Welcome to Defender’s Voice. This is Dr.Paul. Thank you for joining us today. Please send me your questions to info@doctorpaul.org. Visit our website www.doctorpaul.org to subscribe to our podcast. Today’s question is, Do you believe Abdu Murray’s response? You see, this is a question and answer channel. I give my opinions on the questions you ask. You may not like what I say. If you don’t agree with me on any topic, please send me the evidence. If you don’t agree with me on a scriptural issue, please quote the relevant scripture. Not only will I change my position, I will publish it on my channel. This channel is about truth and evidence. If you don’t agree with what I say, that is perfectly fine with me, but always support your claims with evidence. Coming to today’s question, You can watch Abdu Murray finally opening his mouth in the aftermath of Ravi Zacharias scandal.
Let us go to the truth of the matter. First, read Ruth Malhotra’s letter. She wrote that letter on February 6, 2021. I gave the link to it below. In that letter, she gave us a damning portrait of Abdu Murray. It is 26 pages and she gives us an insider view of what happened behind the screens. She wrote that Abdu Murray suggested threatening the witnesses using an ex-cop. She told the same thing to David French. I also gave that link to his website the The Dispatch. So, if you read Ruth Malhotra’s letter and watch Abdu Murray’s interview, you have to conclude that one of them must be lying. Abdu Murray or Ruth Malhotra: who is lying? It reminds us of Ravi and Lori. Ravi said, ‘don’t trust that woman’. Now, Abdu says, ‘don’t trust that woman’. History is repeating again.
Last night, Steve Baughman sent me a copy of the email sent by Abdu to Ravi Zacharias. Check that link also. It shows that Abdu was fawning to Ravi and never had an open mind on these matters.
Coming to Ruth Malhotra’s letter, she says, ‘Ravi was also obsessed with blogger Steve Baughman, using him as a convenient scapegoat anytime he saw or received something unfavorable about his own actions’.
Ravi invited Steve Baughman to dinner. He took Abdu Murray to that dinner. You can watch my interview with Steve Baughman. I asked him who was there in that dinner beside you and Ravi? Steve Baughman said there was Abdu Murray. Steve also says that Ravi scared him with his behavior and words. Abdu should have asked Ravi, ‘Ravi, why are you scaring him? He is asking you fair questions. This is not Christian behavior. This is not how a Christian talks to others’. Abdu had a great opportunity to rebuke Ravi at that moment. But he did not do it. From 2015 to until Ravi’s death on May 19, 2020, Abdu was around Ravi as individuals like Steve Baughman, Lorri Anne Thompson and Shirley Steward cried out for truth and transparency. Yet, Abdu did not take them seriously.
(May 21, 2021) Over the weekend, I asked Steve Baughman, when did you have your dinner with Ravi and Abdu? He wrote me back, “November 27, 2017”
November 27, 2017….that’s an important date. The day Ravi and Abdu had dinner with Steve Baughman. Something else happened on the same day.
Listen to Ruth Malhotra,
“On November 27, 2017, Ravi asked me to post a lengthy blog he had written for the RZIM website. In that blog, titled “Enough is Enough,” Ravi claimed:
“[Baughman] is smooth talking, seduces people into believing he is merely asking questions for his research. Then manipulates them into statements they never intended to make. He sugarcoats his view of them making them feel really admired so that he can co opt them to go after me.
They supposedly want to make wrongs right and blatantly do it in the wrongest possible way. I thought I came from a shame inflicting culture. Modern day America is making the culture of my youth look like amateurs at that skill.. These are the real bullies of our time These bloggers who sit in front of their computer as predators would have had a hay day taking down Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and David and Peter and maybe the Lord himself. The Grand inquisitors are most often in religious robes. Inquisitors always take selective statements to pollute the whole reality and do harm with redacted and edited texts. Their number is legion. They are the Sanballats and Tobiah’s of the day. They wish to destroy the efforts of those who build, and mock them. I’ve had enough of them. I have waited long enough to respond. We will fight them on every lie.”
Clearly, if you read these words, Ravi was irritated to the nth degree. What is he talking about? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Peter, Grand Inquisitor? He was trying to show this as a malevolent conspiracy. Anyone with common sense could look through that sophistry and word salad. Ruth Mahotra writes, “The senior leadership never appeared to confront Ravi about his claims regarding Baughman, and instead they often amplified such claims.”
She is right. Not only Abdu Murray and other leaders at RZIM did not bother to confront Ravi, but they actually amplified his claims. Read that letter Nathan posted on his website. It was written by Abdu to Ravi Zacharias. It was dated November 24,2017.
“Dear Ravi, the past few days may have been trying for you with Christians seemingly eager to jump onto the side of Mr.Baughman’s misrepresentations. I’ve never been one to over-spiritualized things by blaming Satan for every adversity we might face in life or even ministry in specific. But what I’ve seen in the past few months has me thoroughly convinced that spiritual forces are aligning to try to slow your effectiveness or even stifle it altogether. The reason? Because more people than ever, those with global influence and those whose influence goes no further than their immediate families, are coming to know the Lord through your ministry.
And so, strangely, maybe you can take solace in the fact that you’re under unfair scrutiny and subject to slander because God is using you perhaps more effectively than ever in your decades-long ministry”
So, Abdu wrote a letter to Ravi on November 24, 2017 – 3 days before their dinner with Steve Baughman. It gives us a glimpse of Abdu’s mindset.
“Ravi, the past few days may have been trying for you with Christians seemingly eager to jump onto the side of Mr.Baughman’s misrepresentations”……Abdu knew the situation. Ravi is in hot water. He already made the diagnosis. Mr.Baughman is misrepresenting you. Then he used the classic Christian excuse: Blame the devil. If you are in trouble, blame Satan. This is as old as the Garden of Eden. You know Ravi, why is this happening to you? Satan is angry because you are so influential for the Lord. Abdu continues, “Ravi, you’re under unfair scrutiny and subject to slander because God is using you”
So, three days before their dinner, Abdu puffed up Ravi with so much praise and compliments. He was currying favor with Ravi with flattery and adulation. Ravi received this email from Abdu and thought in his heart, ‘Who is the best person in my organization to take with me to dinner with this foul attorney Steve?’, ‘I will go with Abdu because he clearly took my side. He called this whole charade Satanic, unfair and slanderous’.
On that fateful day, Ravi was having dinner with two attorneys. One is Steve Baughman, who is prosecuting him and the other is Abdu Murray, who is defending him.
Abdu Murray rose very fast within RZIM from speaker to leader to North American team to general counsel to Executive Vice President to right hand man to Ravi. His profile rose very quickly within two years from 2015 to 2017. Abdu did not want to jeopardize any of it by confronting Ravi with the truth.
Ravi gives lucrative jobs, lucrative book deals, popularity, fame and speaking opportunities. It was not easy to lose those luxuries and take a stand for the victims. He was willfully ignorant to Ravi’s lies because confronting Ravi with truth would jeopardize his position in RZIM.In his interview, Abdu did not confess his own selfishness for not speaking up to Ravi. He rather blamed Ravi. ‘Ravi fooled me, Ravi lied to me, Ravi misled me’.
The first step in repentance is to recognize our own selfishness. Our own selfishness makes us keep quiet when we see abuse. We should get rid of our selfishness, we should overcome our selfishness. Then only can we speak the truth to authorities. Then only can we do justice to the victims.
Ruth Malhotra wrote that Abdu talked about intimidating the witnesses. But Abdu said he never did such a thing. Who is telling the truth? Ruth Malhotra or Abdu Murray? Ravi said, I told you the truth, Lori was lying. Is Abdu going the same route? ;I told you the truth, and Ruth was lying’. I sent a message to Ruth to respond. If she responds, I will give you an update tomorrow. So, let us meet tomorrow.
Please subscribe to our channel. Leave your comments. As I said, if you have evidence, you can always correct me. Thank you. God bless you.
References:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UsmGx0KFQaSDznIpyMgXjeVGV3OD-zEKptrrZrvoWPo/edit
https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/you-are-one-step-away-from-complete
