Naomi Zacharias Zumback, Nathan Zacharias & Margaret Zacharias
We have struggled to know what to say and when. December 23rd was the 3rd anniversary of a marker in time that would forever change our lives and break our hearts.
We can’t convince anyone what we are saying is true and we feel no need to do so. The globally publicized story is plagued with inaccuracy and hostility, and it has caused widespread destruction. In addition to those who continue to use it for their own personal gain, it established a precedent for a process that is dangerous and extends beyond our personal experience and pain.
It is for this reason we speak. The larger battle is indeed God’s and we have resolved to entrust the outcome of the present and future into his hands.
THE PROCESS
On December 23, 2020, we were devastated to read an online statement posted by the RZIM Board of Directors about our husband and father, Ravi Zacharias. We saw it for the first time with the rest of the world. The investigation was still in progress and RZIM had not examined evidence. At this point, we had to take their word on their conclusions.
Our mother’s multiple requests to meet with the investigator and to be interviewed as part of the investigation met with silence. As a board member, she was omitted from discussions and information without due process.
Having been sidelined and in the dark about what was happening, we made multiple attempts to communicate with the board. They did not respond.
In January 2021, Margaret and Naomi were emailed by a representative from the Governance Committee of the Board of Directors of RZIM and asked to meet with him away from the office. During that meeting, Margie, a co-founder, was told to resign her positions on the board and on the staff, which she did under duress. She was told that only then could the board provide a severance agreement for her. When she complied, communication ceased.
An agreement proposed months later included impossible contingencies. Naomi was informed she was being let go and paperwork would follow imminently; it did not. The lack of communication from RZIM, our confusion over what was unfolding, a false narrative that appeared to be developing, and the treatment of Margie created concern and growing distrust for us with the board. In February, the same representative of the Governance Committee emailed Naomi and told her to submit a resignation and backdate it. She did not comply.
In February of 2021, we read a publicly posted damning statement from the RZIM Board of Directors that was released with the final investigative report authored by lead investigator Lynsey Barron, an associate of Miller & Martin at the time. We read it for the first time with the rest of the world.
The RZIM Board statement reached beyond Ms. Barron’s report and the investigators’ conclusions and declared guilt for unsubstantiated and criminal accusations. A few RZIM associates piled on with their own statements over social media, pronouncing Ravi guilty of serious accusations that weren’t investigated.
Later, we learned neither Board Statement was written by the RZIM Board, nor was each board member’s review or support obtained. Their position was exploited to lend credibility to extreme declarations of guilt.
Prior to releasing the final report and their corresponding statement, RZIM invited Ms. Barron and her associates to the office and facilitated a presentation of the investigative report for board members, staff, and non-staff they invited to attend. Having received no contact or information from them, we asked to attend in order to learn the contents of the report. This was denied and no other option to hear and review the information with the board or the investigator was offered or provided.
The claim that the board statement, conclusion, and subsequent decisions were a unanimous board decision is misleading; instead, board members who did not agree with the desired conclusions and course of action were encouraged to resign prior to the board vote entered into the record.
Requests for our mother to see the contents of the report prior to releasing it beyond the board were denied. The board chose not to communicate or contact her personally or directly with the process, findings, their conclusions, public communications, or their way forward. As a co-founder, this was devastating; As his wife, the abandonment, shock, and pain were excruciating.
With the assistance of an attorney, we obtained a copy of the investigative report hours before public release.
RZIM BOARD
Past and present board members have acknowledged to us that neither the interim or final board statements included input or discussion with the full board; they said they do not agree with the conclusions published and the criminal accusations, specifically. We cannot speak to the conspicuous public silence of others; we can only choose not to stay silent.
RZIM offered counseling service to all staff; we were excluded. We did not voice objection to this. But when a young grandchild needed urgent support for safety and wellbeing, we reached out with a plea for help for the child. The board denied this request.
Every employee, including Margaret and Naomi, received a written statement that released them from terms of a standard employment nondisclosure agreement. It stated every employee was free to speak about their personal experience. But the Board excluded Margie and Naomi by revoking that freedom for them, and said they were withdrawing severance agreements. Insurance for the minor children was cut off without warning and severance was uncertain.
A brief explanation of these actions from RZIM’s legal team specifically referenced Nathan’s blog as to why they cut off severance discussions and withdrew agreements from his mother and sister. Severance was then cut-off, without notice.
After prolonged silence, the board returned with proposed agreements that included contingencies. They offered to provide fair severance, and financial support for the new humanitarian initiative Naomi launched to serve international relief programs RZIM left vulnerable when announced they were closing Wellspring International. In exchange, Margie and Naomi would have to sign a binding legal agreement that required their silence about our experience into perpetuity. Additionally, it forbade them from reaching out to or responding to relationships we cultivated over the past forty years for any future worthy endeavors. It required Naomi’s “cooperation” in stating she submitted a resignation. If they violated the agreement, RZIM reserved the right to sue for both breach of contract and their legal fees. Margie and Naomi declined the agreements.
Accusations that anyone in Ravi’s family thought what he has been accused of was occurring are categorically false. Ongoing statements and gossip by existing board members who blame and accuse his wife are unconscionable. When no attempt has been made to speak to her or hear from her, it is difficult to surmise the basis for this conclusion. It harks back to an old school mindset to blame a man’s wife for his perceived sin, and it is wrong.
What we can tell you is that who we knew Ravi to be – across the span of our entire lives with him, within a close family, within many contexts and across many spheres – is in complete contradiction with the narrative of the report and the conclusions of RZIM’s public statements; it is logically impossible to reconcile the two.
He loved his family deeply, his grandchildren were the apples of his eye, with respect for every individual, regardless of who they might be. He was generous, gracious, and carried the heavy responsibility on his back for a ministry that had become a machine and grown beyond his vision. He believed in the truth of the Gospel. After pain, medicine, and disease took over and he was no longer in control of his faculties, it was still the Gospel he whispered through declining of stages of consciousness.
We cannot explain RZIM’s claims they did everything they could for us, that their response reflects a love they maintain they have for us and for him, or their public claims we were taken care of.
THE INVESTIGATION
We believe the premise and precedent of an investigation after someone has died is inherently flawed, unjust, dangerous, and cannot make conclusions with comprehensive certainty. RZIM leadership informed the staff that lead investigator, Lynsey Barron and the legal firm Miller & Martin, with whom they entered into a work for hire agreement, were specifically chosen for their potential bias against Ravi.
We believe this investigation was biased against him, as they said. Investigative and legal experts we have consulted with have agreed.
To our knowledge, standard procedure for the chain of custody for evidence was not followed. Investigators reportedly imposed bias in interviews and displayed aggression with interviewees who didn’t agree with the desired narrative. The interim and final report omitted credible testimony, including the perspective of trained IT and personal security detail.
It was we, his family, that released and provided his phones and laptop; it was not RZIM. We did not receive a forensic report, as requested. It took considerable effort to get the phones returned to us. We have not been able to find referenced photos and data.
When victim advocacy groups present gender bias and give specific instructions to an organization to include messaging to dehumanize the accused and his family, it calls into question their belief of what every human is worth. When consultants and accusers are recipients of multiple thousands of dollars, without a standard or threshold for evidence for the conclusions reached, the exploration for truth has a challenge to overcome. While they may disagree, granting one side money and a voice with the other silenced by death isn’t justice. Any victim of sexual violence has endured violation and tragedy. This process did not serve future victims and survivors of abuse; it promoted a system that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and disbelief. It is a broken system that makes both the accused and the accuser pawns and prey.
For these reasons, we do not believe in the integrity of this investigation and do not accept unsubstantiated conclusions stated as inerrant truth. Evidence failed to support the veracity, confidence, and extreme nature of their conclusions.
Those who cancel Ravi and purport the right to damn him cannot be certain of comprehensive truth or that the story they offered the world is the truth; they aren’t God. They accused Ravi of abusing power and tried him in the court of public opinion, when he was a man silenced by death who could not respond to any allegation made against him.
CHRISTIAN MEDIA
Christianity Today, World Magazine, and National Christian Review are among publications, bloggers, writers and leaders who made no attempt to speak to us prior to or after printing their articles with personal accusations about Ravi and us. Someone who claims to be a journalist and makes no effort to hear and present the other side is not conducting a legitimate investigation or reasonably seeking truth. A single example is provided later.
We did not receive, nor did we possess, the millions reported. An approximately $45M insurance policy received upon his death was not for his wife; RZIM was the beneficiary. Since no one else will correct this false information, we are doing so. Contrary to reports, Ravi’s estate held nothing to take. The quantity and degree of false reporting is too much to detail.
RZIM ASSOCIATES
The RZIM workplace and totality of ministry was labeled toxic by a few individuals who did not represent the whole and chose a scorched earth approach. When Ravi was alive, they sought gain from association with his respected name. Now that it has been canceled and destroyed, they still use his name to promote themselves by way of their condemnation. They do not lend voice to what was good within an organization; one that he gutted himself to build developed platforms for other voices to speak and hear the Gospel. And they give no recognition to those who believe Ravi impacted their lives and faith for profound good.
We find it hypocritical that former employees continue to take financial support today in grants from RZIM to support their personal endeavors, while they demonize Ravi and separate themselves from any public connection to him. A group of former associates walked away with multiple millions in real estate while they condemned him. They say they regret and abandon any connection to Ravi and to the ministry, but their moral superiority does not prevent them from taking and indulging in what is still provided for them as a result of his effort.
We find it ironic and incongruent when they use platforms that Ravi and RZIM built on their behalf to promote their current perspective, but fail to hold and acknowledge good that was present and extended to them and to others.
We learned that some colleague relationships we valued did not include the mutual respect and friendship we thought was there. We accept this and can find gratitude within this specific sorrow, that God removed us from something that wasn’t real. We remain grateful to God for the years he gave us alongside many we loved who shared mission for the Gospel we believe in.
THE CHURCH
The response from the mainstream evangelical church and many of its leaders is unbiblical. If we all carry essential worth, so does Ravi. If grace and redemption are real, no flawed human gets to choose who is excluded.
If women matter and should be heard, it is true for the female spouse of an accused man, too. Female accusers who are compelled to go public with their stories, yet leave a wife who is affected nameless, do not validate her humanity or call for any else to support her, promote a loss for every woman. If collectively or individually there are exceptions to any of these, the evangelical church isn’t living by the Gospel it is preaching.
We remember Ravi’s last speaking event, an open forum at the University of Miami. He was in extreme pain, thought to be caused by the worn hardware failing to support his spine. We would soon learn that the cause was both worn hardware and Stage 4 cancer.
We asked him to cancel that event, observing his pain. But the ministry told him he had to do it because people were depending on him. And so, he did, and without any pain medication because he didn’t want to risk anything affecting his ability to respond to a questioner. This is an accurate picture to describe fifty years in ministry. Now, the story arc has been changed and those who pushed him and extracted from him stand on the frontlines to condemn him.
If ministry and church leaders believe this investigation to be credible, they would do well to explore their treatment of him and others; how they used him to further their names, acclaim, pulpit, bottom line, and purposes. If they believe there is truth to the conclusions, the construct of ministry and the evangelical church is not without responsibility for the way they commodify a person in the name of ministry and push for performance beyond reasonable human limits, thresholds of pain, and requests for reprieve. Where is the care for someone, for their own sake?
But nothing is changing as they stand in self-righteous judgement, elevating themselves far above it.
Nothing has grieved us more than what has been done to our mother. If you believe the conclusions of the report, it was the loss of her entire life. If and where they are wrong, it’s the loss of her entire life. Blaming her has no basis in reality or biblical principle. It is not the claimed departure from what is damaging in patriarchy but the reinforcement of it, and it is beneath human decency.
Jordan Peterson describes betrayal in Dante’s inferno – the experience of betrayal is one rung above the devil in hell. She was planted there with no way out in this earthly life, no matter what you believe about him. The ministry, the church, and people she invested in, served, and loved her entire life – friends, colleagues, and acquaintances – walked away without a word.
AUDIO/VISUAL MATERIALS
RZIM owns the legal rights to audio and video material that contains the intellectual property of Ravi Zacharias while he was employed by RZIM. They released personal IP rights to other associates for their content but have withheld Ravi’s.
When they announced they would no longer make his material available, we initiated the request to acquire the rights to use the material. For two and a half years, we have attempted to do so. We asked RZIM to reconsider their decision to remove the option of personal choice for an individual to access his material or not. We expressed our desire to obtain the rights if they were not going to do so.
We reached an impasse in October 2023 when RZIM agreed to transfer temporary and limited rights if we agreed to contingencies, including surrendering our freedom to speak. We declined.
RZIM has possession of some of Ravi’s material that pre-dates RZIM. We have repeatedly requested that they return it; they remain silent.
DOCUMENTS
We are making two documents available for those seeking to understand aspects of the colossal destructive chaos referred to as an investigation into the life of a man who had died, and had no voice of his own and has been further silenced by those who claim every voice matters.
The first document is an email sent confidentially by Naomi to Pastor Sam Allberry, a former RZIM associate and the person who pastorally buried our husband and father in a private and intimate family graveyard burial. The email is dated January 27, 2021. Sam gave it to writer, David French, and together they used his media platform to take something written in confidence from a woman to a pastoral figure, remove context and manipulate a partial thought to paint a picture he wanted to paint.
French presented his misquote as a toxic demand for loyalty to her father, as seen below in this screenshot taken from his piece in The Dispatch.
However, the sentence that followed, had he not cut off her words, specifically states the opposite. Sam did not honor the confidence requested, nor did he respond – both are his prerogative. But as a Christian leader, what he did with it was dishonest and harmful. It contradicts truth and transparency he claims to uphold. We share the original letter now as a single example in a plethora of misrepresentation, dishonesty, self-serving judgements, and discarding of truth and human beings by Christian leadership and journalism that shouldn’t be tolerated.
For context, Ms. Barron’s interim report had been publicly released one month prior to Naomi’s letter; we had not seen evidence or the final report. At this time, Naomi assumed what had been declared as indisputable truth held indisputable evidence and truth; we would later learn this wasn’t the case. The RZIM Board and some of its leaders claimed Naomi and Margie couldn’t be dealt with because they refused to consider the possibility and reality presented to them; this letter indicates that was not the case, either. Our current conclusions are based, not on a refusal to consider a reality we don’t want to accept, but the absence of evidence, and a process that revealed it was not a search for truth.
The letter to Sam can be viewed here.
The second letter attached was sent to the RZIM Board of Directors on October 27, 2023. It is our response to their recent decision to grant (temporary) rights to his material if we agreed to their contingencies. These contingencies were applied at the final stage of the process after requests from the board representative and our mutual agreement to keep this matter separate from our personal disagreements over their actions. Their contingencies were followed by this statement: “We very much hope that our agreement will be forthcoming and your use of this material to continue to present God’s truth, through Ravi’s voice and likeness, will bear much fruit.” The attached document was our reply. None of the board members have responded.
If his material is God’s truth, and will bear fruit, why do they make it inaccessible? Why add personal contingencies, irrelevant to the truth and purposefulness of the material? It has been confusing and whether intended or not, with the history of our communication with them over the course of nearly three years, a mental game we discontinued.
There is a disparity between their private and public claims. There is a disparity between their claims and actions. There has been no attempt to acknowledge decisions that were abandonment and brought pain. The attachment details multiple attempts to communicate during the process, each one met with silence.
The letter to the Board can be viewed here.
We do want to make it clear that while our words are strong and our disagreements deep, we in no way intend to convey these are “bad men.” God has used them in many lives and we believe He will continue to. But we are grieved by their decisions and do not understand their silence and actions.
CONCLUSION
This statement scratches the surface of what the last three years have held. It is impossible to address it completely.
What is devastatingly and frighteningly wrong about this process extends beyond our husband and father and any personal impact on us. The rules and conduct of this investigation paved the way in future cases for the innocent to be as vulnerable to condemnation as the guilty.
The collateral damage in lives, families, and even missions is immeasurable.
These are our conclusions. We share this because it is what happened and if there is even one person it serves to hear it, it is here for them. Our focus now is rebuilding our lives in safe environments to care for our young children and grandchildren. We leave the battle and the outcome of this larger story in the hands of the One who holds all truth.
Margaret Zacharias
Naomi Zacharias Zumback
Nathan Zacharias
DEFENDING RAVI 