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Ravi Zacharias
Born (1946-03-26) 26 March 1946 (age 78)
Chennai, Madras Presidency, British India
NationalityIndian, Canadian, and American
Occupation(s)Christian apologist, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Era21st-century philosophy
RegionWestern Philosophy
SchoolChristian philosophy
Main interests
Philosophy of religion, Christian Apologetics, Worldview
Notable ideas
Four Criteria for a Coherent Worldview
Websitehttp://www.rzim.org

Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias (born 26 March 1946) is an Indian-born, Canadian-American Christian apologist. A defender of traditional evangelicalism,[1][2][3] Zacharias is the author of numerous Christian books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner Can Man Live Without God? in the category "theology and doctrine"[4] and bestsellers Light in the Shadow of Jihad[5] and The Grand Weaver.[6] He is the founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, host of the radio programs Let My People Think and Just Thinking, and visiting professor at Wycliffe Hall of Oxford, where he teaches apologetics and evangelism.[7] Zacharias held the chair in Evangelism and Contemporary Thought at Alliance Theological Seminary from 1981 to 1984.[8] Evangelical Christian leader Chuck Colson referred to Zacharias as "the great apologist of our time."[9] Zacharias is considered to be a leading figure of the evangelical intelligentsia movement.

Early life

Zacharias was born in Madras, India. Zacharias claims descent from the Nambudiri Brahmin caste, by means of one very distant relative, his great great great grandmother who married a Christian man of the Boatman caste.[10] Swiss German missionaries spoke to his Brahmin ancestor about Christianity and she converted and was made an outcast by her Brahmin family and community[10]. Zacharias grew up in a nominal Anglican household,[10] and was an atheist until the age of 17 when he tried to commit suicide by swallowing poison. While in the hospital, a local Christian worker brought him a Bible and told his mother to read to him from John 14. Zacharias says that it was John 14:19 that touched him and meant to him as the defining paradigm: "Because I live, you also will live." He said that he thought, "This may be my only hope: A new way of living. Life as defined by the Author of Life." and that he committed his life to Christ praying, "Jesus if You are the one who gives life as it is meant to be, I want it. Please get me out of this hospital bed well, and I promise I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth."[10] In 1966 Zacharias emigrated with his family to Canada, earning his undergraduate degree from Ontario Bible College in 1972 (now Tyndale University College & Seminary) and his M. Div. from Trinity International University.

Ministry

Zacharias was invited to spend the summer of 1971 in Vietnam, where he evangelized to the American soldiers, as well as to POWs and Viet Cong.[10] After graduating from Ontario Bible College, he began an itinerant ministry with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada.[10] In 1974 the C&MA sent him to Cambodia, where he preached only a short time before its fall to the Khmer Rouge.[10] In 1977, after graduating from Trinity, Zacharias was commissioned to preach worldwide.[10]

In 1983, Zacharias was invited to speak in Amsterdam at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's annual evangelists' conference. It was here that he first noticed a lack of ministry in the area of Christian apologetics.[10] After Amsterdam, Zacharias spent the summer evangelizing in India, where he continued to see the need for apologetics ministry, both to lead people to Christ and to train Christian leaders. In August 1984 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries was founded in Toronto, Canada to pursue his calling as a "classical evangelist in the arena of the intellectually resistant."[11] Today its headquarters is located in Atlanta, Georgia, and has offices in Canada, England, India, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.[10] He was later ordained by the Christian and Missionary Alliance and commissioned as an international evangelist.[11]

In 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Zacharias was invited to speak in Moscow. While there he spoke to students at the Lenin Military Academy as well as political leaders at the Center for Geopolitical Strategy.[10] This was the first of many evangelism opportunities towards the political world. Future events included an invitation to Bogota, Colombia in 1993, where he spoke to the judiciary committee on the importance of having a solid moral foundation.[10]

Zacharias took a sabbatical in 1990 and spent part of that year as a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. There he heard lectures by men such as Stephen Hawking and studied under professors such as John Polkinghorne and Don Cupitt. He also wrote his first book, A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism.[10] In 1993 Zacharias was invited to speak at his first Veritas Forum at Harvard University,[10] and later that year was one of the keynote speakers at Urbana.[12] Zacharias continues to be a frequent guest at these forums,[13] both giving lectures and answering students in question and answer sessions at academic institutions such as the University of Georgia,[14] the University of Michigan,[15] and Penn State.[16]

Zacharias attracted media attention when in 2004 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) opened its signature pulpit at the Salt Lake Tabernacle to him for a series of messages. Zacharias delivered a sermon on "Who Is the Truth? Defending Jesus Christ as The Way, The Truth and The Life" to some 7,000 lay-persons and scholars from both LDS and Protestant camps in an initiatory move towards open dialog between the camps.[17]

Some evangelicals criticized Zacharias' decision not to use this opportunity to directly address the "deep and foundational" differences between the historic Christian faith and that of the LDS church. He responded by asserting that Christians should not immediately condemn Mormonism's theological differences but "graciously build one step at a time in communicating our faith with clarity and conviction". He said this is just as effective as showing someone the faults of their faith.[18] The speaking engagement was nearly sabotaged by a claim by event organizer Greg Johnson, president of Standing Together, that Zacharias had nothing to do with editing the book The Kingdom of the Cults and had only loaned his name to the latest edition. Johnson later apologized for his comment.[19]

Zacharias is a frequent keynote lecturer within the evangelical community at events such as the Future of Truth conference in 2004,[20] the National Religious Broadcasters' Convention and Exposition in 2005,[21] the National Conference on Christian Apologetics in 2006.[22] On successive nights in October 2007, he addressed first the students and faculty of Virginia Tech, then the community of Blacksburg, Virginia, on the topic of evil and suffering in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.[23] Zacharias has represented the evangelical community at occasions such as the National Day of Prayer in Washington, DC, the Annual Prayer Breakfast at the United Nations, and the African Union Prayer Breakfast in Maputo, Mozambique, and was named honorary chairman of the 2008 National Day of Prayer task force.[24]

Zacharias was interviewed in Focus on the Family's Truth Project. In November 2009, Zacharias signed an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration which affirms the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good.[25]

Family

In May 1972, Zacharias married Margaret "Margie" Reynolds, whom he met at his church's youth group.[10] They have three children: Sarah, Naomi, and Nathan.

Worldview

Zacharias states that a coherent worldview must be able to satisfactorily answer four questions: that of origin, meaning of life, morality and destiny. He says that while every major religion makes exclusive claims about truth, the Christian faith is unique in its ability to answer all four of these questions.[26] He routinely speaks on the coherence of the Christian worldview,[27] saying that Christianity is capable of withstanding the toughest philosophical attacks.[28] Zacharias believes that the apologist must argue from three levels: the theoretical, to line up the logic of the argument; the arts, to illustrate; and "kitchen table talk", to conclude and apply.[29] Zacharias's style of apologetic focuses predominantly on Christianity's answers to life's great existential questions,[30] with defense of God.

Zacharias is an opponent of homosexuality, arguing that he cannot "justify an aberration of human sexuality in somebody's else's life" and noting that a homosexual "proclivity does not justify expressing... that proclivity".[31][32]

Works

  • A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism (1994, 2004) ISBN 0-8010-6511-9
  • Can Man Live Without God? (1994, 1996) ISBN 0-8499-3943-7
  • Deliver Us From Evil (1996, 1998) ISBN 0-8499-3950-X
  • Cries of the Heart (1998, 2002) ISBN 0-8499-4387-6
  • The Merchant and the Thief (1999) (Children’s) ISBN 0-7814-3296-0
  • The Broken Promise (2000) (Children's) ISBN 0-7814-3451-3
  • Jesus Among Other Gods (2000, 2002) ISBN 0-8499-4327-2
  • Jesus Among Other Gods (Youth Edition) (2000) ISBN 0-8499-4217-9
  • The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha (2001) ISBN 1-57673-854-X
  • Sense and Sensuality: Jesus Talks with Oscar Wilde (2002) ISBN 1-59052-014-9
  • Light in the Shadow of Jihad: The Struggle For Truth (2002) ISBN 1-57673-989-9
  • Recapture the Wonder (2003) ISBN 1-59145-276-7
  • Is Your Church Ready?: Motivating Leaders to Live an Apologetic Life (2003) (Editor, with Norman Geisler) ISBN 0-310-25061-7
  • Who Made God? And Answers to Over 100 Other Tough Questions of Faith (2003) (General Editor, with Norman Geisler) ISBN 0-310-24710-1
  • The Kingdom of the Cults (2003) (Editor) ISBN 0-7642-2821-8
  • I, Isaac Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving From Romance to Lasting Love (2004) ISBN 0-8499-0822-1
  • The Prince and the Prophet: Jesus Talks With Mohammed (Copyright 2004, to be released posthumously) ISBN 1-59052-319-9
  • The Lamb and the Führer: Jesus Talks with Hitler (2005) ISBN 1-59052-394-6
  • Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows (With R.S.B. Sawyer) (2006) ISBN 0-310-25915-0
  • The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives (2007) ISBN 0-310-26952-0
  • Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend (2008) ISBN 0-8499-1968-1
  • The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists (2008) ISBN 0-310-28251-9
  • Is There Not a Cause (2008) (National Day of Prayer Feature Book)
  • New Birth or Rebirth: Jesus Talks with Krishna (2008) ISBN 1-59052-725-9
  • There is a Plan (2009) (excerpts from The Grand Weaver) ISBN 0-310-31849-1
  • Has Christianity Failed You? (2010) ISBN 0-310-26955-5
  • The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha (2010) ISBN 1-60142-318-7
  • Why Jesus? Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality (2012) ISBN 978-0-89296-319-5

References

  1. ^ http://www.westmont.edu/_news/pages/publications/alumni_magazine/39_winter_2005/cover_story.html
  2. ^ http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200804/200804_020_Defend_Christian.cfm
  3. ^ http://www.apologetics315.com/2013/02/ravi-zacharias-interview-transcript.html
  4. ^ "1995 Gold Medallion Book Awards Winners". Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association. 1995. Archived from the original on 2008-05-18. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  5. ^ "Christian Bestsellers List, August 2002". Christian Booksellers Association and the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association. August 2002. Archived from the original on 2008-05-19. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  6. ^ "Christian Bestsellers List, October 2007". Christian Booksellers Association and the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association. October 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-05-19. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  7. ^ "Wycliffe Hall - Dr. Ravi Zacharias". Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  8. ^ "RZIM - About Ravi Zacharias". 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  9. ^ Staub, Dick (January 2004). "The Dick Staub Interview: Ravi Zacharias's Wonderful World". Christianity Today. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Zacharias, Ravi (2006). Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. In order of use: pages 42–43, 45, 101–105, 170, 163, 173, 178, 185, 192–193, 197–199, 200–201, 203, 205–206. ISBN 0-310-25915-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b Edward Plowman (March 1998). "Meet Ravi Zacharias". National and International Religion Report. Evangelicals Now. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
  12. ^ Zacharias, Ravi. "Jesus Christ Among Other Gods: Urbana 1993 Address". Archived from the original on 2007-07-16. Retrieved 2008-07-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ "NEWS: Truth Makes a Comeback in University Settings". Christianity Today Magazine. 40 (1). January 1996. Retrieved 2008-02-18. While certain speakers such as Zacharias, sociologist Os Guinness, law professor Phillip Johnson, and philosopher Eleanor Stump have made repeat appearances, the actual presentation differs from school to school.
  14. ^ Parker, Pearman (2007-09-28). "Celebrated evangelist attracts thousands". redandblack.com. The Red and Black Publishing Company Inc. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  15. ^ Schwartz, Karen (2003-02-04). "U. Michigan: U. Michigan speaker discusses American culture's ties to religion". The America's Intelligence Wire. Financial Times Ltd. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  16. ^ Colella, Kristin (2005-02-17). "Author shares insight on faith". Daily Collegian online. Collegian Inc. Retrieved 2013-11-21.
  17. ^ Moore, Carrie A. (2004-11-15). "Evangelical preaches at Salt Lake Tabernacle". Deseret Morning News. deseretnews.com. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
  18. ^ Chang, Pauline J. (2004-12-24). "Evangelical Defends Decision to Speak at Mormon Tabernacle". The Christian Post. christianpost.com. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
  19. ^ Beverley, James A. (January 2005). "Evangelist in Brigham Young's Court". Christianity Today. christianitytoday.com. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
  20. ^ Newswire, PR (2004-07-15). "Future of Truth Conference Explores Biblical Realities, Exposes Theological Heresies to Present a More Convincing Picture of Truth in Today's Society; Conference Will Feature Trusted Theologians Ravi Zacharias, William Lane Craig, Phillip Johnson, Erwin Lutzer, Emir Caner and Frank Peretti at The Moody Church in Chicago". PR Newswire Association LLC. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  21. ^ Chang, Pauline J. (2005-02-13). "Thousands Flock to Anaheim for Largest Christian Communications Convention". The Christian Post. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  22. ^ Vu, Michelle (2007-03-02). "MissionFest Opens Asking 'What Does it Mean to be Human?'". The Christian Post. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  23. ^ Key, Lindsay (2007-10-10). "Virginia Tech audience hears Christian speaker". The Roanoke Times. roanoke.com. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
  24. ^ "National Day of Prayer Task Force - Dr. Ravi Zacharias Bio". National Day of Prayer Official Website. Archived from the original on May 30, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  25. ^ "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience". Demossnews.com. Retrieved 2011-05-29.
  26. ^ Zacharias, Ravi (1997). Deliver Us From Evil. Nashville: Word. pp. 219–220. ISBN 0-8499-3950-X.
  27. ^ Duin, Julia (2003-07-04). "Christian worldview; Theologian-author Zacharias decries media double-standard". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  28. ^ "Ravi Zacharias: Defender of the FAITH; Alpharetta minister takes the Gospel to intellectuals". The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. 1997-03-01. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  29. ^ Zacharias, Ravi; Norman L. Geisler (2003). Is Your Church Ready?. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. ISBN 0-8499-3950-X. Retrieved 2008-03-17. [dead link]
  30. ^ For example: Zacharias, Ravi (1994). Can Man Live Without God. Dallas: Word Publishing. Introduction, page xvi. ISBN 0-8499-1173-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)
  31. ^ Controversial evangelist Zacharias speaks at Penn
  32. ^ Ravi Zacharias. Acceptance of Homosexuality in Christianity. YouTube. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
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