Confronting Sexual Abuse in the Church & How to Stop It
By: Tara Teng
Tags: Sexual Abuse, Theology, Church, Evangelicals, Sexual Assault

What we can learn from the Ravi Zacharias scandal and how to make Church Culture safe for women

If you’re anywhere in Evangelical culture, you’ll likely have heard of the deeply upsetting Ravi Zacharias scandal by now. It’s another story of a Christian, psuedo-celebrity man rising to power, fame and influence and then using that power, fame and influence to spiritually manipulate and sexually abuse women. If you’re not part of the church, you might not know the name of Ravi Zacharias but I suspect that another scandal of sexual abuse at the hands of a church leader is likely not surprising for you.

Unfortunately, no matter how often this happens or how long the list of famed evangelists who have fallen from grace, people within the church are perpetually surprised that this continues to happen. As the news of Ravi Zacharias’ abuse continues to be revealed, church leaders are “shocked” and “appalled” that their spiritual mentor turned out to be a fraud and an abuser, but for anyone who is paying attention, the problem isn’t surprising — it’s glaringly obvious. The Church has an in-house problem with sexual assault.

And this isn’t new, the Evangelical Church has pointed the finger at the Catholic Church for generations, but now we need to come to terms with the fact that our culture, established on patriarchy and the subordination of women, has become an environment ripe for abuse, narcissism, domestic violence and sexual assault. #ChurchToo, has revealed an exponential problem with abuse, far larger than most people realize and all covered up by a church that has preached women are to “submit to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:22) at home while high-profile leaders like John MacArthur has publicly told women preachers to “go home” and well-known Evangelical authors such as John Piper going as far as to tell women to endure domestic violence at their hands of their husbands. This creates an environment of unchecked power and privilege in the church, where people like Ravi Zacharias can abuse 200+ women, lie about his academic credentials, misuse finances without accountability, and at worst, rape vulnerable women. The message from the church is clear: men hold the power and women submit.

But what if this theology is toxic and wrong? What if the idea of male headship is all based on a mistranslation of an ancient text that needs to be read in context to understand how it applies to our modern relationships today?

Personally, I’ve spent 32 years as the daughter of a Pastor in the Evangelical Church and I’ve seen it all. I’m done with churches and ministries putting out statements “saddened” by the news of another scandal. I don’t want to hear another apology. I don’t care which DEI workshop you’re planning for your ministry team; this culture won’t be changed after you attend one workshop in an effort to do damage control. And it’s not enough to simply review your policies without evaluating your internalized beliefs and how you are perpetuating a system of subordination and abuse that looks nothing like Jesus.

So here’s a list of recommendations from a woman who has grown up in the Evangelical Church, Preached on the Christian Speaker Circuit and has been listening to warnings of unethical Church Leaders since I was eleven years old. This is not written just for RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries), this is written for us all.

Examine the unholy marriage of Patriarchy and the Church

When you view God as only male, when you preach male headship, and when you only allow cis-het men into leadership, you create an environment ripe for rampant abuse. Its past time to examine the power dynamics and inequality in the church. If your church allows women to serve the coffee but not Communion, then you are following the Gospel of Patriarchy, not the Gospel of Christ. If women are allowed to teach the lesson plans to children in Sunday School but not allowed to preach from the pulpit on Sunday morning, then you are following the Gospel of Patriarchy, not the Gospel of Christ.

2. Hire Women and Pay Them Equally

Church as we know it today has become an “old, boys club”, which is not what I see represented in the believers that Jesus walked earth with. Yes, the twelve named disciples are all recognized as men but it is well documented that women were the ones funding Jesus’ ministry. Women were preachers, pastors, elders, deacons, and apostles in the ministry of Jesus. Even the first ever preacher of the Gospel, Mary Magdalene, was a woman. If Jesus could entrust a woman to be the first person to preach the Gospel (John 20:11–18), then we can too. If Jesus could take direction from a woman (John 2:1–11), then we can too.

3. Listen to survivors and believe them.

When the first accounts of abuse at the hands of Ravi Zacharias came out in 2017, the ministry founded by the Evangelical leader did not even initiate an internal investigation. Instead the victims were slandered and harassed as they were called “nasty people”, “lunatics”, with “satanic type behaviour” and manipulated into silence because telling the truth about Zacharias would lead “millions to hell”. This is obviously terrible and revictimizing the victims. In contrast, I am reminded of the words of Jesus who lowered His eyes to not further humiliate a woman caught in adultery (John 8:11) and instructed his followers to “gauge out”(Matthew 5:29) their own eyes if they sexually abused or objectified women. I think Jesus would be livid to learn that His followers are dismissing serious accounts of sexual assault so conveniently.

4. Evaluate who is in leadership

Since the legal firm Miller and Martin released their twelve page scathing report on the sexual abuse perpetuated by the late Evangelical leader Ravi Zacharias, I have seen many church leaders encouraging more church leaders to return the “Billy Graham Rule” for conducting church business. This rule, implemented by the famous Evangelist, Billy Graham, suggests that men in church leadership are to never be left alone with a woman for fear of sexually abusing her or starting an illicit affair beyond the vows of their monogamous marriages. A modern day context of the rule goes as far as to encourage male church leaders to give all their internet passwords to their wives and to give her full access to his email and text messages.

While I am for full transparency and accountability for everyone in leadership, if you cannot be trusted to send an email without sexual misconduct, then you probably shouldn’t be entrusted with leadership over hundreds or thousands at your church. If you cannot be trusted to be alone with a woman without raping her or having an affair, then you probably shouldn’t be in church leadership, or any leadership, at all. Removing women does not remove the problem, it simply continues to perpetuate the church’s stained-glass ceilings and gender inequality that creates this cultural problem in the first place. Stop viewing women as sexual objects to flee from and instead learn how to respect women, who make up 60% of most church congregations, before you take on any position of leadership.

5. Stop traumatizing people with Purity Culture & embrace comprehensive Sex-Ed

For generations the church has been the most vocal advocate for abstinence-only Sex-Ed and that all sex outside of (heterosexual) marriage is a sin. This cult of sexual repression known as Purity Culture reached its height in the 90s and early 2000s. Today, the youth who came of age during Purity Culture are now adults in our 30s-40s and we are doing the hard work of coming to terms with the religious trauma from our upbringing and the negative messages we received around sex that has resulted in broken marriages, sexual disfunction, autoimmune disorders, vaginismus and many other issues, both physical, psychological and emotional as a result of being taught that our bodies are shameful for decades. As someone who grew up in this culture, and is now an Embodiment Coach and student of Somatic Sex Education, I see this all the time. At best, Purity Culture teaches us to become disconnected from our bodies and sexuality; at its worst, Purity Culture creates an environment where someone like Ravi Zacharias goes into the shadows to seek out victims and exploit his position of power over them. To remedy this, we need a complete cultural overhaul. It’s time to start integrating our sexualities and embracing our whole selves with a healthy sexual ethic that incorporates our spirituality and sexuality beyond Purity Culture.

With all this in mind, people ask me if I think change is possible? While I have my doubts, I do truly believe that anything can change, if people are willing to submit themselves in humility and do the hard work necessary to achieve transformation. It will require major changes to the culture, theology and functioning of the church that is built upon a hierarchy of male headship. It will require confronting those who are resistent to such structural change because they believe the tradition of the theology is correct. However, let us look to the leadership demonstration of Jesus who never preached a hierarchy of male headship and female submission. We can take our cues from the way he approached ethical decision making: with practical care for others first and foremost. At this point, this is not only the obvious course of action but the only choice for the evangelical church. It’s inability to make safe spaces for women has resulted in a mass exodus and numbers of exvangelicals will continue to rise each day if the church does not eradicate its misogyny from both the pulpit and the pew.

Enough is enough.