Celebrating the Life of Ravi Zacharias

Kethoser (Aniu) Kevichusa*

Ravi Zacharias, 74, author-speaker philosopher, founder of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, died in his house in Atlanta, Georgia, after a short battle with cancer. He passed on a few hours ago today, May 19, 2020.He leaves his wife Margie and children Sarah, Naomi and Nathan.

Ravi Zacharias, a renowned author-speaker and frontline Christian apologist, was born in Chennai and grew up in New Delhi. He was the son of a senior bureaucrat who worked in the Home Ministry, Government of India.  As a young lad, he found himself lost between the demands of his strict father and his own interest in nothing but cricket and friends. At the age of 17, quite overwhelmed with meaninglessness, he attempted to take his own life but wasn’t successful. He gave his life to Jesus Christ from the hospital bed and later along with a brother, followed by his family, immigrated to Canada. 

As a speaker, Ravi Zacharias travelled and spoke all over the world. He addressed the Annual Prayer Breakfast at the United Nations, New York, four times, spoke at U.S. Military bases and institutions,  and held open forums, addressing students on campuses worldwide, including St. Stephen’s College (Delhi, India), Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden), Zayed University (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), National Pedagogical Dragomanov University (Kiev, Ukraine), University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) and Yale University (New Haven, CT). 

Ravi Zacharias not only had a profound understanding of the Christian faith, but also had the rare ability to communicate the faith in a language that anyone could understand.  Whenever he took the stage, the sheer magnetism of his conviction and communication held the attention of the listener to the message that he believed to be true to the deepest core of his self. 

It was not just erudition without feeling, but the content of his message was undergirded by great scholarship, strengthened by personal experience, and laced with a passion for the truth. He believed that truth by definition was indivisible, absolute, and exclusive. 

His message was an antidote to the growing anti-intellectualism in the sphere of Christian religious discourse in the country.  He encouraged his audience to think for themselves. He never advocated a blind leap of faith. He propagated a faith based on evidence. His work can be captured in the one tagline, “Helping the thinker believe and the believer think.” Despite his punishing schedule and globe-trotting, he took time to write several bestselling books. He wrote books including The Grand Weaver, Cries of the Heart and Walking from East to West to great acclaim.

He was at ease in a five-star setting addressing scholars and intellectuals from different worldviews, in universities with students, in church pulpits addressing fellow Christians, or in public arenas holding several thousands. He was sought after by national leaders and government officials for counsel and prayer.

Wherever the forum, this thinker-philosopher proudly introduced himself as an Indian, with life in Chennai and Delhi playing a major role in his outlook on life. He served as a goodwill ambassador to our country by identifying himself with India. 

He was a proud Indian, and apart from cricket, he loved Indian food. He visited his country of birth a few times each year and had Indian friends from all walks of life – from corridors of political power to Bollywood to premier educational institutions to industrialists. People who knew him loved and admired him for his humility, his humour, his pleasant disposition, and his great love for his Maker and Saviour. 

Zacharias also began Wellspring International, the humanitarian arm of his international organisation RZIM. In India it reached out to the most vulnerable sections of society, especially abused women and underprivileged children, by providing succour, relief and rescue, and scholarship.

The words of Jesus Christ that rescued and restored him from his bed of suicide were: “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).

Ravi Zacharias is today no more with us. But he is alive, more than ever, unto God.

India will miss this kind and honest man, a great orator who did us proud!

*The author is a Speaker and Trainer, RZIM. The Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) was founded by Ravi Zacharias in 1984.