Ravi Zacharias Pressured Me to Get an Abortion

The Roys Report

Julie Roys

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Christianity

4.6 • 714 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Show Transcript Today, she’s a retired police officer with 34 years of distinguished service. But in 1974, she was a scared, pregnant teenager. And she says Ravi Zacharias pressured her to get an abortion. On this edition of The Roys Report, Julie speaks with Shirley Steward, who says when she was 17, she became pregnant with the child of Ravi Zacharias’ younger brother, Ramesh Zacharias.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, she's a retired Ontario police officer with 34 years of distinguished service, but in
0:10.6	1974, she was a scared, pregnant teenager, and she says Ravi Zacharias pressured her to get an abortion.
0:18.9	Welcome to the Roy's report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth
0:22.4	and restoring the church. I'm Julie Roy's. And today we're going to be discussing a tragic
0:27.8	story that happened nearly 50 years ago. It involves a woman named Shirley Stewart, who was dating
0:33.3	Ramay's Zacharias, Ravi Zacharias's brother. The two were sexually active, and as often happens in
0:39.9	these situations, Shirley got pregnant. And what happened next is absolutely heartbreaking.
0:47.1	According to Shirley, she and Ramesh went to Ravi Zacharias for advice. Ravi was an up-and-coming
0:51.9	preacher at the time, and Ramesh was his younger brother.
0:55.7	Shirley attended the church, where Ravi would often come and speak, and both she and Ramesh,
0:59.8	looked up to Ravi. But Shirley says the advice Ravi gave was not only shocking, it led to the
1:06.0	death of her unborn child, and it's affected the of Shirley Stewart's life. I read Shirley's account
1:12.9	about a year ago. It was published at a blog called the Spiritual Sounding Board and it ravaged me.
1:17.7	Just totally broke my heart. But I know many people will say, why hear this story now? What good can it do?
1:24.1	Ravi's gone. I understand these objections. I do. But I also feel a great deal of
1:29.9	compassion for all the women who have been victimized by Ravi Zacharias. Also, if Ravi's
1:35.6	predatory behavior was just an anomaly, maybe we could just move on. But friends, it's not.
1:41.4	We have scores of Christian leaders praying on the vulnerable, and it's not okay. And it's not going to have scores of Christian leaders praying on the vulnerable and it's not okay.
1:46.0	And it's not going to stop until the Christian community listens to the victims and begins
1:51.1	to develop compassion for the victims and begins to understand the behavior of these wolves
1:56.5	in sheep's clothing. Another reason I wanted to record a podcast with Shirley is because I want you to
2:02.0	hear from her directly. I often say there's a credibility in victim's voices. You can tell
	...

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