Ravi Zacharias (Ben May/Ravi Zacharias International Ministries)
Ravi Zacharias, an Indian-born preacher who rose to prominence in a predominantly white evangelical subculture and who wrote popular books and lectured widely at colleges to make an intellectual defense of the Christian faith, died May 19 at his home in Atlanta. He was 74.
The cause was complications from an aggressive form of bone cancer, according to a statement from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, the evangelical organization he founded in 1984 and is based in the Atlanta suburbs.
The Rev. Zacharias published and edited more than 25 books, and he was a frequent presence in university lecture halls. His international travels as well as his radio and television show “Let My People Think” extended his reach globally.
He did not get involved in political campaigns but befriended leaders in politics, particularly conservative Republicans. He mentored the son of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations. Before his death, President Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, lauded him for reinforcing her faith. He also was close to baseball player Tim Tebow.
Ravi Zacharias (Ben May/Ravi Zacharias International Ministries)
“His fan base included leaders in many in high-profile places, yes, but he’s one of those rare evangelical leaders from his generation who is actually known for being an evangelical who evangelized, rather than an evangelical who did politics,” said Michael Wear, who worked in faith-outreach for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.
Rev. Zacharias, ordained by the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1980, came to wide attention three year later, at age 37, when he preached at the invitation of evangelist Billy Graham at a conference in Amsterdam.
He soon became one of the most sought-after evangelists to promote apologetics, or the defense of Christianity, and began building a ministry based what he called intellectual arguments for evangelical belief rather than direct appeals to faith.
“Much of the evangelistic preaching at the time was being done to the person whose life was already collapsing,” he later told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But the reasonableness of the Christian faith was not being presented to those whose lives seemed to be self-sufficient, who seemed not to need God.”
He said he began building a ministry “to carry the Gospel message to the skeptic — honest skeptics [of Christianity] and those who were hostile and adversarial to the message.”
From: WashingtonPost
From: WashingtonPost
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