scuttlebutt – of things possibly amiss and awry, and some of his claims about his academic accomplishment and achievements were not merely questionable, but entirely fabricated, and fully false, as well as the existence of hushed rumors of possible sexual impropriety. But none of them were ever fully investigated because of his stature, until after his death at age 74.
Some skeptics who continued a vigilant watch over his ministry were the proverbial “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” albeit were largely – if not fully – discounted by the religious Christian community precisely because the claims and investigations were made by atheists.
One such investigator is a fellow named Steve Baughman who owns the website RaviWatch.com, is an attorney, and describes himself as a “part-time lawyer, part-time touring and teaching musician, part-time philosophy student, and full-time dilettante.”
On the “about me” page of the site, he wrote that “The Ravi Zacharias project fell into my lap most unexpectedly in 2015 when I was seeking the best and brightest defenders of the Christian religion. I began earnestly to look into his work and quickly found a scoundrel behind the smiling erudition.”
The front page of the RaviWatch.com website has a detailed narrative about the numerous extensive false claims made by Zacharias, and show a trend of changes to the RZIM website in response to the discovery of false claims made by Mr. Zacharias, most notably those being pertaining to educational achievement, and academic appointment at prestigious educational institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford, and others.
A video by Mr. Baughman published November 26, 2017 on the YouTube website, which link is posted below, gives significant detail about his findings of Ravi’s continued deliberate defrauding and lies about himself, and about his long-term online sexual relationship with “Lori Anne Thompson, a woman with whom he had maintained an online friendship for several years.”
“In April of 2017, Mr. Zacharias received a demand letter from Mark P. Bryant, of the Bryant Legal Center in Paducah, KY, who represented Lori Anne Thompson, which demanded $5 million in what can only be characterized as hush money. The letter accused Ravi of using Ms. Thompson for his sexual gratification, in violation of his duties as a minister.”
“The letter is not legally persuasive. But it makes an explosive claim. Mr. Bryant claims to have an email from Mr. Zacharias in which he threatened to commit suicide (“bid this world goodbye”) if Ms. Thompson told her husband about their relationship. (Mr. Zacharias does not deny this in his court filing but he remains free to do so as litigation proceeds. I am attempting to procure a copy of the email.)
“On July 31, 2017, Mr. Zacharias responded by filing a federal lawsuit against Ms. Thompson and her husband, Bradley Thompson, accusing them of carrying out an extortion scheme against him. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
“Looking only at the evidence presented by Mr. Zacharias we learn that he had indeed carried on an online relationship with Ms. Thompson, one that involved her sending him nude photos of herself. (There was no physical sexual contact between them.) After Bradley Thompson learned of this relationship, he emailed Mr. Zacharias and asked “why would you ask her to send you photos of herself?”
“Five days later, on January 21, 2017, Mr. Zacharias replied to Mr. Thompson. He denied soliciting such photos from Ms. Thompson but said that he did not want to risk “seeming to avoid the full force of the responsibility.” Mr. Zacharias admitted that “the blame is real and inescapable” and revealed that he had avoided meeting Ms. Thompson in person “so as not to continue what was wrong.”
“In his complaint Mr. Zacharias also reveals that when he learned that Ms. Thompson was coming to visit him from her home in Canada he deliberately left town to avoid meeting her.
“Curiously, while the complaint claims that at various times Mr. Zacharias attempted to block further messages from Ms. Thompson, it also says that he “remained amicable out of fear for his family’s safety and of potential damage to his professional reputation if he upset the Thompsons.”
“So it appears undisputed that, at very least, Mr. Zacharias continued for some time to receive sexual photos from Ms. Thompson even when he could have attempted to terminate contact with her, reported her behavior to his Board of Directors and gone about his business with no fear of reputational damage. It is also undisputed that something significant enough was going on between Ravi and Lori Anne that he deliberately left town when he knew she would be arriving.”
Mr. Baughman wrote that, “Ravi was a sexual predator, an academic fraud, and a man who led a double life. He made false claims on his book covers about his credentials, deceived tens of millions of Christians about his education, led trusting minds to believe there were simple answers to complex questions about God, operated two massage spas, and sexually abused massage therapists in the U.S. and across Asia. Ravi was also a vicious man who brutalized those who threatened to expose him. This is all confirmed now.”
On the RZIM website, there is posted an “Open Letter from the International Board of Directors of RZIM on the Investigation of Ravi Zacharias” which details in part the efforts the organization has undertaken to investigate the claims made by others about Ravi’s sexual predatory behavior. They wrote in part that, Read the rest of this entry »
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