Ravi Zacharias may be the greatest Christian expositor of the 21st century. He has passed away of cancer.
He was not on the list.
He held the audience spellbound, the usual response to this soft-spoken Christian expositor who was born in India in 1946 and came to America by way of Canada.
If C.S. Lewis was the greatest Christian expositor of the 20th century, Ravi Zacharias might well go down in history as the greatest of the 21st century. Both are often described as “apologists,” but that sounds defensive to the modern ear.
Ravi talked of many things at that banquet, often cracking up the audience with wry humor. But his takeaway message was about “licit pleasures,” that is, pleasures given to us by God and which delight God when we enjoy them as He intended.
Modern humanity, Ravi said, especially in the West, has become obsessed with ourselves, and especially sensate pleasures to sate our appetites. The false religion of hedonism, he said, is based ironically on sensations created by God for our own good.
The opposite error of recklessly indulging in one’s appetites is to become a legalistic shrew, always on the lookout for someone (especially ourselves) who might be having a good time.
This is also the classic libel directed at Christians by an unbelieving world that’s building its own faith of virtue signaling, worship of nature and libertine ethics.
In contrast to their big, open-hearted selves, they paint Christians as humorless, strict Puritans, the sort of people who want to stamp out any joy. This is itself a slander against the Puritans, who could be quite joyful and earthy.
The stereotyped Puritan is a handy caricature to shame opponents and ridicule genuine virtue. It’s why the Christian-hating, feminist author Margaret Atwood puts the abused women of “The Handmaid’s Tale” in hooded garb suggestive of Puritans. It’s why proponents of limitless obscenity dismiss any concerns as “puritanical.”
Anyway, Ravi addressed the tendency of modern people to do this to themselves. For instance, he said, many in our health-conscious society deny themselves simple, innocent pleasures. If it isn’t something of a grind, it must be wrong.
Some have compared him to RC Spoule or AW Tozer, he was a thoughtful author as well as lecturer.
Lauren Green of Foz News wrote the following:
It is with a heavy heart that I write these thoughts about a man who has been my spiritual mentor and friend, Ravi Zacharias. The news of his inoperable cancer has forced me and thousands--if not millions-- to face the reality that the world will soon be without one of its strongest theological minds for Christianity.
It was Ravi's book, "Can Man Live Without God?" that was so mind-blowing to me that I approached the CEO of Fox News Channel to do a special on the topic.
They did.
That special, called "Can We Live Without God?" featured Ravi and aired more than a decade ago.
It was my first foray into covering faith and religion.
It was Ravi's philosophical and logical mind that helped open up a world of belief that I had never encountered.
It is Ravi who said that all humans, regardless of what religion they practiced or whether they had no religious beliefs, had to answer four basic questions: Where do I come from? Why am I here? How should I treat people? Where am I going? Origin, Meaning, Morality, Destiny.
Ravi's global ministry, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM.org), now sends speakers out into the world.
One of them, Abdu Murray, co-wrote his latest book called, "Seeing Jesus from the East."
No comments:
Post a Comment