How deep must your perversion be to think that you can get away with this stuff forever? The only way I can explain it is that you must be psychotically double-minded, or you must not really believe in God.
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative Feb. 12, 2021
Dreher is being typically emotional. Reporting on Christianity Today‘s reporting on Ravi Zacharias, he recoils in horror at this “vile man.” I don’t disagree, though given what we know now, it would have been better for Zacharias if all the vileness had come out while he was still alive and could see what his sin had done. That would have been an opportunity to repent.
But really, he had many opportunities , especially in the last few months when he must have known his time was short. He could have confessed. Or he could have destroyed all his phones and emails. The fact that he did neither of those tings indicates that he was living on an unreal plane.
Every conscious, deliberate sin, from adultery to tax cheating, requires a certain double-mindedness.
“Psychotically double-minded” seems the more likely of Dreher’s alternatives, but double-mindedness may be more common than he thinks. In fact, it may be the default position of all of us, including Christians. Every conscious, deliberate sin, from adultery to tax cheating, requires a certain double-mindedness. A Christian man who berates his wife, an elder who makes nasty comments about troublesome church members, a pastor who develops a gambling habit, a Sunday school teacher who constantly talks down her husband. And me, who wastes an hour and a half on Netflix when I should be checking up on my neighbors.
We all know what we should do, or shouldn’t do. The scripture we swear by is very clear. But on the way to action, knowledge gets sidelined. We shuttle it into a storage room called “Holy to the Lord,” where we make our sacrifices and holy acts. And then we claim our “free time” to do what we want.
Ravi Zacharias traveled the world, spoke at conferences, wrote dozens of books that sold millions of copies, counseled celebrities and world leaders. In that role, in that room, he may have (probably did) believe every word he was saying as the head of RZIM: the name, the legend. Once outside that persona he was a slight, elderly man with chronic back pain. Perhaps one justified the other. RZ spoke a blessing over Ravi. When he prayed with women he was preying on, when he told a partner she was his “reward” for godly service, he might have been sincere, in an all-too-human, double-minded way.
All idols replace Christ. Idolatry is the primary temptation.
“The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer. 9:17), and the first person my heart deceives is me. Could Ravi have made an idol out of RZ? (Naming a ministry after himself, or consenting to it, seems unwise in the first place.) Given the convoluted reasoning we tend to indulge in, he may have indulged himself with a clear conscience. He may have atonement for himself as his own high priest in his holy capacity, crowding out the Christ he claimed to serve.
All idols replace Christ. Idolatry is the primary temptation. This sad saga should, if nothing else, serve as a warning to the rest of us: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (I Jn 5:13).