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Ravi Zacharias Biography & Facts

Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias (26 March 1946 – 19 May 2020) was an Indian-born Canadian-American Christian evangelical minister and Christian apologist who founded Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). He was involved in Christian apologetics for a period spanning more than forty years, authoring more than thirty books. He also hosted the radio programs Let My People Think and Just Thinking. Zacharias belonged to the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), the Keswickian Christian denomination in which he was ordained as a minister. Early life and education Ravi Zacharias was born on 26 March 1946 in Madras, India, and grew up in Delhi. He spoke Hindi fluently, the only Indian language that he knew.Zacharias' family was Anglican, but he was a "skeptic" until the age of 17 when he attempted suicide by swallowing poison. While he was in the hospital, a local Christian worker brought him a Bible and told his mother to read to him from John 14, which contains Jesus' words to Thomas the Apostle. Zacharias said it was John 14:19 that touched him as the defining paradigm, "Because I live, you also will live", and that he thought, "This may be my only hope: A new way of living. Life as defined by the Author of Life." Zacharias committed his life to Christ, praying that "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."In 1966, Zacharias emigrated with his family to Canada, earning his undergraduate degree from the Ontario Bible College in 1972 (now Tyndale University) and his M.Div. from Trinity International University in 1976. In 1990 he participated in guided study at Ridley Hall, a Church of England theological school in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. Career Ministry Zacharias spent the summer of 1971 in South Vietnam, where he evangelized U.S. soldiers as well as imprisoned Viet Cong members. After graduating from Ontario Bible College, he began an itinerant ministry with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) in Canada. In 1974 the C&MA sent him to Cambodia, where he preached only a short time before its fall to the Khmer Rouge. He was later ordained by the C&MA in 1980, and between 1980 and 1984 he taught at the C&MA-affiliated Alliance Theological Seminary, where he was a professor of evangelism.In 1983, Zacharias spoke in Amsterdam at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's first International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists. After Amsterdam, he spent the summer evangelizing in India, where he continued to see the need for apologetic ministry, both to lead people to Christ and to train Christian leaders. In August 1984, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to pursue his calling as a "classical evangelist in the arena of the intellectually resistant." Later its headquarters were located in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.In 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Zacharias spoke in Moscow with students at the Lenin Military-Political Academy as well as political leaders at the Center for Geopolitical Strategy. This was the first of many evangelism events in the political sphere. Future events included one in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1993, where he spoke to members of the judiciary on the importance of having a solid moral foundation.The following year, Zacharias wrote his first book, A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism. In 1992, Zacharias spoke at his first Veritas Forum at Harvard University, and later that year was one of the keynote speakers at Urbana. He continued to be a frequent guest at these forums, both giving lectures and answering students in question-and-answer sessions at academic institutions including the University of Georgia, the University of Michigan, and Penn State.In 2004, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) opened its signature pulpit at the Salt Lake Tabernacle to Zacharias for a series of messages. He 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 dialogue between the groups. Some evangelicals criticized Zacharias' decision not to use this opportunity to directly address the "deep and foundational" differences between the traditional Christian faith and the teachings of the LDS Church. He responded by asserting that Christians should not immediately condemn so-called the LDS Church's theological differences but "graciously build one step at a time in communicating our faith with clarity and conviction", stating that this would be just as effective as showing someone the faults of their faith. The speaking engagement was nearly sabotaged by an allegation 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.Zacharias was a frequent keynote lecturer within the evangelical community at events including the Future of Truth conference in 2004, the National Religious Broadcasters' Convention and Exposition in 2005, and the National Conference on Christian Apologetics in 2006. 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. Zacharias represented the evangelical community at occasions such as the National Day of Prayer in Washington, D.C., the Annual Prayer Breakfast at the United Nations, the African Union Prayer Breakfast in Maputo, Mozambique, and was named honorary chairman of the 2008 National Day of Prayer task force. He also participated in the ecumenical Together 2016 meetings, which Pope Francis addressed, describing the event as a valiant effort.In 2006, Ravi Zacharias along with Wycliffe Hall established the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA) in Oxfordshire, England though it is now entirely separate from Wycliffe.In November 2009, Zacharias signed the ecumenical Manhattan Declaration which affirms the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and freedom of religion as foundational principles of justice and the common good. In 2016, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio appointed Zacharias to his anti-abortion "Dignity of Life" advisory panel.In 2015, according to RZIM's public Form 990 tax return, Zacharias and his wife earned a combined total of $523,926 from the ministry. Worldview Zacharias argued that a coherent worldview must be able to satisfactorily answer four questions: that of origin, meaning of life, morality, and destiny. He said that while every major religi.... Discover the Ravi Zacharias popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ravi Zacharias books.