[msb-alumni] Ravi Zacharias, Preacher Who Used Reason to Defend Faith, Is Dead at 74 on May 19, 2020

From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 15:22:14 -0400

BlankRavi Zacharias, Preacher Who Used Reason to Defend Faith, Is Dead at 74.
By
Steven Kurutz.

He practiced an intellectual form of Christian theology called apologetics and
sought
to "connect the gospel with the life of the mind."

Ravi Zacharias, an evangelist and author who became an important voice for
Christians
by making a rational argument for the existence of God and vigorously defending
the
faith against atheists, relativists, Buddhists and other challengers, died on
May 19
at his home in Atlanta. He was 74. His death was announced by Ravi Zacharias
International Ministries, which said he had cancer.

Unlike Billy Graham and other influential evangelists, Mr. Zacharias did not
have an
outsize public persona, court politicians or host revivals in stadiums around
the
world. Rather, he practiced an intellectual form of Christian theology called
apologetics, which dates to the Apostle Paul. Mr. Zacharias believed that the
way to
counter an increasingly secular culture was to make a logical case for theism,
and to
explain why Christianity above all other religions is best equipped to answer
life's
fundamental questions.

His ministry's motto is: "Helping the thinker believe. Helping the believer
think."

Mr. Zacharias laid out his arguments in more than two dozen books, including
"Can Man
Live Without God?" (1994) and "Why Jesus?" (2007); through his radio program,
"Let My
People Think"; and in speaking appearances around the world.

He rose to prominence in 1983, when Billy Graham invited him to speak at a
conference
for evangelists in Amsterdam. His non-Western background (he was born in India)
set
Mr. Zacharias apart from American evangelical preachers, and gave him a certain
authority as someone exposed to religious pluralism.

"Ravi was a kind of philosopher for the church," said John Fea, a professor of
history at Messiah College, a private Christian school in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
"His
primary audience was conservative evangelicals with college degrees who wanted
to
give some kind of rational, empirical defense of their faith in the workplace,
at the
water cooler, with the people they sat next to on the plane."

His high-profile followers include Tim Tebow, the professional baseball player
and
former N.F.L. quarterback. Mr. Tebow formed a friendship with Mr. Zacharias,
and in
early May, as the preacher battled cancer, posted a video tribute on Instagram
in
which he said, "I think it's really important in life to have heroes, and
especially
in the faith, and one of my heroes of the faith is a man named Ravi Zacharias."

Soft-spoken, with a rhetorical style based on the Socratic method, Mr.
Zacharias
could appear like a college professor. But he also took hard-line positions
against
abortion and same-sex marriage, and he was more than willing to step into the
debate
ring at colleges and elsewhere to match wits with challengers to Christian
orthodoxy.

During one exchange at a live question-and-answer session that went viral in
evangelical circles, an audience member who described himself as "a scientist
and an
atheist" told Mr. Zacharias, "The Bible has been scientifically disproven."

Though Mr. Zacharias believed the Bible was inerrant, he didn't reply to the
skeptic
with Scripture passages. Rather, he quoted David Berlinski, a physicist and
secular
Jew who published a defense of religious thought, "The Devil's Delusion"
(2008), and
cited a lecture given by Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University in 1990, where
Mr.
Zacharias said he witnessed the famed physicist lament the tragedy of
scientific
materialism.

"He was a worldview thinker," Mr. Fea said. "Ravi believed if you can get
people to
question their presuppositions of how they approach the world, you're one step
closer
to getting them to accept theism."

Ravi Zacharias was born on March 26, 1946, in Chennai, India, and raised in New
Delhi. In an article he wrote for Christianity Today, Mr. Zacharias said that
his
ancestors belonged to the highest caste of Hindu priests, but that somewhere
along
the way his family was converted to Christianity by German-Swiss missionaries.

Still, he was not very religious growing up. According to the story Mr.
Zacharias
told, his road-to-Damascus moment came when he attempted suicide at 17 by
swallowing
chemicals.

He had felt shame and anguish over being a poor student. While recovering in
the
hospital, a youth pastor brought him a Bible.

"Five days after being wheeled into the E.R., I left a changed person," Mr.
Zacharias
wrote.

After he moved with his family to Canada in the 1960s, Mr. Zacharias enrolled
at
Ontario Bible College, where he earned a bachelor of theology degree. He later
received his master's at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill.

It was at Trinity that Mr. Zacharias studied under two leading apologist
thinkers,
John Warwick Montgomery and Norman Geisler, and came to believe "the importance
of
trying to connect the gospel with the life of the mind," as Alister McGrath, a
Northern Irish theologian, wrote in an online tribute.

After teaching at Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, N.Y., Mr. Zacharias
established Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, or RZIM, in 1984, with
financial
support from a wealthy businessman, David Dale Davis. The ministry, which is
headquartered in Alpharetta, Ga., with offices around the world, raises
millions of
dollars each year to further its mission.

In 2017, Mr. Zacharias, who for years referred to himself as Dr. Zacharias on
his
website and in publicity materials, was accused of exaggerating his academic
credentials. He later acknowledged that his doctorates were honorary and
stopped
referring to himself with the title. He is survived by his wife, Margaret
Reynolds
Zacharias; two daughters, Sarah Zacharias Davis and Naomi Zacharias; a son,
Nathan;
and five grandchildren. Last year, Mr. Zacharias named his elder daughter, Ms.
Davis,
chief executive of the ministry, in a transition of leadership to the next
generation. 'RZIM's mission, vision and intention to serve God will not
change,' he
wrote.

(Steve's Note: Both those books, as well as a dozen more, are available on
Bookshare.)

[msb-alumni] Ravi Zacharias, Preacher Who Used Reason to Defend Faith, Is Dead at 74 on May 19, 2020

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