Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) has opened an investigation into allegations that its late founder sexually harassed multiple massage therapists who worked at two day spas he co-owned.
Three women who worked at the businesses, located in the Atlanta suburbs, told Christianity Today (CT) that Ravi Zacharias touched them inappropriately, exposed himself, and masturbated during regular treatments over a period of about five years. His business partner said he regrets not stopping Zacharias and sent an apology text to one of the victims.
RZIM denies the claims, saying in a statement to CT that the charges of sexual misconduct ‘do not in any way comport with the man we knew for decades’. The organisation has hired a law firm ‘with experience investigating such matters’ to look into the allegations, which date back at least ten years.
In 2016 another woman confessed that she had been in a relationship with Zacharias in which he had asked her to send inappropriate photos of herself to him. She was subject to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in an out-of-court settlement, which in 2017 Zacharias broke when he made a statement about the case. The Zacharias family have refused to release the woman from the NDA. Zacharias claimed he had never been alone with a woman outside his family. A Christian leader who had talked to all the women involved in these cases noted this was ‘hard to square with his regular times alone in a spa room with females’.
Two of the women who say he sexually harassed them in the spas agree that Zacharias was a great man who served and sacrificed for the good of the gospel. They even told CT the good he did promoting the cause of Christ may outweigh the pain and trauma that he caused them.
But they insist that that doesn’t mean the inappropriate sexual conduct did not occur. ‘Even with someone as godly as Ravi,’ one said, ‘you can still be battling with the Devil’.
