Book Review: “Simply Trinity”, by Matthew Barrett

Introduction

Over the course of my life, I’ve observed a wide spectrum of the evangelical world, and even some fringe groups, and even cults. While I’ve never been in a cult, I have been in churches that proved to be on the fringe. In those cases, I managed to get out “while the gettin’ was good”, before the implosion went down.

But here’s the thing: one of the telltale signs of a movement that is in danger of going off the reservation–or has already moved off the reservation–is abandonment of the fundamental understanding of the Trinity.

I realize that the Trinity is difficult–arguably impossible–to comprehend from the standpoint of our temporal, finite frame of reference. So being confounded by the complexity of it is understandable. On the other hand, if you’re going to be a minister or a teacher, you need to have a good understanding of Trinitarian theology, and that includes an appreciation for the amount of thought that the Early Church fathers put into articulating a Biblical understanding of the nature and character of God, one which culminated in the Nicene Creed.

The point I’m making here: when someone comes up with a novel articulation of the Trinity, you need to be very wary.

So, in 2016, when Dee Parsons alerted me to some high-flying complementarian leaders who were promoting the doctrine of Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS, also known as Eternal Functional Subordination, or EFS*), I was immediately very skeptical of this doctrine.

Why was I skeptical?

  • In almost 1,600 years post-Nicea, which includes Medieval scholars, schisms, Reformation scholars, many Councils, and post-Reformation scholarship, the most iconic theologians never articulated such an understanding of the Trinity, and in fact they specifically rejected any premise of eternal subordination of the Son.
  • Particular leaders within the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) were advancing ESS in order to provide theological support for their complementarian model for gender relations. While I identify as a patriarch–I believe that the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the Church, and that 1 Timothy 2 generally precludes women from eldership in the Church–I have a serious problem when people create God in their own image in order to justify their position. And that is exactly what the ESS proponents at CBMW were doing.

In the years since, I’ve kept the ESS debate on my radar. Also, during that time, I started reading some of the Nicene and Post-Nicene theologians, just to see what their takes were. What was really poignant: many of the arguments that the Arians made at the time–and the responses of the Nicene crowd–sounded eerily similar to the ESS debate today.

In more recent years, the ESS debate has heated up, with Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem, Denny Burk, and Owen Strachan–of the CBMW–advancing the case for ESS. Ware and Burk are professors at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Burk is at Boyce Bible College, which is part of SBTS), and Strachan was a theology professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (he left MBTS this past Spring to take on a position at a different seminary).

I also noticed some pastors in local churches advancing ESS. I warned one of them–whom I know–to RUN from ESS, and gave him a mach 5 version of why it is a very bad doctrine. Five years from now, he will either be thanking me or wishing he’d listened to me.

One of the reasons that ESS has taken hold in evangelical circles is that, at the ground level, Baptists and evangelicals don’t really understand the Trinity. Ministers barely get it, if at all. And most laypersons are totally clueless. Fact is, if I started talking about ESS to the average guy in my church experiences, they would look at me like a deer in the headlights. That has left a Church situation that is very susceptible to neo-Trinitarian heresy.

Enter Matthew Barrett, a theology professor at MBTS.

Barrett, who was once a student of Bruce Ware during his student days at SBTS, began to pick up on some of the neo-Trinitarian ideas coming from Ware and his camp. As a theology professor, he did his homework.

The fruit of that labor–Simply Trinity–is both an excellent primer on Trinitarian theology, and a theological and exegetical case against ESS.

In ST, Barrett does an excellent job highlighting some key concepts that form the bedrock for understanding the Trinity:

  • (a) eternal relations of origin;
  • (b) eternal generation;
  • (c) the difference between the immanant Trinity (the ontological nature and character of God) and economic Trinity (the expression of the Trinity toward the created order, especially in the economy of salvation); and
  • (d) simplicity: the premise that God is not made of parts, that God is one divine essence.

Throughout the book, Barrett brings the discussion back to these fundamental concepts. A very key point, that Barrett brings home, is the historical understanding that the only distinguishing characteristic among the members of the Trinity are their eternal relations of origin: The Father is eternally unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten, and the Holy Spirit is eternally spirated; i.e., eternally proceeds from the Father and Son. (As Barrett says it: “These relations alone distinguish the persons, identifying each person’s personal property.”)

There was never a time when the Father was not; there was never a time when the Son or Holy Spirit were not. Each is all God, but they are not separate “Gods”: you do not get “more” by adding them up, and–even if you could subtract (and you can’t, because God is indivisible: He is one)–you would not get “less” God.

Barrett also describes how the evangelical world became susceptible to “Trinity Drift”; a dynamic in which the evangelical world subtly began slowly embracing novel ideas about the Trinity, allowing a fertile ground from which ESS would emerge.

One of the most damaging factors in Trinity Drift was the rise of a social understanding of the Trinity, also known as Social Trinity: that the Godhead is a society of persons. This became the theological basis for the egalitarian movement, as well as all variations of Liberation Theology, including sexual liberation. (I can affirm what Barrett says, because I have gone toe-to-toe with sexual liberationists and socialists for whom the Social Trinity of Liberation Theology is a foundational truth.)

From there, Barrett issues a severe indictment against EFS/ESS:

  • EFS is a variation of Social Trinity, the difference being that the EFSers cast Godhead as a heirarchical social Trinity whereas Liberation Theologians cast the Godhead as a society of equals.
  • EFS is reflecting of a proof-texting, eisegetical approach to the Scriptures that conflates the immanant Trinity with the economic Trinity.
  • By injecting a heirarchy in the Trinity, EFSers are flirting with multiple heresies that the Church has spent no small amount of time fighting.

The book is not something for easy reading; most theology books are not. Still, Barrett provides an excellent explication of Trinitarian fundamentals, with very solid exegesis of Scripture and well-researched highlights of key Trinitarian scholars from the Nicene era to today.

One of the most important points to ponder here is something that evangelicals have with tradition: to what extent do we value traditions of Church fathers of prior eras?

Unlike Catholics–who sometimes equate Tradition on the same level as Scripture–modern evangelicals tend to take a low view of Tradition. As a result, modern evangelicals are not high on the theological takes of scholars of prior eras, with perhaps some exceptions for Luther, Calvin, and a few key Reformation-era theolgians such as John Knox.

The problem is, this mindset has contributed to substantial ignorance of past theological battles, and the issues that led to them. This has led us to the mess we are in today. While none of the Fathers were infallable, I would suggest that, where key doctrines have stood the test of time, we must give those very strong weight. Because, as Solomon pointed out, “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Against this, Barrett provides a glimpse into history: using a Back to the Future style–he invokes the DeLorean–he takes the reader back in time to different eras, highlighting key scholars and their takes on the Trinity.

Where he proves exceptionally strong, however, is his exegesis of “aha” texts for ESS. His takedown of Ware is as thorough as it is brutal. The ESS/EFS model represents a manipulation of the Trinity, a case of theologians creating God in their image in order to advance their gender-relations model.

The conservative who subscribes to ESS will (rightfully) disagree with the liberal Liberation theologian who promotes socialism and sexual liberation. The problem is that while the two will disagree strenuously on the ends, they are in agreement on the means: each has molded the Trinity for their own purposes.

This is an ominous trend, as the ESS/EFS crowd, by embracing this model–which is the product of sloppy hermeneutics if not eisegesis–has left an otherwise conservative sector wide open to the threat of liberalism. This is because, if you embrace liberal frameworks, you undermine the foundations for conservatism, even as you outwardly affirm those.

One of my biggest areas of frustration with the neo-Calvinist movement–which is the sector that espouses ESS/EFS–is their stunning level of hubris in this matter.

If you’re going to advance a novel take on the Trinity, you’re going to need a very strong exegetical case. You have the burden of proof of showing that your claim of wisdom on this stands up to the Nicene fathers. You have the burden of proof to show why your exegesis justifies a paradigm that is mostly absent from the theological discourse of the last 1,600 years of a Church that has been patriarchal. (In other words, even a historically-patriarchal Church has not arrived at a consensus anything close to ESS in her two millennia of existence. So if you’re going to promote it, the bar is very, very high.)

Having studied the Scriptures, I see no case for eternal subordination of any member of the Trinity. While, in the economy of salvation, Jesus humbled Himself and gave up the glories of the eternal frame of reference to enter time and space as a man–living in submission as we all are subject (only without sin), dying for our sins, and coming back from the dead–what we see in Scriptures, from an eternal frame of reference, is an immanant Trinity that prsents the Three Persons as co-equal, not subordinate, with their distinctives solely in their eternal relations of origin.

This is the point that Barrett drives home thoughout Simply Trinity.

As a conservative, I see the Christian faith as a conservative one: we are committed to conserving the teachings of Jesus, going to great lengths in archaeology and scholarship to ensure that the Biblical text is solid, that we get meanings right, that we present God as revealed in Scripture. We also go to great lengths to ensure that we conserve foundational fundamentals: the Bible is not fake news, miracle accounts did happen; Jesus is God; Jesus was conceived/born of a virgin, Jesus did die for our sins, Jesus did come back from the dead; Jesus will come back again.

There is nothing conservative about ESS/EFS: it is a modern spin on an old-school heresy. It is the product of eisegesis, ironically coming from a crowd that exalts itself as committed to exegesis. The Trinity of ESS/EFS is man-made.

Barrett provides a call to the troops to return to home base, and embrace the Biblical, unmanipulated Trinity. And in the process, like Alexander in his rebuttal to Arius, Barrett–in his rebuttal of Grudem and Ware–provides a robust, Biblical explication of the Gospel.

I give it five stars.

*ESS/EFS is a doctrine that presents Jesus as eternally subordinate to the Father. In classical and historical understandints of the Trinity, Jesus is understood has being subordinate only in the economy of salvation whereas, in EFS/ESS, Jesus is subordinate to the Father not just in the economy of salvation, but also through all eternity. This is in conflict with Genesis, John, Colossians, and Revelation, which present a Jesus who is Creator and co-equal with the Father and Holy Spirit, with their eternal relations of origin being the only distinguishing factor. In my debate with a complementarian leader who insisted that EFS is not heretical, he insisted that EFS is not the same as ESS, which he believes is heretical. I disagree with him: EFS is an attempt at walking back ESS to make it seem more orthodox. But Barrett does a good job pointing out that this, itself has problems.

Details Emerge in Josh Duggar Case

Josh Duggar is in very serious trouble. There is no other way to spin this.

According to the evidence presented, he created a fairly sophisticated system for the purpose of crcumventing Covenent Eyes, a popular Christian anti-porn accountability platform. He created a separate Linux partition; the password was one that he made; he even covered it with a family screen saver. He used a Tor browser to access the “dark web”. He used BitTorrent for file sharing.* This is how people with these dark fantasies obtain the types of porn that Duggar obtained.

(I note this because it is important to point out that this type of porn is NOT something you will find on a conventional porn site. It is NOT something that you obtain accidentally. To obtain it, you have to be intentional in your methods. The people who exchange this type of media are very meticulous. Law enforcement goes to great lengths to track these guys down, and we are still miles behind.)

When the Department for Homeland Security raided his auto dealership in 2019, Duggar, without being told why they were there, asked them, “What is this about? Has someone been downloading child pornography?”

That was a confession.

Prosecutors claim the illegal images show child pornography involving minors ranging from the age of 12 to as young as toddlers of 18 months.

Faulkner testified that the images were exchanged via a peer-to-peer file sharing called BitTorrent. The forensic investigation also found a program on the desktop called Covenant Eyes, which allows a user to “quit porn” by reporting to an accountability partner — in this case wife Anna — if the user visits porn sites. To get around triggering a report, Josh allegedly installed a Linux partition, which divided the computer’s hard drive into two isolated sections to hide what was being viewed in one of them. He also used a TOR browser to surf the dark web. The way he accessed that part of the computer was by inputting a special password — and the one used was one Josh often used for other accounts, including for personal banking, which included his birth year in the password.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/josh-duggar-child-pornography-case-trial-bail-home-confinement-000211966.html

Almost as bad: Duggar is not only out on bail, he also gets unlimited visitation with his children, as long as his wife supervises.

Rachael Denhollander has a great thread on the whole mess.

At this point, we know what Josh Duggar is, just as we know what O.J. Simpson is. Whereas O.J. skated on the murder charges, I strongly doubt that Duggar will skate here. What IS bothersome is the patriarchs who are doing–and have done–next to nothing to protect Anna and her 7 children. Her family made her stay with Josh in 2015–they refused to support her if she left him–even when it became apparent that he was a very dark man who had cheated on her, even sleeping with a porn star.

I don’t want to hear another word about how “patriarchy protects women and children.”

EVERY DAMN TIME we have an offender in the ranks, the only ones protected by the system are the perpetrators. When it’s time to kick ass for Jesus, the victims–even when they are boys–are the only ones taking the beatings.

Tell me, how much protection did Josh Duggar’s sisters get? Tell me, how much protection did Anna Duggar get? Tell me, how much protection did any #churchtoo victim get when they went forward?

Tell me: who is looking out for Anna Duggar and her kids? She has 7 kids, including the airplane in the hangar. She is married to a husband who is turned on by the torture of infants and toddlers. He hates children. He probably hates women, too.

And yet, no one–NO ONE–in her family is helping her leave that POS. They forced her to stay with him in 2015. This is clearly an abusive marriage, but where are the patriarchs in this major league who talk a great game? Where is Mohler? Piper? Grudem? Ware? Wilson? DeYoung?

Hell, WHERE ARE HER FAMILY? WHERE IS HER PASTOR AND CHURCH COMMUNITY?

A couple months ago, I remarked that it would have been nice if an evangelical leader had punched Ravi Zacharias in the mouth and told him where to stick his empire. Peter once told Simon the magician, “may your money perish with you.”

Where are the Christian leaders with the dump truck-sized balls to call these guys out?

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine remarked–in a conversation about domestic violence–that, while leaders are all focused on what the victim (often a woman) can and can’t do, they need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE ABUSER.

And she wasn’t wrong. For whatever reason, these chest-beating Manly Men are ALMOST ALWAYS mysteriously absent when it’s time to kick some ass.

During the war in Vietnam, one of the worst chapters in our involvement there was the My Lai Massacre: where two officers–Ernest Medina and William Calley–ordered and participated in the mass murder of as many as 500 South Vietnamese civilians. I would draw the comparson to #churchtoo.

My Lai Massacre#churchtoo
South Vietnamese terrorized by communists. They are taught that the Americans are the good guys who will protect them.People–particularly women and children–are taught that the world is evil, and that the Church is a refuge from the world.
A band of American soldiers targeted a village, killing everyone, and even raping the women.Clergy and other leaders, who should be protecting women and children, are instead taking sexual license with them.
The military sought to cover it up. Congress even tried to cover it up. President Nixon and the general public were sympathetic to the perpetrators (William Calley and Ernest Medina), even casting them as victims.Evangelical leaders have overwhelmingly covered for the abusive clergy. They often dismiss, attack, and malign the victims while casting themselves and the offending clergy as the real victims.
A helicopter crew–Hugh Thompson, Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn–took decisive action to stop the massacre. They turned their guns on American soldiers, ordering them to stop the killing. Thompson reported this to his superiors, who sought to cover it up.A contingent of victims and advocates–mostly women, some men–have reported abuses and coverups, and have fought to expose the perpetrators.
Thompson and his crew received major blowback at the time, with at least one lawmaker seeking to court-martial Thompson. Public sentiment was overwhelmingly against them at the time. Thompson was considered a traitor in many circles.The victims and their advocates are largely dismissed as liberals and troublemakers, even heretics. They are subject to passive-aggressive attacks by evangelical leaders. Even the conservative ones are subject to attack.
Today, Thompson and his crew are regarded as heroes.The victims who came forward are slowly being recognized for their courage. The advocates are receiving qualified vindication.

Right now, what we need are leaders like Hugh Thompson, Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn. THEY stopped the My Lai massacre. THEY turned their guns on Calley and ordered him to stop. THEY testified against Calley at his trial.

Where are the evangelical leaders who will stand up to the well-connected and financed network of abuse apologists, and the systems that enable them?

I’m anything but a liberal, an egalitarian, or a feminist. But as someone who identifies as a patriarch, I find the good-old-boy coverups to be evil on a very high scale. And Duggar is but the latest example.

*Tor and BitTorrent are NOT in and of themselves, evil applications. Good, upstanding software engineers and geeks use those every day without committing crimes.

Josh Duggar Charged for Child Porn

Back in 2015, when the news of Josh Duggar’s molestation of his sisters–and a babysitter–broke, I wanted to believe that he had put all of that behind him. He was 14 at the time he did that, a lot of folks wanted to think it was a case of adolescent sexual experimentation gone too far, he apparently faced the music, and by all indications at the time, those were not indicative of who he became as an adult.

At the time, I said this:

It would be fair, in his circle of accountability, to question him significantly about who he is today. Has he cheated on his wife? Does he use pornography? What changed in his conduct after his scrapes at age 14? Has he learned to control his passions in a way befitting a Christian gentleman?

Then, a couple months later, he was outed in the Ashley Madison hack. As horrible as that was, at least it was otherwise consensual sex with other adults. Yes, it was terrible; yes, it merited repudiation from the Church; yes, it merited derision from the outside world due to the hypocrisy of his acts. But at that point he had done nothing criminal, at least not as far as we knew.

Sadly, what we are seeing is that Duggar’s adolescent molestations were indicative of sexually-predatory inclinations, and he apparently developed a sexual attraction to children. He has been arrested on two federal charges of receiving and possessing child pornography.

Trust me on this: the truth of this is very dark. Adult porn is one thing: unless the parties are forced, at least the adults involved are engaging in consensual sex. They are degrading each other, and yes–the viewer of such needs to understand that viewing conventional porn is not innocuous: you are enjoying watching one or more people debase themselves for your pleasure. Repentance is more than just vowing to stop watching it, but rather learning to view people as Image Bearers–worthy of dignity–rather than sexual commodities.

Child porn, however, is a whole different circle of hell. A person who enjoys child porn is a person who enjoys seeing children harmed. Children do not consent to be used that way. This is full-on child abuse the magnitude of which is severe and unconscionable.

Book Review: “Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot”, by Vice Admiral James Stockdale (USN)

My wife got me the perfect birthday present: Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, by James Stockdale.

Many people remember Stockdale as the VP Candidate for Ross Perot in his 1992 Presidential campaign, who appeared out of his league in the Vice Presidential debate that also featured Sen. Al Gore (D-TN) and Vice President Dan Quayle.

(My theory: Stockdale was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, which ultimately killed him in 2006.)

I was already familiar with some of Stockdale’s backstory. The book was a collection of essays and speeches after his release from the Hanoi Hilton, where he spent 7-1/2 years. The book left me all the more impressed with his accomplishments as well as his character under extreme pressure.

(While Stockdale was a Stoic, one need not be a Stoic–I’m not–to admire the man and his accomplishments. And many of his life lessons offer practical takeaways for the Christian.)

Aviation nuts will eat this up, as well they should. Stockdale was one of the great military pilots of his generation: a graduate of the Naval Academy, a Naval aviator, a test pilot, a fighter wing commander. (During his time at the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, he was a mathematics tutor for celebrated astronaut John Glenn.)

At the top of his game, the Navy sent him to Stanford for graduate studies. While there, he decided to learn philosophy on the side. One of the professors–Phil Rhinelander–obliged him, and got him hooked on Epictetus.

Three years later, he was in the thick of the Vietnam war. He was an eyewitness to the faux “Tonkin Gulf” incident that ignited the American involvement in the war. Stockdale led the first bombing raids. He was on a routine “milk run” bombing when he was shot down and became a POW, spending the ensuing 7-1/2 yrs in the “Hanoi Hilton.”

In his words, as he descended in his parachute to what he knew was certain capture, he was “entering the world of Epictetus.” His worst challenges as a POW were not physical but rather the battle to keep what he called “the good man inside” intact.

As a POW, he was the ranking officer among a group of Americans who were constantly tortured for political purposes: the Communists thrived on getting Americans to confess to crimes, to do propaganda videos, to rat out other prisoners.

Stockdale formulated a strategy for perseverance that he instilled in his fellow POWs: BACK US:

(1) Don’t BOW in public,

(2) Stay off the AIR,

(3) Confess to no CRIMES,

(4) Do not KISS them goodbye,

(5) UNITY over SELF.

It was accepted that everyone would break under torture, but the principle was MAKE THEM EARN IT. In other words, take as much torture as you can handle, then give them as little as possible, and then share that with everyone else for their safety, thereby preventing the enemy to use such triangulation to break other prisoners.

For his part, Stockdale went to great extremes to avoid being used for photo-ops: he beat his face to a pulp; he even slashed himself. At one point, when guards discovered a letter that gave them enough information that they could have tortured confessions out of him to burn others, he attempted suicide in order to protect his men. (Providentially, his wife had made a public statement in Paris regarding POW safety, and his captors–put on notice–found Stockdale bleeding to death. They were able to save him. According to Stockdale, the torture stopped at that point.)

He was the ringleader of a group of POWs who were so resistant to their captors that they were segregated from the other prisoners. They were dubbed “The Alcatraz Gang”. Another member of that gang included Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, who–forced to appear in a televised interview–blinked T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse Code, thus wrecking the photo-op. For that and other actions, Denton was awarded the Navy Cross.

For his dedication in captivity, Stockdale was awarded the Medal of Honor.

As a Stoic, Epictetus was Stockdale’s major influence. He focused less on his physical state but rather maintaining his self-respect, “the good man inside”.

For a Christian, Jesus taught something similar: “..do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell” (Luke 12:4-5)

One of Stockdale’s first realizations as a POW was, “I am my brother’s keeper.” And that was a major driver of his conduct in the Hanoi Hilton. Again, the Christian should have no conflict with Stockdale here.

And while Stockdale drew more on Epictetus than from Scripture, the Christian reader of Stockdale will resonate with his takes on Job, and even Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they understood that (a) life is not fair, and (b) they need to stay the course no matter what.

For someone who was likely not a Christian–Stockdale was a Stoic philosopher who nominally acknowledged Jesus–he understood suffering better than most evangelicals do.

In fact, what we know today as the “Stockdale Paradox”, is a reality that Job, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the prophets, and Jesus and the Apostles understood long before Stockdale arrived.

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Vice Admiral James Stockdale (USNR)

For Stockdale, that meant having the courage to withstand torture–and even years of solitary confinement–without betraying his men or his country. For the Christian, that means having the faith that God will give you the courage to face trials of all types as they come. We all aren’t going to face torture, or death by fire, stoning, hanging, or beheading; we can STILL face family tragedies, job losses, & other calamities.

In the pandemic, most of us have faced serious challenges with lockdowns and various policies centered around distancing. Many had to worship at home via livestream, missing out on contact with friends and family. Many people lost jobs and businesses. Many saw their pay slashed. Many ended up in the hospital; many COVID patients died in misery: alone in an ICU and on a ventilator.

Some of us, in the midst of all of that, had various personal traumas. Life on this earth is not fair. For the Christian, that Stockdale Paradox should resonate, as our faith is in a God who will provide what we need when we need it. And that need often includes perseverance.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got that: they knew God COULD deliver them from the furnace. But even if He didn’t, they weren’t going to bow down to the statue.

They knew it could get a little warm before things got better. And they still trusted God.

The type of fitness required for this is not a function of your muscles, as the God we serve can deliver a child through a trial that will sink a Crossfitter. But if you have any preconceptions that life is fair, or that your devotion to God will insulate you from tragedies or hardships, then you are setting yourself up for major disappointments.

In fact, I would contend that if you think that life owes you fairness, then you are embracing a form of Prosperity Theology.

As most of the #churchtoo world can attest: life is not fair. You can do everything right and still suffer unjustly. You can be the perfect wife, but that doesn’t guarantee that your husband won’t cheat or beat you up. You can be the perfect husband, and that does not guarantee that your wife won’t ditch you.

When our child was in NICU clinging to life, a man in my church lost his wife–and the kids lost their mom–to cancer. Many years ago, I lost a longtime friend–an otherwise good Christian woman–to breast cancer. When Jesus was an infant, many mothers in Bethlehem could only watch as Herod and his thugs butchered their infants and newborns. Their weeping could be heard all the way in Ramah.

There is no indication from Scripture that those mothers deserved to see their children die. When a Stoic says that “the universe has no moral economy”, he is correct in this respect: there is no guarantee that good will be rewarded and evil will be punished on this earth. The Christian must accept that, in many cases, justice will not happen in this life. For many, the only justice we will see is on Judgment Day. And perseverance means keeping that finish line in sight.

A faith in God won’t necessarily keep you protected FROM tragedy; it WILL manifest itself in God giving you that “discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.” And, as Paul said, “having done everything, to stand firm.”

Ravi Zacharias: Image Repair Analysis

In light of recent revelations about the late Ravi Zacharias–particularly the corroboration of the massage therapists who accused him of sexual abuse–I decided to separate my Image Repair Analysis of RZ’s public press release in the wake of his settlement of his RICO suit against Lori Anne Thompson.

“In October 2014, I spoke at a conference in Canada. At the conclusion of my talk, I met a couple who expressed an interest in our ministry. The wife asked if I would reach out to her husband because he had questions about the Christian faith. As requested, I followed up by sending an email and a book to him, and invited him to consider attending one of our educational programs at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).”

  • “I spoke…my talk…I met…our ministry”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: it puts him in the position of superiority over the couple.
  • “The wife asked if I would reach out to her husband”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: that bolsters his superiority;
    • it is also ATTACKING: it is a veiled cheap shot at the husband.
  • “I followed up…sending..email…and book…invited him”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: maintains his authority over the husband.

“Some months later, I traveled with my wife and one of our daughters to another part of Canada for a speaking engagement. The couple attended this event and invited my wife and me to dinner at a local restaurant afterwards. That was the second and last time I was ever in the same room with either of them.”

  • “I traveled with my wife and one of our daughters”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: it creates the appearance of superiority and propriety, even though the facts indicate impropriety on his part.
  • “That was the second and last time I was ever in the same room with either of them.”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION: he is pleading innocent to an act that of which he is not accused: the “I was never alone with her” defense is invalid, that is not the issue, as the offenses here are cyber in nature.

“Subsequently, she began to contact me via the email address I had used to contact her husband after first meeting them. My responses were usually brief. Then, last year, she shockingly sent me extremely inappropriate pictures of herself unsolicited. I clearly instructed her to stop contacting me in any form; I blocked her messages, and I resolved to terminate all contact with her.”

  • “Subsequently, she began to contact me via the email address I had used to contact her husband”
    • That’s ATTACKING: he’s alleging less-than-proper behavior from the outset.
  • “My responses were usually brief.”
    • That’s MINIMIZATION: he is minimizing his role in email communications with her.
  • “She shockingly sent me extremely inappropriate pictures of herself unsolicited.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: a simple release of all electronic communications would show context, as that would establish the nature of any conversations that might have led to the sending of such pictures. An unsolicited nude would be a scandal for her, not him. That is, unless they had carried on conversations that were sexual in nature, in which case it would be grooming behavior.
  • “unsolicited”
    • That’s DENYING and DEFEASIBILITY: he is denying any role in the picture exchange.

“In late 2016, she sent an email informing me she planned to tell her husband about the inappropriate pictures she had sent and to claim that I had solicited them.”

  • “claim that I had solicited them”
    • That’s DENYING and DEFEASIBILITY: He is denying any role in her sending the pictures.

“In April 2017, together they sent me, through an attorney, a letter demanding money. I immediately notified members of my board, and as they advised, I personally engaged legal counsel.”

  • “In April 2017, together they sent me, through an attorney, a letter demanding money.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: He’s accusing them of blackmail.

“In response to the demand for money, my attorneys filed a publicly available lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The other side requested mediation rather than going to trial. We agreed to mediation and we reached an agreement in November 2017 to resolve the matter and dismiss my lawsuit. All communication with both of them has concluded, and the legal matters have been resolved. However, at this time, unfortunately I am legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some, other than to say that each side paid for their own legal expenses and no ministry funds were used.

  • “In response to the demand for money”
    • That’s PROVOCATION: he’s suggesting that his ensuing lawsuit was in response to a provoked act.
  • “..my attorneys filed a publicly available lawsuit”
    • That’s ATTACKING: filing a lawsuit, using multiple attorneys, targeting a couple.
  • “The other side requested mediation rather than going to trial.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: He’s suggesting that, because they did not want to go to trial, that they are trying to hide something.
  • “unfortunately I am legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some”
    • That’s DEFEASIBILITY: He claims to have no control, preventing him from discussing details.
    • It’s also a form of DENIAL: he has denied allegations, and yet left obvious questions unanswered, all while using DEFEASIBILITY to avoid answering them.
  • “no ministry funds were used”
    • That’s MINIMIZATION: By suggesting that no ministry funds were involved, this makes the situation less important than it is.

“I have learned a difficult and painful lesson through this ordeal. As a husband, father, grandfather, and leader of a Christian ministry I should not have engaged in ongoing communication with a woman other than my wife. I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety, and for that I am profoundly sorry. I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues.”

  • “As a husband, father, grandfather, and leader of a Christian ministry”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: he’s reminding you of his superior status in multiple realms.
  • “I should not have engaged in ongoing communication with a woman other than my wife”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION and MINIMIZATION: he’s creating a lesser offense—which isn’t even an offense—to take your attention to the offense for which he is on the hook. (Also, it’s utter hogwash. He’s saying, “If I’d only followed the ‘Billy Graham Rule…’ How about NOT BEING A DIRTY OLD MAN???)
  • “I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION and MINIMIZATION: he’s admitting to a lesser offense as opposed to the one of which he is accused.
    • It’s also MORTIFICATION, although in a false sense: he is confessing to a non-offense.
  • “I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues”
    • This is TRANSCENDENCE: appealing to a higher authority to avoid accountability to the very people to which he must otherwise answer.

“Let me state categorically that I never met this woman alone, publicly or privately. The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman—I did not, and there is no evidence to the contrary—but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife. The answer, I can unequivocally say, is no, and I fully accept responsibility. In all my correspondence with thousands of people in 45 years of ministry, I have never been confronted with a situation such as this, and God and my family and close friends know how grieved I have been.”

  • “Let me state categorically that I never met this woman alone, publicly or privately.”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION: he’s denying having committed an offense of which he has not been accused. (Note: whenever people use the word “categorically” in this context, it usually means they’re not being truthful.)
  • “The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman…but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife”
    • This is DENIAL and DIFFERENTIATION: He is reframing the issue on his own terms, not addressing the obvious question: what led to the woman sending him those photos?
    • This is MORTIFICATION, although in a false sense. Jesus had many extended communications with women (Mary Magdalene anyone?), in spite of not being married to any of them.
  • “In all my correspondence with thousands of people in 45 years of ministry”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: re-reminding you of his superiority.
  • “I have never been confronted with a situation such as this”
    • That’s DEFEASIBILITY: he’s casting this as a situation that has come upon him—that he had no control over—rather than a crisis of his own making due to his own choices. He is casting himself as a victim.
  • “God and my family and close friends know how grieved I have been”
    • That’s REVERSING VICTIM AND OFFENDER ROLES: he is casting himself as a victim.

“In my 45 years of marriage to Margie, I have never engaged in any inappropriate behavior of any kind. I love my wife with all my heart and have been absolutely faithful to her these more than 16,000 days of marriage, and have exercised extreme caution in my daily life and travels, as everyone who knows me is aware. I have long made it my practice not to be alone with a woman other than Margie and our daughters—not in a car, a restaurant, or anywhere else. Upon reflection, I now realize that the physical safeguards I have long practiced to protect my integrity should have extended to include digital communications safeguards. I believe—and indeed would counsel others—that the standards of personal conduct are necessarily higher for Christian leaders.”

  • “In my 45 years of marriage to Margie… more than 16,000 days of marriage”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: re-reminding you of his awwsummness as a husband.
  • “everyone who knows me is aware”
    • That’s TRIANGULATION: appealing to other people to deflect from the real issue at hand.

“The Lord rescued me at the age of seventeen, and I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth. He entrusted me with this calling, it is His; any opportunities I have been given are from Him. My life is not my own, it belongs to God. As long as He gives me life and breath I will serve out this calling He has given me. I am committed to finishing well, using whatever years He grants me to share His love and forgiveness, truth and grace, with people everywhere who are looking for meaning and purpose and hope. I bear no ill will toward anybody. God is the God of healing, and He promises a new day. May that be true by His grace.”

  • “The Lord rescued me at the age of seventeen, and I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $500, Alex: It’s all about the Lord now.
  • “He entrusted me with this calling, it is His; any opportunities I have been given are from Him”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $1,000, Alex: HE’s been entrusted with the calling, with the implication that YOU are but a peasant.
  • “My life is not my own, it belongs to God. As long as He gives me life and breath I will serve out this calling He has given me. I am committed to finishing well…”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $2,000..OH DAILY DOUBLE!!!!: He’s now all wrapped up in his calling from God, his remaining years, finishing the race, and bestowing all good things on peasants. He’s untouchable now.
  • “I bear no ill will toward anybody. God is the God of healing, and He promises a new day. May that be true by His grace.”
    • This is BOLSTERING: he is making himself the superior person in this.

Given the known facts in RZ’s case, and given the use of Image Repair in his public statement, the conclusion is that

  • Ravi Zacharias is being less than honest,
  • Ravi Zacharias is hiding the truth, and
  • Ravi Zacharias is using corporate damage control tactics in lieu of addressing hard questions.

Ravi Zacharias: “Some…Conduct…Is More Serious”

Three years ago, I had a sinking feeling about Ravi Zacharias. I blogged about it then.

At that time, I believed he had a serious problem. As I looked at the public details, this didn’t smell right.

Then, in 2019, Julie Anne Smith broke a story of 16-year-old Shirley Steward, who was pregnant with Ravi’s brother (Ramesh). Ravi counseled her to have an abortion, even made the arrangements.

I was convinced that the evangelical world would explode, as no one would tolerate that, not even from Ravi.

I was wrong. No major Christian media outlet covered the story. Not one Big Evangelical leader called out Ravi Zacharias.

In March 2020, he was diagnosed with cancer. Many of us reached out to him, calling him to repent and apologize and drop the NDA and make things right. We were ridiculed.

When he died in May, he was lauded by none other than Vice President Mike Pence.

In September, however, several massage therapists–who worked at spas that RZ had founded and co-owned–came forward and credibly accused him of sexually assaulting them. Their allegations had corroboration.

In addition, details in the Lori Anne Thompson case surfaced, details that corroborated her and discredited Ravi’s narrative. Julie Roys reported those. Part 1 and Part 2.

This time, Christianity Today covered the spa story.

At this point, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) commissioned a law firm (Miller & Martin) to investigate sexual misconduct.

On December 23, as several apologists with RZIM had apologized to Lori Anne and called RZIM to come clean, RZIM released an interim report from Miller & Martin that stated (emphasis added):

While some of the massage therapists we have tried to interview are not willing to share their experiences with us, many have spoken candidly and with great detail. Combining those interviews with our review of documents and electronic data, we have found significant, credible evidence that Mr. Zacharias engaged in sexual misconduct over the course of many years. Some of that misconduct is consistent with and corroborative of that which is reported in the news recently, and some of the conduct we have uncovered is more serious.

There is no pretty way to spin this.

Three years ago, I said Ravi had some ‘splainin’ to do. I had a feeling that the whole settlement with Lori Anne had been engineered to cover the truth.

When Julie Anne broke the forced abortion story, I thought he was done. The story was credible; the receipts were there; combined with the academic/vitae fraud, surely major evangelical leaders were going to call him to account.

When I revisited his public statement in his settlement–and did Image Repair Analysis on it–I found a LOT of Image Repair, which is a high indicator that he was lying.

No one was listening.

Now that the spa workers have been corroborated by a law firm–and now that the law firm has found even worse offenses, we are learning the truth about Ravi Zacharias.

I am thankful that the truth is being laid bare now. I am thankful for the sake of Shirley Steward and her child, for Lori Anne and Brad Thompson, for the spa workers, and for any other victims who suffered at the hands of Ravi Zacharias.

All of their lives matter.

SCOTUS, Roe, State of the Union, Where We’re Going

Background

In 1992, Then-Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) was running as a Democrat against incumbent President George H.W. Bush for the Presidency.

At the time, we were in a short-lived recession that mainstream media was making out to be much worse than it was. Clinton was hailed as an economic savior who promised middle class tax cuts whereas Bush was cast as an aloof, uncaring rich man who couldn’t be trusted, as he broke his “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” pledge.

Socially, Clinton was very liberal–pro-abortion, pro-gay rights–and his wife was a very radical feminist who promised to be prominent in her husband’s administration and was rumored to have Presidential aspirations of her own.

But any attempts to hit Bill on that, or his extramarital affairs, or his wife’s radical views, were met with, “The economy, stupid!”

Character didn’t matter. All that mattered was The Economy, Stupid.

Meanwhile, as the media insisted that the incumbent Bush promise NOT to use Roe v. Wade as a “litmus test” for Supreme Court (SCOTUS) picks, Clinton promised to do exactly that. And no one in the gaslighting corps of Mainstream Media bothered to call him on that.

Complicating matters, that year SCOTUS decided the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, which was the first major challenge to Roe v. Wade.

At the time, Roe appeared to be in trouble.

The Court had four sure-fire votes against Roe: William Rehnquist and Byron White (the two dissenting votes against Roe in 1973), and Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, up to that point, had proven to be reliable conservatives. And Sandra Day O’Connor was thought to be leaning toward shooting down Roe. A 7-2 vote to kill Roe was not out of the realm of possibilities.

Instead, O’Connor could not get herself to overturn Roe. Kennedy and Souter joined her, turning a 7-2 vote to kill Roe into a 5-4 vote to keep it.

While this alarmed the pro-life stalwarts, they were drowned out by all debates about The Economy, Stupid.

I know this because, at the time, I was President of a county Right to Life chapter. I was also on the board for a maternity home and a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center. (Those were in addition to my day job as a systems engineer at a GM account.)

I worked hard to warn folks that a Clinton victory would result in liberal SCOTUS picks that would set us FARTHER back. The 1992 winner was all but guaranteed to get two SCOTUS picks.

That’s exactly what happened.

That November, Clinton won the 1992 election. While he only carried 43% of the popular vote, he gained plenty enough electoral votes. And Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. My state went to Bush, but my district was very “blue”: GM workers–mostly UAW workers–provided that margin.

As I predicted, it didn’t take long for Clinton to get a SCOTUS opportunity. In fact, he got two of them:

  • 1993: Byron White (one of two dissenters in Roe) retired, and Clinton subsequently picked Ruth Bader Ginsburg to fill that slot.
  • 1994: Harry Blackmun (the architect of Roe) retired, and Clinton picked Stephen Breyer to fill that slot.

Elections have consequences.

To be honest, I expected Ruth Bader Ginsburg to live to age 150.

Ideologies aside, she was a badass: a total fitness nut. And while she was a reviled figure among conservatives, I often point out that, by the time she arrived at SCOTUS in 1993, all of the major abortion decisions had been made: Roe v. Wade (1973); Doe v. Bolton (1973); Planned Parenthood v. Akron, Ohio (1976); and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).

RBG was appointed by President Clinton, who–while campaigning in 1992–promised to use support of Roe as a litmus test for his SCOTUS picks. And he won.

So, while I was at odds with RBG and Breyer, I have no issues with them being on the Court.

I’ll say it again: elections have consequences.

That is why I could not vote for Clinton in 1996 or Gore in 2000 or Kerry in 2004 or Obama in 2008 or 2012. During that time, Obama replaced two center-right picks (Souter and O’Connor) with two very left picks (Kagan and Sotomayor).


In 2016, Donald Trump–a longtime abortion advocate–embraced the pro-life cause in his pursuit of the White House. Many of us–myself and MrsLarijani included–doubted his sincerity on this issue. We felt he was pandering for votes. This is why we both voted against him in the Kentucky primary.

Complicating the race, Antonin Scalia–one of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court, and a Reagan appointee–died. President Obama–who already had two picks (Sotomayor and Kagan)–subsequently nominated Merrick Garland to fill that slot.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to delay the confirmation vote until after the election, effectively making the Presidential election a referendum on SCOTUS.

From my vantage point? While I loathed Trump, I loathed Hillary even more. On the sexual abuse issue, I considered it a wash: Trump was the face of P*ssygate whereas Hillary built her political career on the backs of her husband’s victims.

I remembered the debacle of 1992: while Bush was uninspiring, I would have trusted his SCOTUS picks over anyone Bill Clinton was set to nominate. I also remembered the radicals that the Clintons appointed to the apparatus of government, Donna Shalala and Janet Reno being at the top of the list. I remembered FileGate: it stood out as proof that the Clintons were not above using the apparatus of government to harass their political opponents, thus bringing back the era of “Black Bag” jobs.

While I had no special affinity for Trump, I would have taken a shotgun blast to the balls before voting for Hillary.

I decided that #NeverTrump == #HillaryWins.

And so I held my nose and voted for Trump. It’s a vote I do not regret.

Again, elections have consequences.

Because Trump won, instead of Merrick Garland (a hard liberal) we ended up with Neil Gorsuch, a generally-reliable conservative.

In 2018, when Anthony Kennedy retired, Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh. While Kavanaugh would not have been my choice–I was hoping for Amy Coney Barrett–I would trust him more than any pick Hillary would have made.

Am I in the MAGA camp? Not by a long shot. What I CAN tell you: I’ll take him over Hillary Clinton 10 times out of 10.


But here we are, less than 3 weeks away from the 2020 election. Trump has had three SCOTUS picks: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett (pending). Barring a last-minute snag, Barrett will be confirmed.


But let’s assume we get Barrett.

That leaves us with a SCOTUS lineup that features SIX Republican appointees: Clarence Thomas (Bush I), Samuel Alito (Bush II), John Roberts (Bush II), Neil Gorsuch (Trump), Brett Kavanaugh (Trump), and Amy Coney Barrett (Trump) and three Democrat appointees: Stephen Breyer (Clinton), Elena Kagan (Obama), and Sonia Sotomayor (Obama).

Some pro-life enthusiasts are licking their chops, thinking that if all six of those BushI/Bush II/Trump appointees vote to kill Roe, it’s a 6-3 vote and Roe is dead.

Some have hung their hat on Amy Coney Barrett as the savior of the unborn. I do not share their confidence.

While, at face value, ACB seems to be an excellent pick, I am not holding my breath in expectation of Roe going down. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Like I said, I remember 1992. It’s very easy for armchair quarterbacks to say how easy it is to kill Roe. Trust me: even if you’re a die-harder, it won’t be easy.

You and I don’t face death threats for being pro-life. You and I won’t have our kids targeted because we’re pro-life. ACB will have a bounty on her head. Her husband will have a bounty on his head. All seven of their kids will have bounties on their heads.

If ACB kills Roe–and I hope she does–then her courage will outshine the late, great Col. John Ripley (USMC).

Also, you need to remember that the chances of Roe going down will depend on the quality of the cases presented by the Attorneys General of the states who will challenge Roe. One of the reasons we ended up with Roe: the crew in the anti-abortion side didn’t care, and put up a tepid defense.

And all it takes for Roe to stand is two of those “right-leaning” Justices to get too cute by half–appealing to “international law”, catering to multiple whataboutisms, deciding that precedent has made any challenge insurmountable. And if that happens, then Roe will live by at least a 5-4 vote. Combined with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, stare decisis will make future challenges very difficult if not unlikely.

If that happens, mark my words:

  • Barring a breakup of the country altogether, Roe will not go down in our lifetimes. Abortion will be a modern “high place” that not even a “good” ruler can take down.
  • It will be the end of the GOP. Pro-life conservatives will have no more incentive to vote Republican. That will have major implications for a variety of issues, both local and national.
  • The acceleration to Civil War II will intensify.
  • The fight within the Church on this issue will also intensify.

If Roe DOES go down, then what happens next will depend on the scope of the reversal.

  • If SCOTUS merely punts the issue back to the states, then not much will change except in states that are pro-life at least marginally (mostly “red” states). “Blue” states will see no change. (I mean seriously: do you honestly think New York or California–the most baby-killing states in the union–are going to lift a finger to ban abortion?)
  • If SCOTUS declares children in utero to have 14th Amendment protections as persons, then all Hell will break loose. A breakup of the union is entirely possible. If Dems control the House, Senate, and White House, then you’ll see an attempt at a federal law (a) codifying abortion rights and (b) precluding the federal courts from addressing the issue. If the Senate has a filibuster-proof majority, this is very much a possibility.

As for where the country is heading, that’s a different ballgame.

In the wake of the Civil War, President Lincoln once suggested that the bloodshed in the war was God’s demanded price of America for slavery. Ann Coulter, remarking about that, wondered what the price would be for abortion.

While I do not want to get into the game of blaming this or that catastrophe on abortion or [fill in the blank with your pet peeve sin], I’m going to posit some principles from Scripture:

  • The shedding of blood always carries a price.
  • There will always be a reckoning for that bloodshed.

In Genesis, Cain became the first murderer, killing his brother Abel. A few generations later, we have Lamech, committing two murders and bragging about it to his two wives. By the time we get to Genesis 6, the violence was so bad that it was one of the motivating factors for the Flood. After the flood, as God established a new covenant with Noah, He said:

Whoever sheds man’s blood,

By man his blood shall be shed,

For in the image of God

He made man.

Genesis 9:6

When God handed the Law to Moses, the Law was emphatic about bloodshed: wanton killing (murder) was punishable by death, and even unintentional killing (manslaughter) carried a price: one had to flee to a city of refuge.

The principle: homicide always carries a price.

When you look at the lives of people who had a lot of blood on their hands–including the good guys such as David–the bloodshed had an effect on them. (I posit that it made David cavalier in his dealing with Uriah when faced with his impregnation of Uriah’s wife.)

Why do I say this? homicide always carries a price. Even justifiable homicide is still homicide. Anyone who is cavalier about killing people–even people who deserve it–doesn’t know Scripture well. Jehu killed off a lot of bad people, but even his mass bloodshed was condemned by God through the prophet Hosea.

Even worse, when nations enshrine mass bloodshed, there is always a reckoning. And nothing says “enshrine mass bloodshed” like legalized, subsidized abortion.

Now keep in mind, I’m not piling onto women who’ve had abortions, as I’m not referring to individual baggages.

Oh noes, I’m referring to the establishments that have enshrined abortion. On top of government, you have the players who gave us the Sexual Revolution, feminism, progressivist elements with big academic and corporate ties and monetary incentive to profit from abortion here and abroad (Planned Parenthood), and even religious groups that either (a) support abortion or (b) whose opposition to it barely rose to the level of rhetorical.

The apparatus that clings to abortion rights is much like the apparatus that clung to slavery, and the arguments from the pro-slavery side were almost identical to those coming from the pro-aborts.

But just as the 250 years of enshrined, institutionalized human trafficking that was American slavery came with a price, the almost 50 years of enshrined, institutionalized abortion–which has claimed at least 60 million–will not come without a price.

What that price will be is anyone’s guess. But if you look at how destabilized the United States has become, I’d say we are getting a glimpse of what that price could be.

My prediction: we are heading for a catastrophic division that will make the Civil War pale in comparison. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a soft breakup of the country.

The worst part: we are on the front end of a post-Christian generation. As the Church continues its decline, Christendom will also decline. And while many will call that a good thing–as Christendom had many hypocrisies and inconsistencies–the downside is that, for all its faults, Christendom helped put the Civilization in Western Civilization.

My take: we are heading toward an era of barbarism, and real persecution of Christians will become reality in America within the next 20 years.

Is institutional, legalized abortion the only cause of this? Not hardly. I would suggest that it’s a number of factors. But 60 million dead, that’s got a Hell of a price. That alone should cause all of us to shudder.

Reflecting on the destruction of Russia by Communists, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn had this to say:

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

Think long and hard about what happened to Russia.

What was once a hub for a major sector of Christianity was hijacked by radical, militant atheist government for 70 years. The persecution against Christians was severe: Orthodox priests were shot, skinned alive, boiled alive, fed into furnaces, frozen to death, and had their innards fed to rodents. The Red Terror alone claimed over a million Russian lives. The Church in Russia was a major recipient of the reprisals.

Don’t think for one second that it can’t happen here.

While I would hesitate to say that America was ever a Christian nation, we have been a nation with a Christian consensus. But that consensus is waning, and hostility to Christendom is rising.

Make no mistake: the nearly 50 years of institutionalized, enshrined mass bloodshed will have a price.

Minus Great Awakening III, the trajectory in the United States is dire.

Ravi Zacharias: The Incontrovertible Fraud

While I was on my Thanksgiving break during 2017, I checked my Twitter feed and noticed a tweet from Amy Smith (@watchkeep) referring to Ravi Zacharias as a “con-man”. I also saw an article by Warren Thorckmorton regarding Ravi’s false inflation of his credentials, having claimed to have an earned doctorate degree (he had honorary doctoral degrees).

The academic fraud was bad enough–in my world, it’s an immediate firing offense if you are determined to have lied about your vitae–but his problems were worse than that.

The news at the time centered abour Ravi’s settlement of a lawsuit with a couple from Canada–Brad and Lori Anne Thompson. At the time, the evangelical world was solidly behind Ravi: The Narrative had Lori Anne (LA) sending RZ unsolicited nude photographs, then extorting him for money, forcing RZ to sue them to protect his good name.

Except the Narrative was total crap.

I suspected as much from day one, when Steve Baughman mentioned RZ’s suicide email:

I’m thinking the “mediated settlement” was engineered to allow for Ravi to keep official evidence under wraps so he can go on denying otherwise damning revelations like that.

In fact, if you think about it, the lawsuit, and then the settlement, allow for Ravi to say that he sued the parties involved and forced them to settle with him. It allows him to have his cake and eat it too.

And very few will hold him accountable for it.

This turned out to be the case. RZ, in an interview with Christianity Today, threw LA under the bus, while hiding behind his Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) when the hard questions came up. CT gave him the kid-gloves treatment.

More revelations would surface, particularly his coercing 16-year-old Shirley Steward–pregnant with his brother’s child–to have an abortion, even making the abortion arrangements for her. Julie Anne has the receipts on that. I blogged about that story at the time.

After his cancer diagnosis in March, I appealed to him on Twitter and Facebook to apologize to Lori Anne. The response: a few DARVO (Deny Attack Reverse Victim and Offender) attacks from hired guns, almost all of them women. It was a pattern of his to hide behind skirts.

Ravi, sadly, would die on May 19, 2020. On his deathbed, RZ received a lot of praise from Big Evangelical leaders, although Christianity Today and the Washington Post did manage to call some attention to his known scandals. Some of his devotees took the time to attack Lori Anne Thompson, compounding her own trauma.

But last week, something changed.

Steve Baughman, who has chimed in here and has been a decent conversationalist, dropped the mother of all bombs on the late Ravi Zacharias.

  • RZ owned two “health spas” in Georgia.
  • Those health spas offered massage therapy, yoga, and Ayurveda. (I’m not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of yoga, but Ayurveda is Eastern Religious quackery and should set off a number of red flags.)
  • Multiple women involved accused RZ of sexually molesting them during massage sessions.

Note: While Ravi was notorious for his chronic back problems, as someone who has my own share of back issues, I wasn’t buying that angle. RZ had access to the best medical and therapeutic care that money could buy. He could have gone to a reputable chiropractor–many of them have licensed massage therapists. He could have gotten physical therapy.

While I would not have an issue with a Christian man receiving a massage from a woman therapist–it is a legitimate therapy–Baughman does make a good point that this undermines his claim that he had never been alone with a woman not his wife.

That alone begs an independent third-party investigation on RZ. Yes, he is deceased, but he may have other victims. And the allegations include bringing women in internationally for his spas. That merits a human trafficking investigation by the FBI.

Most recently, however: yesterday, Julie Roys broke a story, providing email transcripts that clearly vindicate Lori Anne Thompson and reveal Ravi Zacharias as a grooming predator who tried to manipulate his way out of exposure.

Today, Julie broke part 2. This details the grooming behavior. Read it for yourself. Trust me: there are receipts behind this.

A few months ago, before the latest bombs were dropped, I wrote a detailed piece about Ravi Zacharias: he built his ministerial empire on a foundation of blood, fraud, and abuse. I also did an Image Repair Analysis on his press release in the wake of his settlement with the Thompsons.

I concluded then that he was a fraud and he was lying.

The record now vindicates me. But more importantly, it vindicates Lori Anne Thompson.

A Time of Reckoning for Ravi Zacharias

Over the past 30 years, few Christian apologists have had the impact that Ravi Zacharias (RZ) has had. In fact, RZ has been arguably the greatest public apologist for the Christian faith in the last 100 years, second only to C.S. Lewis.

Unfortunately, I have very bad news: in spite of the compelling, cogent case he makes for the Christian faith, in spite of the many people who have received Jesus because of his ministry, Ravi Zacharias is himself a fraud, a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.

Yes, you heard that correctly: Ravi Zacharias is a fraud, a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.

Does this mean that RZ has taught unsound doctrine? No. Teaching false doctrine is not the only way to be a false teacher; it is but one way.

It is possible to teach perfectly-sound doctrine and still be a complete fraud as a Christian. The life and demise of the late Iain Campbell—who carried on many affairs during his entire ministry life, and then committing suicide when those affairs became known—is a poignant example of this.

In the case of RZ, the issue is not the message, but rather the messenger. I don’t like to throw tags like “fraud” and “wolf” around–as I am a very “Big Tent” conservative, but RZ has earned it.

RZ, in spite of being an articulate defender of the Christian faith, has established his ministerial empire on blood, academic fraud, and abuse.

Part 1: Blood

In 1973, 16-year-old Shirley Steward became pregnant in a relationship with RZ’s 20-year-old brother (Ramesh). Ravi allgedly counseled her and Ramesh that the best way forward was to pursue abortion, and allegedly colluded with “Vickie S”, a parishioner in their church, to ensure that she could legally obtain the abortion.

For the record: I believe Shirley. It is my conclusion that Shirley is telling the truth.

Why do I believe Shirley’s story?

Here’s the short answer: The “shout your abortion” crowd notwithstanding, women don’t just tell the world that they’ve had abortions. That’s not how it works. When women do that, there is often substantial personal blowback. Even outside the Christian world, this is not seen as a good thing. In the Christian world, you risk major disrepute: many circles will brand you a murderer.

Shirley has no reason to lie about this, and in fact—by telling her story—has placed herself in the line of fire.

(I also believe Shirley’s story because I believe that Julie Anne–who broke the story–has researched this thoroughly. She has been around the block, has even been sued (and won). I know Julie Anne on Twitter and Facebook. Julie Anne, in her blogging capacities, is ironclad.)

It is my conclusion that Shirley is doing this because the pain of blowback is worth her telling the truth about Ravi Zacharias.

And yes, I put the blame for this abortion squarely on the shoulders of RZ: had he counseled her to carry, she would have carried. It is my view that RZ has blood on his hands. He did this early in his ministry life. And that has set the course for his double life.

To date, not only has RZ not addressed this; no major Christian leader has called him out for it.

Part 2: Academic Fraud

In the world of Christian ministry, a terminal degree often means instant authority: in most church circles, you gain instant recognition if you have a doctoral degree of any type. If that doctoral degree is in a Christian area of study, that’s even better.

As a minister, RZ holds an MDiv degree from Trinity International University. He has also done a sabbatical at Ridley Hall in Cambridge. (RH is not part of the University of Cambridge.)

Those credentials are plenty good enough for his ministry: one need not be a PhD academician to be a solid Christian apologist. RZ has established that over the years: in spite of not being a PhD, he has been a prolific writer and speaker.

The problem is, RZ has misrepresented himself as a “doctor”, using his honorary doctoral degrees as proof. He has used that title to sell books and promote his ministry. When questioned about that, he suggested that this was standard practice in India. He finally backtracked under pressure and stopped using the title.

Moreover, RZ also misrepresented himself as having been a “visiting scholar” at Cambridge University, when in fact he did a sabbatical at Ridley Hall, which is not part of Cambridge. He also claimed to have been a “Senior Research Fellow” at Wycliffe Hall at Oxford. That also was never the case.

Any one of those misrepresentations would constitute an immediate termination offense in both academic and business circles. And yet RZ has used such tactics to bolster himself and gain great fame in Christian circles.

Sadly, no major Christian leader has called him to account for this.

Part 3: Abuse

While RZ tried hard to bury the details of his sexting scandal, Steve Baughman ensured that the world would know the truth about RZ’s sexting scandal.

In 2014, RZ met a couple at a conference. They became friends, with RZ maintaining a relationship with the wife—Lori Anne Thompson (LA)—via email. No one knew about this until 2017, when RZ filed a RICO lawsuit against the couple, accusing them of scheming to blackmail him.

In the process, some details of the relationship between RZ and LA became public, with (a) the revelation that LA had sent RZ nude photos, (b) LA informing RZ that she planned to confess to her husband, and (c) an e-mail in which RZ threatened suicide if she did this.

In November 2017, the lawsuit was settled via mediation, with parties agreeing to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). RZ dropped the suit “with prejudice”, meaning he would not refile it.

The problem? RZ’s public actions scream grooming and coverup.

Let me explain.

Over the years, I’ve had online and even real-life relationships with a number of women, some of whom are married. One of those, KM, I’ve known for over 24 years (Cubbie is even closer to her and has known her since her college days). I’m good friends with her husband, too, but I talk and email mostly with her.

Over the last 2 years, I’ve become friends with a number of women in the #churchtoo community. I’ve had Direct Message (DM) conversations with a number of them.

I have never had a conversation—voice, digital, face-to-face, or otherwise—with any of them, that I’d be ashamed to reveal to the entire world.

If every single one of them—TODAY!—decided to release every one of my conversations with them, I would absolutely welcome it.

I would have zero explaining to do to my wife.

My church elders would be pleasantly surprised to find a community online who is concerned for each other, prays for each other, discusses hard issues in collegial manner, and treats one another with great respect. We even—horrors!—express concern for many of our adversaries.

My point in all of this? If RZ was being blackmailed, all he had to do to shut this down—if he were innocent—was release everything!

As Solomon said it: “A man who walks in his integrity walks securely.”

RZ didn’t do that because he has things to hide!

Think about it: the porn/hookup industry notwithstanding, women don’t just send nudes of themselves. RZ claims they were unsolicited, but, if that were the case, a simple release of their email conversations would reveal the truth about that, as this would establish whether there was grooming behavior involved.

If any of my female friends sent me such a photo, I would be shocked, angered, and heartbroken. Why? It would be completely out of character, a total betrayal. And a complete revelation of my emails and DMs would quickly prove my innocence!

RZ threatened suicide because he knew there was more to it than his public statement suggests.

RZ did not release a complete record of his emails because he knew that his grooming behavior—conduct unbecoming of a minister of the Gospel—would be laid bare for the whole world to see.

And THAT’s what is incriminating: grooming behavior. Here’s why…

Let’s assume I am a minister, and I am in a running online conversation with Jane Doe.

If Jane Doe and I are in a conversation that is otherwise above-board, and she sends me a nude pic, then that would be clearly unsolicited: all I’d have to do is show my email records, and the whole world would see the truth.

But let’s say that Jane and I engaged in many sexually-explicit conversations (inappropriate), and THEN she sends me a nude. THAT’s not “unsolicited”, as my sexual conversation–for which I am responsible as a minister–constitutes grooming behavior. In that case, she was the frog in the kettle, and I slowly boiled her.

Make no mistake: RZ groomed Lori Anne. He boiled her.

Yes, RZ—using the power of his team of attorneys—eked out a non-disclosure agreement. Ravi’s public statement on this matter is loaded with Image Repair tactics that scream coverup, as I will demonstrate at the end of this.

But the gun is still smoking. And God doesn’t care about NDAs.

Conclusion

Now why am I writing about this? What is my interest in this case?

For one, I want Ravi Zacharias—and ministers like him—to face the reality of what they have done. That is the only way they have any chance of experiencing repentance. And make no mistake, RZ needs to repent. No apology would be meaningful apart from genuine repentance: a reorientation of the mind that is a fundamental part of regeneration.

Secondly, I believe in the worth of the lives of RZ’s victims.

Because I believe Shirley Steward, that means her unborn child died in no small part due to RZ’s pressure for her to abort. That child deserves recognition.

Shirley Steward, 16 years old at the time—under tremendous pressure from RZ—endured an abortion that she did not want. Everyone walked away and left her holding the bag: she carried the shame and the guilt and the post-abortion PTSD aftermath. Shirley Steward suffered greatly. We must recognize her suffering, and the role I believe RZ played in it.

RZ slowly groomed Lori Anne Thompson for his sexual pleasure. When Lori Anne informed him that she was going to confess to her husband, he threatened suicide. The NDA protects him, as he has—since the settlement—spun his side of the story to his liking, while hiding behind the NDA when anyone asks a hard question.

Lori Anne Thompson deserves vindication. Whatever improprieties she was involved in with RZ, RZ groomed her for them.

Finally, I believe in a God who cares about the truth, and cares for the least of these.

While RZ has been an excellent writer and speaker–an articulate proponent of the Christian faith–he has built his ministerial empire on a foundation of blood, academic fraud, and abuse.

Just as King David got many things right during his reign, God did not turn and look the other way when he raped Bathsheba, got her pregnant, then had her husband killed so he could move in like the good guy and be the hero by taking in a widowed Bathsheba. While God forgave King David, there was a horrendous price to pay. David was a broken man for the rest of his life.

Just as Ravi Zacharias has been such a prolific writer and speaker, God is still a God of justice. He does not excuse wanton bloodshed; He cares about His people telling the truth and not lying to inflate their records; He does not take kindly to those ministers who sexually groom and take license with women not their wives.

Just as King David humbled himself and received Nathan’s rebuke, Ravi Zacharias can own his atrocities, apologize to his victims, admit his fraud, repent, and retire from ministry while making amends to the extent that this is possible.

The Church is in a crisis: we have no small number of high-profile ministers who have been exposed for sexual atrocities, various abuses of power from financial malfeasance to heavy-handed, malicious leadership, coverups of sexual abuse. It is long past time to call them out, repudiate their actions, and call them to repentance, holding them to account.

And make no mistake: Ravi Zacharias is in grave need of repentance.


My Image Repair Analysis of Ravi Zacharias’ Public Statement on His Sexting Scandal and Settlement of His Lawsuit

Intro: What Is Image Repair Theory?

Image Repair Theory is the study of communication strategies that persons and organizations often use when they experience an event that adversely impacts their reputation or credibility. If a politician gets caught in a scandal, if an airline suffers a plane crash caused by negligence, if a church coverup of a sex scandal gets exposed, the response often involves some form of crisis communication. (Some of us cynically call it damage control.)

Image Repair is part of that.

Let’s say you’re a Senator who’s been visiting an escort service (i.e. sleeping with prostitutes). And let’s say you’ve just found out that the Washington Post is going to run a story the next day, detailing every visit you’ve ever made to that escort service, all the way down to every prostitute you’ve slept with.

In such a case, you’ll probably enlist a crisis management firm to advise you in your communications. And they will specialize in Image Repair.

Image Repair embodies the use of five fundamental strategies, each with associated methodologies:

  • Strategy 1: Denial: You flat out deny the act (“I never visited the escort service!”)
  • Strategy 2: Evasion of Responsibility
    • Provocation: claim that the action was in retaliation to a provoked act (“This is all lies, designed to destroy me for my support for pro-family causes!”)
    • Defeasibility: claim that you either lacked the knowledge of or control over the factors that led to the act (“I had no idea this was an escort service!”)
    • Make an excuse: claim that this was an accident or otherwise beyond your control (“I did not knowingly go there, but when there, I did not exercise perfect discretion.”)
    • Claim good intentions: Because act was rooted in good intentions, you demand to be judged by your intentions. (“I was just doing research.”)
  • Strategy 3: Reducing Offensiveness
    • Bolstering: you communicate to elevate your positive traits and establish superiority (“As a longtime supporter of families and children…”)
    • Minimization: you spin the act so as to mitigate its severity (“I spent less than ten minutes in the building.”)
    • Differentiation: spin the act, and even the discussion of the act, to contrast with acts that are more offensive, of which you are not even being accused (“I did not have intercourse with anyone.”) ;
    • Transcendence: Spin yourself and your work as agents or agencies for some greater good (“We must resolve this quickly, as lives are literally at stake.”);
    • Attack Accuser: This often takes a DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) signature;
    • Compensation: you offer to reconcile with the victims (usually on your own terms)
  • Strategy 4: Corrective Action
    • Promise to correct the problem
  • Strategy 5: Mortification
    • You admit responsibility and ask for forgiveness

In my MBA studies, we touched slightly on this in my Business Communications class.

But in the #churchtoo world, I was drawn to the work of a physician who, in her spare time, does Image Repair Analysis (IRA) on the statements of ministers and churches in their communication of their respective scandals. She taught me quite a bit about IRA. I started using it on myself just as a means of checking my motives.

Here’s the problem with Image Repair: when someone makes public statements using IR, it is indicative that they are hiding the truth or engaging in spin-doctoring to put the best face on their actions. In the Christian world, however, this is problematic in that leaders who use IR are avoiding transparency and–in many cases–outright lying. Heavy use of IR is indicative of that.

But now it’s time to do IRA on Ravi Zacharias’ public statement in his settlement of his RICO suit.


“In October 2014, I spoke at a conference in Canada. At the conclusion of my talk, I met a couple who expressed an interest in our ministry. The wife asked if I would reach out to her husband because he had questions about the Christian faith. As requested, I followed up by sending an email and a book to him, and invited him to consider attending one of our educational programs at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).”

  • “I spoke…my talk…I met…our ministry”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: it puts him in the position of superiority over the couple.
  • “The wife asked if I would reach out to her husband”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: that bolsters his superiority;
    • it is also ATTACKING: it is a veiled cheap shot at the husband.
  • “I followed up…sending..email…and book…invited him”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: maintains his authority over the husband.

“Some months later, I traveled with my wife and one of our daughters to another part of Canada for a speaking engagement. The couple attended this event and invited my wife and me to dinner at a local restaurant afterwards. That was the second and last time I was ever in the same room with either of them.”

  • “I traveled with my wife and one of our daughters”.
    • That’s BOLSTERING: it creates the appearance of superiority and propriety, even though the facts indicate impropriety on his part.
  • “That was the second and last time I was ever in the same room with either of them.”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION: he is pleading innocent to an act that of which he is not accused: the “I was never alone with her” defense is invalid, that is not the issue, as the offenses here are cyber in nature.

“Subsequently, she began to contact me via the email address I had used to contact her husband after first meeting them. My responses were usually brief. Then, last year, she shockingly sent me extremely inappropriate pictures of herself unsolicited. I clearly instructed her to stop contacting me in any form; I blocked her messages, and I resolved to terminate all contact with her.”

  • “Subsequently, she began to contact me via the email address I had used to contact her husband”
    • That’s ATTACKING: he’s alleging less-than-proper behavior from the outset.
  • “My responses were usually brief.”
    • That’s MINIMIZATION: he is minimizing his role in email communications with her.
  • “She shockingly sent me extremely inappropriate pictures of herself unsolicited.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: a simple release of all electronic communications would show context, as that would establish the nature of any conversations that might have led to the sending of such pictures. An unsolicited nude would be a scandal for her, not him. That is, unless they had carried on conversations that were sexual in nature, in which case it would be grooming behavior.
  • “unsolicited”
    • That’s DENYING and DEFEASIBILITY: he is denying any role in the picture exchange.

“In late 2016, she sent an email informing me she planned to tell her husband about the inappropriate pictures she had sent and to claim that I had solicited them.”

  • “claim that I had solicited them”
    • That’s DENYING and DEFEASIBILITY: He is denying any role in her sending the pictures.

“In April 2017, together they sent me, through an attorney, a letter demanding money. I immediately notified members of my board, and as they advised, I personally engaged legal counsel.”

  • “In April 2017, together they sent me, through an attorney, a letter demanding money.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: He’s accusing them of blackmail.

“In response to the demand for money, my attorneys filed a publicly available lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The other side requested mediation rather than going to trial. We agreed to mediation and we reached an agreement in November 2017 to resolve the matter and dismiss my lawsuit. All communication with both of them has concluded, and the legal matters have been resolved. However, at this time, unfortunately I am legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some, other than to say that each side paid for their own legal expenses and no ministry funds were used.

  • “In response to the demand for money”
    • That’s PROVOCATION: he’s suggesting that his ensuing lawsuit was in response to a provoked act.
  • “..my attorneys filed a publicly available lawsuit”
    • That’s ATTACKING: filing a lawsuit, using multiple attorneys, targeting a couple.
  • “The other side requested mediation rather than going to trial.”
    • That’s ATTACKING: He’s suggesting that, because they did not want to go to trial, that they are trying to hide something.
  • “unfortunately I am legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some”
    • That’s DEFEASIBILITY: He claims to have no control, preventing him from discussing details.
    • It’s also a form of DENIAL: he has denied allegations, and yet left obvious questions unanswered, all while using DEFEASIBILITY to avoid answering them.
  • “no ministry funds were used”
    • That’s MINIMIZATION: By suggesting that no ministry funds were involved, this makes the situation less important than it is.

“I have learned a difficult and painful lesson through this ordeal. As a husband, father, grandfather, and leader of a Christian ministry I should not have engaged in ongoing communication with a woman other than my wife. I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety, and for that I am profoundly sorry. I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues.”

  • “As a husband, father, grandfather, and leader of a Christian ministry”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: he’s reminding you of his superior status in multiple realms.
  • “I should not have engaged in ongoing communication with a woman other than my wife”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION and MINIMIZATION: he’s creating a lesser offense—which isn’t even an offense—to take your attention to the offense for which he is on the hook. (Also, it’s utter hogwash. He’s saying, “If I’d only followed the ‘Billy Graham Rule…’ How about NOT BEING A DIRTY OLD MAN???)
  • “I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION and MINIMIZATION: he’s admitting to a lesser offense as opposed to the one of which he is accused.
    • It’s also MORTIFICATION, although in a false sense: he is confessing to a non-offense.
  • “I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues”
    • This is TRANSCENDENCE: appealing to a higher authority to avoid accountability to the very people to which he must otherwise answer.

“Let me state categorically that I never met this woman alone, publicly or privately. The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman—I did not, and there is no evidence to the contrary—but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife. The answer, I can unequivocally say, is no, and I fully accept responsibility. In all my correspondence with thousands of people in 45 years of ministry, I have never been confronted with a situation such as this, and God and my family and close friends know how grieved I have been.”

  • “Let me state categorically that I never met this woman alone, publicly or privately.”
    • This is DIFFERENTIATION: he’s denying having committed an offense of which he has not been accused. (Note: whenever people use the word “categorically” in this context, it usually means they’re not being truthful.)
  • “The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman…but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife”
    • This is DENIAL and DIFFERENTIATION: He is reframing the issue on his own terms, not addressing the obvious question: what led to the woman sending him those photos?
    • This is MORTIFICATION, although in a false sense. Jesus had many extended communications with women (Mary Magdalene anyone?), in spite of not being married to any of them.
  • “In all my correspondence with thousands of people in 45 years of ministry”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: re-reminding you of his superiority.
  • “I have never been confronted with a situation such as this”
    • That’s DEFEASIBILITY: he’s casting this as a situation that has come upon him—that he had no control over—rather than a crisis of his own making due to his own choices. He is casting himself as a victim.
  • “God and my family and close friends know how grieved I have been”
    • That’s REVERSING VICTIM AND OFFENDER ROLES: he is casting himself as a victim.

“In my 45 years of marriage to Margie, I have never engaged in any inappropriate behavior of any kind. I love my wife with all my heart and have been absolutely faithful to her these more than 16,000 days of marriage, and have exercised extreme caution in my daily life and travels, as everyone who knows me is aware. I have long made it my practice not to be alone with a woman other than Margie and our daughters—not in a car, a restaurant, or anywhere else. Upon reflection, I now realize that the physical safeguards I have long practiced to protect my integrity should have extended to include digital communications safeguards. I believe—and indeed would counsel others—that the standards of personal conduct are necessarily higher for Christian leaders.”

  • “In my 45 years of marriage to Margie… more than 16,000 days of marriage”
    • That’s BOLSTERING: re-reminding you of his awwsummness as a husband.
  • “everyone who knows me is aware”
    • That’s TRIANGULATION: appealing to other people to deflect from the real issue at hand.

“The Lord rescued me at the age of seventeen, and I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth. He entrusted me with this calling, it is His; any opportunities I have been given are from Him. My life is not my own, it belongs to God. As long as He gives me life and breath I will serve out this calling He has given me. I am committed to finishing well, using whatever years He grants me to share His love and forgiveness, truth and grace, with people everywhere who are looking for meaning and purpose and hope. I bear no ill will toward anybody. God is the God of healing, and He promises a new day. May that be true by His grace.”

  • “The Lord rescued me at the age of seventeen, and I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $500, Alex: It’s all about the Lord now.
  • “He entrusted me with this calling, it is His; any opportunities I have been given are from Him”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $1,000, Alex: HE’s been entrusted with the calling, with the implication that YOU are but a peasant.
  • “My life is not my own, it belongs to God. As long as He gives me life and breath I will serve out this calling He has given me. I am committed to finishing well…”
    • I’ll take TRANSCENDENCE for $2,000..OH DAILY DOUBLE!!!!: He’s now all wrapped up in his calling from God, his remaining years, finishing the race, and bestowing all good things on peasants. He’s untouchable now.
  • “I bear no ill will toward anybody. God is the God of healing, and He promises a new day. May that be true by His grace.”
    • This is BOLSTERING: he is making himself the superior person in this.

Given the known facts in RZ’s case, and given the use of Image Repair in his public statement, the conclusion is that

  • Ravi Zacharias is being less than honest,
  • Ravi Zacharias is hiding the truth, and
  • Ravi Zacharias is using corporate damage control tactics in lieu of addressing hard questions.

#ChurchToo: Complementarianism and Patriarchy In Crisis, Part 1

Those who’ve been following this blog have known that I’ve long identified as a Patriarch from day one. And in fact, I still do, although I am a laid-back one.

At the same time, it’s fair to say that it’s long past time to soberly assess the state of gender relations in the Church. #churchtoo has exposed the dark side of Patriarchy and complementarianism, and–make no mistake–that side is VERY dark.

First, some disclaimers:

  • I do not pedastal women by any stretch. Each sex has ways that their depravity rears its ugly head.
  • Men and women have been at each others’ throats ever since Adam threw Eve under the bus and even blamed God for providing her to him. Ever since then, women have had a “Men: can’t live with them/can’t live without them” mindset and men have sought to impose varying structures on women.
  • Yes, women abuse men too. Ame has provided horror stories about how this has gone on in apparently “good Christian homes” over the years. Those who know DV really well will attest that women can and do abuse men.
  • Yes, women abuse children, too. The ranks of women teachers who slept with their students are staggering, and seem to be ever-expanding.

Having said all of that, I’m going to lay the cards on the table:

#CHURCHTOO IS ALMOST ENTIRELY ON THE MEN

Don’t like that? Fine. I don’t either. But not liking that fact doesn’t make it less true. And make no mistake, it is fact.

Why is it fact? It is fact because IT HAPPENED ON THE WATCH OF MEN.

Yes, #churchtoo abuses have occurred–and do occur–in egalitarian churches. Even then, (a) most of the abusers are men, and (b) most of those who covered up the abuses are men.

But here’s the thing…Complementarians and even Patriarchs often contend that a Patriarchal structure protects women. And in theory, it ought to.

But it almost NEVER does.

The Southern Baptist Convention–which has codified complementarianism into their Baptist Faith and Message–has 700 cases of sexual abuse in front of them, in which there is actionable intelligence that they can act on TODAY, and yet they will not act on them.

There are ministers cited–who have felony sex abuse convictions–who still retain ministerial credentials.

There are others–whose abuses have been verified as they have admitted to their abuses–who retain ministerial credentials.

There are churches–shown to have covered for sexual abusers–who retain standing as chucrches “in cooperation” with the SBC.

I know of churches–that ordained abusive ministers–who have been petitioned to defrock ministers shown to be abusive. And yet those churches refuse to act.

(In the SBC, ordination is handled through the local church; to defrock a minister, the ordaining church has to do it. I have yet to see one case where they have done this.)

Fact is, when children report abuse, churches almost always cover it up in some form or other. This is not merely a Roman Catholic phenomenon; it is rampant among evangelical ranks. Especially complementarian and Patriarchal (C/P) ranks.

The latter is what I find bothersome.

In the C/P world, you often hear much talk about manhood and masculinity.

Men are supposed to be leaders, shepherds, protectors, pastors of their own homes. Men are supposed to be the leaders in Church, home, and general society.

Now here’s the thing: LEADERSHIP carries RESPONSIBILITY.

So why aren’t these patriarchs and complementarian Manly Men leaders being decisive about abuses by their own peers in clergy?

(I know the answer; I’m asking the question rhetorically.)

Why is it that a cadre of Manly Men–who are so decisive when it comes to planting churches to build their brand, or developing conferences to make their names great–can’t muster the courage to be decisive and call out their own ranks who abuse women and children and cover for those who do?

Why is it that a cadre of Manly Men in the SBC has sought to impugn the character of prominent women calling out these abuses, no matter how conservative they are?

The Founders–a shady group of SBC leaders trying to control the SBC, run by Tom Ascol–launched passive-aggressive attacks on Rachael Denhollander, who is herself a Reformed Baptist (a “1689er”). I can attest that she is not a Social Justice Warrior and is in fact very conservative.

Make no mistake: #churchtoo is on the boyz. And while I identify as a Patriarch, we need to be honest: the leaders in that sector don’t seem to want to move to clear the abusers out of their ranks.

They lecture us about manhood and courage, but they exercise neither when it involves calling out leaders in their own tribe.

That’s just the beginning. More to come…