This week, serious allegations were brought against a colleague who I trusted and respected. I will not link to the stories about them, so as not to pile on. However, they started me thinking about our public and private personas and the nature of evil.
At almost the same time, RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) released a statement about an investigative report. Ravi Zacharias was a towering figure in the evangelical world, a leading author of apologetics, and the founder of an influential ministry. In 2017, an allegation of sexual misconduct was made against him, which he categorically denied. In May 2020, Zacharias passed away. Shortly thereafter, three women came forward with additional sexual misconduct allegations. The report, performed by independent investigators, largely supported the allegations.
This comes just less than a year after Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche International, was similarly reported to have had coercive sexual relationships. Apparently, he followed in the footsteps of his mentor, Rev. Thomas Philippe, also a sexual predator.
So what are we to make of all of this? There are many explanations, which are certainly not mutually exclusive. One is that these men worked hard in public to do what they felt was God’s will in order to atone for sinful private lives. Although all three would have rejected the theology of “works salvation,” that is, earning your way into heaven, they may have felt that public good works would somehow relieve their guilt over private sinfulness.
Another possibility is that they sought positions of religious authority in order to exploit women. Supposedly, Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks and said, “Because that’s where the money is.” Why did Zacharias become a co-owner of spas? Because they had vulnerable women working as massage therapists. Why did Vanier and Philippe serve as spiritual counselors to vulnerable women? So they could manipulate them into sexual relationships.
Yet another possibility is that their positions of religious authority made them susceptible to temptation and to the efforts of the powers of evil in this world to corrupt them. Evil is a strange thing. Whether there are actual demons who corrupt people or not, clearly, evil is real. It leads people to all kinds of terrible actions and provides them with excuses. Perhaps Vanier and Philippe believed that their improper relationships were actually helping the women they victimized in some way. Perhaps all three felt their public good works earned them the right to a little private “fun.”
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
These episodes reveal the struggle we all have. We all have divine goodness within us. We have all been corrupted by the evil of this world. We each must struggle each day to focus on the leading of the Holy Spirit, to be the person that God wants us to be.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:5-10
God is light. God is truth. God’s light reveals our sins. We can choose to hide from this truth, ignoring God’s divine judgment upon us. The longer we do so, though, the darker our lives become, full of self-deceit. If we turn to God, though, and allow God’s divine judgment, it is followed immediately by mercy, grace, and peace. The process may be painful, but in the end, the burden is lifted and we are welcomed into God’s kingdom of peace and fellowship.
I believe in universal salvation. I believe that Zacharias, Vanier, and Philippe are, or will be, in God’s eternal kingdom. However, ultimate salvation does not deny the need for justice before reconciliation. If there is a Hell, it is the place where the dross of our sinful lives is burned away, leaving us only the beauty of God’s image so that we may enter God’s eternal presence in joy.
Ultimate salvation similarly does not deny the need for earthly reconciliation. Whatever happened or happens to these three men, there are many women that they have hurt, whose lives have been permanently changed, who have fallen out of fellowship with their Christian siblings through no fault of their own. We owe it to them all to reveal the truth of the sins that were committed against them, and to work towards a world in which nobody will be victimized in this way again.