(RNS) — Ravi Zacharias summed up Ruth Malhotra ’s job in two short sentences.
“I do all the wrong things — and she makes them look right.”
The legendary evangelist was speaking to staff in February 2018 at his ministry’s Atlanta headquarters, not long after he’d settled a lawsuit with Lori Anne Thompson, who had accused Zacharias of spiritual abuse and sexting.
He and other leaders at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries assured the staff that Zacharias had done nothing wrong. Malhotra, RZIM’s spokesperson, was charged with promoting that message.
At the time, Malhotra thought her former boss was joking.
Over the next three years, she’d learn how true Zacharias’ words were. And just how much wrongdoing she and other staff members had been asked to cover up.
Within a few months of his death in May 2020, several massage therapists at an Atlanta-area spa he co-owned came forward, alleging that Zacharias had repeatedly demanded sexual favors. A subsequent investigation found a long-term pattern of sexual misconduct, and Zacharias went from being a beloved, sainted figure mourned by celebrity pastors and politicians to a posthumous pariah.
Rather than quit, Malhotra was determined to help make things right for survivors of Zacharias’ abuse. Her best efforts, she now says, were frustrated by Zacharias’ team.
When she raised questions about how the ministry handled allegations against Zacharias, Malhotra said, she was accused of being mentally unstable. When she went public with her concerns, she was labeled as disloyal. In July, Malhotra drove to the ministry’s offices and waited outside as RZIM staff brought out her belongings, since she was no longer allowed in the building.
“I feel the way you feel when someone you love passes away,” she told Religion News Service. “It’s that same type of grief.”
A Call From God
Zacharias, a Christian convert who was born in India and later settled in the United States, had been part of Malhotra’s life since she began attending the same school that Zacharias’ children went to. She looked up to “Mr. Ravi,” she said.
From an early age, she had an interest in Christian ministry and conservative politics. At Georgia Tech, she joined a Republican student group and often found herself at odds with other students and campus leaders. With a fellow student she sued the school, arguing its policies violated their free speech and religious expression rights.
