Ravi Zacharias

Ravi I have personally found, is not only a intense apologist, but a rather eloquent and plain spoken speaker. Now heres a little history about Ravi I found on Wikipedia: "Ravi Zacharias (full name Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias, born 1946) is an Indian-born, Canadian-American evangelical Christian philosopher,apologist and evangelist. Zacharias is a descendant of two rich religious traditions,first Hindu priests (of the Nambudiri Brahmin caste), and later as Christian ministers. In one of his lectures, Zacharias asserts that a Swiss-German priest spoke to one of his ancestors about Christianity, and thereafter that branch of the family was converted and the family name was changed from Nambudiri to Zacharias. The biography Zacharias offers about himself is that he grew up in a nominally Anglican household, and was an atheist until the age of 21, when he unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide by swallowing poison. According to one of his books (Cries of the Heart), someone instructed his mother to read out the Gospel of John to him as he lay on a hospital bed in Delhi. Following that, he made the decision to become a Christian. He began preaching while still in his teens, and in 1974, shortly before the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, he was sent there to minister to the people in the country. He was also sent to Vietnam during the Vietnam War to minister to U.S. soldiers." My reason for discussing Ravi Zacharias: I went to his discussion this past Thursday and he spoke on Heaven, Hell and Middle Ground. Basically he proved that there is no middle ground therefore meaning there must be a heaven and a hell. What he failed to prove in his discussion on Thursday night, to those who were unbelievers was there is actually a God in the first place. And why we are in need of a God, also failed to prove to unbelievers that we in and of ourselves are fallen wicked men. Although he believes these, he failed to communicate as to why he believes them and how he got to that state. I guess that would have taken far too long for him to discuss with us...but yeah he also touched on Plurization and Secularization and that as a society in America we have adopted to these methods of thinking. That everything is subjective. And everything is truth and not truth it strictly depends on those who hear it, and how they interpret things individually. The result of Pluralization, as Ravi defined it, is a society without reason, without the capability to have "thought", because everything is subjective to ones own beliefs, and the result of a Secularized society is a world without shame, no morality, no either or's with "right" or "wrong" it would be Both right and wrong, never having a distinguished view between the two. I greatly appreciated his thoughts on the matter of Pluralization and Secularization, for I believe this is something we desperately needed to hear again in the great city of Athens, Georgia. Being in the midst of a University, a public liberal college mind you, we easily have adapted to these "taught ways of life". And as a believer in the midst of this Pluralized Secular State, we can be easily led astray into our countries "cultural" mindset, "Do what feels good, according to your own standards of morality". If we each have our own standards of "morality" and each differ from one another than we have no morality to begin with. This is what Ravi was speaking about having no shame. We have no shame when in this state because everything is set according to our own interpretation of morality. How his teaching specifically applies to me: I think I can drift towards the secular mindset of: "truth is subjective to what I believe" I'm more prone to think this way in the midst of correction, i.e. from parents, of from Chris. Thinking thoughts like "Well thats good for you to bring me these corrections which you believe by your own standards are truth ( which indeed they are truth considering they try to base their observations on the Word of God ), but at this present moment I don't want to believe that this is truth, infact your "truth" differs greatly from mine. So whats the point in listening, or taking in your observations to heart?" Sadly this responce is my pride and although I do not think these thoughts nearly as much as i have in the past it is still a struggle to think with this mindset.