Tips For Spotting Evangelical Frauds Like Ravi Zacharias Ahead Of Time (Part 1)

For the umpteenth time in recent years a celebrated evangelical preacher and author has just been unmasked as a fraud. This time it’s the late Ravi Zacharias. Those who liked him often tagged him as the greatest Christian apologist of his generation. Those of us who didn’t were unsurprised to hear of the mounting evidence that shows this greedy liar was guilty of habitual adulterous sexual harassment.

Add him to the list that includes such giants of Evangelicalism as Ted Haggard, Bill Hybels, James MacDonald, Tullian Tchividjian, Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, and Jerry Fallwell Jr. These are men who counseled presidents, wrote best-sellers, pastored megachurches, chaplained professional sports teams and led Christian universities. And they’re fakes. No, I do not regard them as “flawed heroes of the faith who wrestled with their demons and through whom God accomplished great things despite (or because of) their brokenness.” Those are weasel words. They’re just fakes. False brothers. Real believers must not sit at the same table with them (1 Corinthians 5:11) until, like Charles Templeton or Joshua Harris, they acknowledge openly that they are not Christians at all.

Someone will say, “But these are among the most important leaders of our faith tradition!” I know. I also know that one’s status in the world of religion never counts as a point in one’s favor. Jesus said to the most influential religious leaders of his day: “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). The spine-tingling fact of the matter is that a society’s foremost religious leaders can be demon spawn. And I maintain that the current state of North American Evangelicalism is hardly less corrupt than first century Israeli Phariseeism. It really is that bad. Ring the alarm bells.

How did the fakes mentioned above (and I’m afraid there are many, many more) acquire and maintain for so long their positions of influence in Evangelicalism?

A big part of the answer is that they had enablers, both primary and secondary. The primary enablers were the associates, elders, staff, board and family members who saw the corruption daily but never said anything because they shared it, and they stood to gain a lot (millions, sometimes) from being part of the power structure. A pox on them, a pox on them all. The secondary enablers were we the Evangelical public – we dumb sheep who missed warning signs and blew past red flags and went on attending their churches, buying their books, going to their conferences, sending our children to their colleges and contributing to their ministries (even while local churches shepherded by humble servants of God shriveled and died on the vine).

It’s that second group - the accidental enablers - that I want to help. I’d like to offer some tips for spotting wolves in shepherds’ clothing ahead of time, before the scandalous behavior becomes public and wreaks destruction and maims sheep and hobbles the church and rejoices enemies of the cross of Christ.

Here is the first tip:

Never trust any gospel minister who names an organization, ministry or website after himself.

Zacharias of course did that with RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) and the RZIM academy. Fake Christians love to put their name in lights. But true men and women of God hide behind the cross, and even when asked, “Who are you?" they would rather say (with the hero of The Princess Bride) “No one of consequence” than (for example) “Alexander Hamilton!!!”

Followers of Jesus Christ say, “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30). Their hearts are stirred to joyous longing when they sing the last stanza of “May The Mind Of Christ My Savior”:

May His beauty rest upon me,

As I seek the lost to win.

And may they forget the channel,

Seeing only Him.

Here is an alphabetical list of evangelical preachers who have self-named ministries or websites:

Tony Evans

J D Greear

David Jeremiah

Mark Jobe

Tim Keller

Andy Stanley

Ed Stetzer

Paul Tripp

Ron Zappia

And here are some who do not:

Alistair Begg

Don Carson

Francis Chan

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

Mark Dever

Kevin DeYoung

Erwin Lutzer

John MacArthur

John Piper

Some comments:

(1) The lists above are extremely inexhaustive and non-methodically selected. I just googled a bunch of evangelical figures whose names randomly popped into my head and then selected nine from both lists.

(2) By far the biggest surprise above was Tim Keller, who has a "TimothyKeller.com" site. He should know better. His friends and colleagues Don Carson and John Piper would never think of naming a site after themselves. But honestly none of the other 17 names surprised me.

(3) I am not saying that all ministers who self-name a ministry or site are phonies. That is certainly not the case. I am saying that it’s a huge red flag, a warning, an indication that when combined with other factors will show that you’re dealing with a self-promoter rather than a Christ-promoter.

(4) Please understand that I am only applying this self-naming principle to preachers. If you are primarily an artist, athlete, politician, author or business owner then it is perfectly appropriate to stamp your name on your output or product. Murray Schwartz will call his delicatessen “Schwartz’s Deli,” and he is right to do so because it’s his Reuben sandwich, and he gets the credit if it’s good and the blame if it isn’t. But we gospel preachers don’t create anything, and we don’t own anything. We are mere stewards and caretakers of a sacred trust and a sacred message. We don’t get to stamp our names on it.