Social Network or Social Minefield?

Contributed the following article to the APRIL-MAY 'Combined' issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

Very early in my childhood, I learned that man is a ‘social animal’. I remember a teacher driving this indelibly into our minds in the morning assembly one day, “No man is an island”. I did not understand its full import then. Over time however, I have come to understand that we need one another and that communication is key to both express and fulfill this need.

 

Man has always had the urge to connect with dear ones. Before telephones became common place towards the close of the 20th century, all long-distance communication was through postal mail with a minimum turn-around of 6 working days. However, convergence of Information Technology and Telecommunication Systems over the last decade, have made it easier now for people using different forms of communication to interconnect. It was first the explosion of email and pagers. Slowly online chat replaced emails and increased comfort with SMS and the proliferation of mobile handsets and cheaper service plans made pagers altogether obsolete. Bottom line is that communication has become faster and cheaper.

 

It is true that modern communication technologies have reduced the wait time for responses. They have also helped loved ones stay in touch with each other anytime, anywhere and removed lot of anxiety about each other’s safety and well-being from their hearts. However it has also led to unnecessary communication that just fills time. Even without a need to communicate, people indulge in empty chatter to just kill time and avoid boredom. Time that could otherwise have been used in more profitable activities and boredom that could have been overcome in meaningful ways are now being handled through casual communication with acquaintances and even strangers. Modern technology has left more time at people’s disposal and Social Networking has attracted a great number of such folks.

 

Social Networking provides the power to easily locate, connect with and communicate ideas to like-minded people. A positive outcome has been collaborative learning. Students in some institutions submit assignments on a Social Networking platform. In some other, students are asked to post summaries of the classes they attended, so those who missed classes can update themselves by reading them. Alumni groups on Social Networking sites have helped students decide on Colleges, Careers, etc., based on inputs from students who had passed out earlier. Students have even got Question papers from previous years uploaded so that they are useful for future students when preparing for various examinations.

 

Social Minefield:

 

However it needs to be stated that it is a minefield that can destroy lives. A Research team in the U.S. had found students’ concentration to lapse within just 15 minutes of study, because of the urge to check their Facebook page almost every third minute. Spending too much time on Social Networking sites can lead one to “narcissistic tendencies” – excessive self-love and fascination with oneself. Analysts following cultural trends had said of Television half-a-century ago, that it was transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business. This is even truer of Social Network with its potential to accommodate millions on stage compared to the hundreds or thousands that are accommodated on Television screens. It produces a vain behavior where one is trying to show off all the time. It has the potential to make users more prone to aggressive and anti-social behavior too. It can also cause in users bouts of anxiety, depression and sleeping problems.

 

Neil Postman had said in his 1985 book ‘Amusing ourselves to death’, “When I hear people talk about the information super highway, that it will become possible to shop at home, and bank at home, and get your texts at home, and get your entertainment at home, I often wonder if this doesn't signify the end of any community life.” This indeed has come true. It is removing all elements of community living and driving individuals into a closet, and this is happening from very young age. Youth are wasting time not using it to go out and play or interact with others.

 

Worse still, man's almost infinite appetite for distractions is hurtling him to his downfall today. Today’s world is controlling him by inflicting pleasure. If they are not wary, they could be drawn to inappropriate content on the internet and become slaves for live. Neil Postman had recalled how correctly Huxley had foreseen what was coming. Huxley had more than 50 years ago dismissed fears that people in power would ban books, deprive people of information, conceal truth and make the masses captive. He rather feared that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one; that people in power would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism; that truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance; and that the masses would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some form of illicit pleasure. In short, he feared that what we love will ruin us. When one looks at the preoccupation of today’s world with Social Networking and how it is being used, Huxley’s words have chillingly become true.

 

In Closing:

 

“When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony. Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive”, says Proverbs 23:1-3. A popular Indian saying likewise advises us to emulate the proverbial goose that separates the milk from water before consuming. It would be wise to exercise such discretion and be extremely careful about what we consume on Social Networking sites. Let us follow the example of Daniel who resolved not to defile himself with wine from the King’s table and stay healthy with the vegetables from his kitchen.

World's Greatest LOVE story

Contributed the following article to the February 2012 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

 

Romance has been fantasized across centuries.  Anyone who is in love feels that he has obtained the ultimate. He cares about nothing other than being with the one he is in love with.  He often forgoes food to be on time where his ‘love’ is expected to be, foregoes sleep thinking about all the ‘sweet little nothings’ that they exchanged over their last meeting and conjuring what he should speak when they meet again, and often forgoes a lot of his duties, be it at the workplace or school, and at home.  On the other hand, most people who have never fallen in love wonder if ever such a ‘love relationship’ will come their way.  That is one reason why masses throng to watch love stories in theatres, to vicariously experience ‘love’, although in the lives of a strange couple and that too fictitious.

Anyone who is bugged by romantic love forgets that he too had been born a baby someday, had longed for the loving attention of his parents and then wanted the joyful company of friends as he began to spend more time away from home since going to school.  Just as with romance, only some have got to experience the love of their parents and friends, while for others it had always been a ‘Mirage’ - a dream that never materialized.  Often children born to working couples, envy their friend who is received at home by his mom and entertained with an evening snack.

Most of us grow past our longings for love from parents, friends and even the romantic love and desire the mature love of a spouse.  Love of someone who is not always in awe of your charm and strength, but who loves you despite your shortcomings.  Someone who accepts you as you are and for who you are.  Experience is not the same in the marital landscape too.  Some come across as ideal couples, always proud of the other and always nice to the other.  However, most couples struggle to get along in their private lives, even when signs of strain do not show up outside.  There is a silent longing if this is what married life is all about.

LOVER PAR EXCELLENCE

Whatever your age is and your experience has been in your childhood, growing years, adolescence and adult life, you need to know that there is one who has always loved you.  He has loved you more dearly than a parent, longed to have a relationship more eager than a doting lover, and ever willing to support you several times over the most understanding spouse.

He is the God about whom it is said that he is LOVE personified.  Though we will not understand Trinity on this side of glory, we can see that there is love and community in the Godhead from eternity to eternity.  After the last supper on his way to Gethsemane Jesus makes these astounding statements while he prays.  He prays that “all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21).  He tells the Father, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22,23).  At the beginning, before He created earth and put man on it, we see that God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen 1:26).  We see of the Son of God harking back to the creation time, “Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him” (Prov 8:30).  Jesus is spoken of as the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the father (John 1:18, KJV).

This God who is Love, Joy and self-sufficient, decided to create man and love him as a Father, as a doting lover, and as his Husband.  He has across time spoken to man in endearing terms.  In Moses’ time, about 15 centuries before Christ, we see him talking to the Israelites, “There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

During Hosea’s time, about 7 centuries before Christ, he said of his people, “I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. . . In that day, you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.”  During Ezekiel’s time, while Judah had walked away from God and was in captivity in Babylon, he reminisced, “I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, and you became mine. . . I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry” (Eze 16:8, 10, 11)

This love for man cost him everything.  We see that Jesus Christ who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Phil 2:6,7).  The Lord washed the feet of his disciples; the Master washed the feet of his servants.  As a matter of fact, He said that He no longer called them servants, “because a servant does not know his master’s business.” Instead, He called them friends, for everything that He learned from His Father He had made known to them. (John 17:14, 15).  We find that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich (II Cor 8:9).  To be reunited in fellowship with his Creation, he chose the path of humiliation on the cross.   Sin is real and a just God had to rightly deal with it.  Ahead of walking to the cross, He laid open his heart to show man the full extent of his love (John 13:1).  He declared his love, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit” (John 15:13, 16).  He cried at the thought of separation from God, and had to walk alone through that valley, so you and I do not have to be strangers to God and feel the pangs of separation.

CONSTANT COMPANION

The Lord who lives in unapproachable light whom no man can see (I Tim 6:16), who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens (Heb 7:26), had to himself make us holy so he can live inside us and make our bodies his temple.  The Lord who rent the heavens to come down to walk alongside man, yearns to live inside of us, even as much as anyone who understands the glory of having him on his side yearns for such fellowship.

On the eve of crucifixion, he told such men who were crest-fallen about his impending departure, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. . .  I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him . . . we will come to him and make our home with him. . . The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 13:33; 14:16-21, 23, 26)

“I am going away and I am coming back to you. . . It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment . . . a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me. . . Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 14:28; 16:7,8, 16, 22)”

TODAY, HE LIVES THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT INSIDE ANYONE WHO IS WILLING TO ACCEPT HIS LOVE.  WILL YOU INVITE HIM TO COME INSIDE YOU AND BRING HIS JOY AND PEACE TO FILL YOUR HEART?

Social Networking: Youth's boon or bane

Contributed the following article to a Magazine's January 2012 issue . . .

thinking aloud what should be one's New Year resolution with regard to Social Networking,

particularly for someone in their budding years - in school or in college.

 

 

Man has always had the need to connect with dear ones.  Until less than a quarter of a century ago, people had to wait for atleast a week, for receiving a response from a loved one after writing to him or her, when one of them did not have a phone.  However in the last 15 years, communication has made rapid strides in the form of email and then mobile phone.   More recently, increased comfort with online chat and SMS have made communication using the newer forms cheaper too.  To add to that, convergence of Information Technology and Telecommunication Systems have also made it easier for people using different forms of communication to interconnect.

While reducing the wait time for responses and removing the anxiety when a loved one’s safety had to be confirmed, it has also given rise to a lot of superfluous communication.  Even without a great need to communicate, people have resorted to empty chatter to kill time and avoid boredom. Thus time that could otherwise have been used in more profitable activities and boredom that could have been overcome in meaningful ways are now being handled through casual communication with acquaintances and even strangers.  Social Networking has attracted a great number of folks who have the time and feel bored.

Before we see what good or evil has come out of Social Networking, let us first see in what form it exists today.  Blogs, Microblogs like Twitter and Social Sites like Facebook, MySpace and Orkut, all fill the Social networking landscape.  Blogs let people communicate their ideas with others over internet in the form of short essays or through pictures and video shots.  Microblogs are for those who want to communicate ideas but are either not comfortable penning essays or do not have the time to do so.   A microblog is a statement you make in a few sentences not exceeding 140 characters.  Sites like facebook do not restrict you and let you communicate through short status updates (similar to microblog), or links to essays or photographs on some site.

In the eighties, TV was the favourite pastime; in the late nineties, it was web-surfing and now in the twenty-first century, it is Social Networking.  Myspace that was launched in August 2003 has 30 million users.  Orkut that was launched in January 2004 by Google, currently has over 66 million active users worldwide.  The most successful of these is Facebook that has more than 800 million active users. It had opened to general public only in September 2006 after having been launched 2 years earlier for the student community in Boston, US.  Twitter has 300 million users today, having been launched in July 2006.

Social Networking indeed allows one to easily locate, connect with and communicate ideas to like-minded people.  Certainly, this has made collaborative learning a greater possibility.  For example, students in some institutions submit assignments on a Social Networking platform.  In some other, students are asked to post summaries of the classes they attended, so those who missed classes can update themselves by reading them.  Alumni groups on Social Networking sites have helped students decide on Colleges, Careers, etc., based on inputs from students who had passed out earlier.  Students have even got Question papers from previous years uploaded so that they are useful for future students when preparing for various examinations.  But the question is what proportion of time is spent on such useful stuff and how many young people restrict themselves to productive activities.

Psychology professor Larry Rosen of the California State University, in a speech titled “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids” has warned of several negative outcome.  Her Research team had found the students’ concentration to lapse within just 15 minutes of study, because of the need to check their Facebook page almost every third minute.  Such students are also likely to have behavioural problems and “narcissistic tendencies” from spending too much time logged on to such sites.  The negative effects include making students more prone to vain, aggressive and anti-social behaviour.   According to their study, children under 13 who overuse social sites on a daily basis are also more likely to be prone to bouts of anxiety, depression, sleeping problems and stomach aches.

 “If you find honey, eat just enough --too much of it and you will vomit”, says Proverbs  25:15  We also have a Tamil saying that reads ‘In excess, even honey becomes poisonous’.   Even so, irrespective of all the good that can come out of Social Networking, it becomes a bane when it is used in addictive proportion.  On this New Year’s eve, let us resolve to live by guidelines about when we would get on to Social Networking sites and how long we would stay online.  Let us be wary about Social Networking being a good servant but a bad master.

Video & Online Gaming: Refresher or a Distraction?

Contributed the following article to the November 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

Entertainment is supposedly a leisure time activity, to provide some diversion from the monotony of work.  You will be familiar with the adage “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”  In fact, God gave man Sabbath so he is able to turn from six days of hard work and rest on the seventh day.  Sabbath was intended to be a renewing, rejuvenating experience for him, resting from hard labor and enjoying fellowship with his creator.  At thy right hand, there are pleasures for evermore, says the Psalmist (Psalms 16:11).

The good Lord who provided Adam and Eve with the fruits of the different trees that man could enjoy has also provided man with good diversions.  Reading is one and physical activity is another – one stimulating the mind and the other toning the body.  Pure pleasure brings one within the reach of God’s voice.  C.S.Lewis in his satire ‘The Screwtape Letters’, has Screwtape (senior devil) chastising Wormwood (junior devil) for failing to keep the patient (Christian) from crossing over to the Enemy’s (God’s) camp, as follows.  “You first of all allowed the patient to read a book he really enjoyed, because he enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks about it to his new friends.  In the second place, you allowed him to walk down to the old mill and have tea there – a walk through country he really likes, and taken alone.  In other words you allowed him two real positive Pleasures.  Were you so ignorant as not to see the danger of this?”

Pleasure is God’s gift to man.  We again have this insight in the following words put into the mouth of Screwtape. “Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on Enemy’s ground.  I know we have won many a soul through pleasure.  All the same, it is His invention, not ours.  He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.  All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence, we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable.  An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.”

For most folks, pleasure and entertainment go hand in hand.  People entertain themselves by catering to their senses. There are those that are outright recognized as evil and most people have no problem calling them so.  However, when it comes to modes of entertainment that appear to be harmless or that have both goodness and evil to offer, we are often not sure how to deal with them. Movies were a popular entertainment for the masses right from the turn of the 20th century until it was superseded by Television by the middle of the century. By 1962, 90% of U.S. households had a television set.  In India, television sales picked up in early eighties when Doordarshan introduced color telecasting and rapidly installed transmitters nationwide to coincide with the 1982 Asian Games.

The Television set came to be called the Idiot box, because people idled and idiotised themselves in front of it, for long hours.  Once entertainment was used to pass leisure time but slowly it became the default way to fill time so much so that it started eating into productive time.  While children before the eighties had good diversions like outdoor games, the TV got them glued indoors, making a fool of themselves in front of the box.  The latest to join this string of technological advancements to produce pleasure is the Electronic Game system. In 2000, Sony estimated that one out of every four households in the United States had a Sony PlayStation. Since then the numbers have only increased, with systems like the Nintendo Wii luring the casual gamer.

Electronic games have been around since the early 1970s.  Initially they were available on huge Coin-operated devices inside Game Arcades.  Some might remember the game ‘Space Invaders’.  Very soon their poor cousins comprising a hand-held console that could be plugged to Television, producing simple graphics and requiring custom plastic overlays to be taped on the TV screen, became available.  In mid-eighties, full-fledged Home Video Game consoles with high quality display and choice of games through pluggable cartridges, became available.  By mid-nineties, games became available on mobile phones.  All along, games that were originally developed for Arcade or Home Video Game system were also available for PCs through porting and subsequently they were also developed specifically for the computers.

Eminent neurologist Baroness Susan Greenfield told attendees at a Dorset conference that although certain technologies can encourage creativity, overall the effects are negative stemming from an unhealthy addiction to technology.  She was the Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain between 1998 and 2010 – the oldest independent Research body in the world.  In her speech ‘The Future of the Brain and The Brain of the Future’, she said “Screen technologies cause high arousal which in turn activates the brain system's underlying addiction. This results in the attraction of yet more screen-based activity.  Connections in the brain can be temporarily disabled by activities with a strong sensory content - effectively 'blowing the mind'. Or they can be inactivated permanently by degeneration - i.e. dementia. Other symptoms could include shortened attention span and a tendency for reckless behavior.”

Professor Mark Griffiths, a psychologist and Director of Nottingham Trent University’s International Gaming Research Unit, while disagreeing on overall effect being negative, acknowledges that when played to excess, video game playing can in some extreme cases be addictive, especially online video game playing where the game never pauses or ends, and has the potential to be a 24/7 activity.

With the turn of the twenty first century, advanced technologies such as online gaming over internet, use of motion as input, Infra Red tracking and support for wireless controllers, have come to be employed. This allows people to play virtual Tennis wielding wireless controllers strapped to wrist or held in the palm – not on real court outside but through a simulation indoor.  Susan Greenfield is worried that spending time online gaming could pose problems for millions of youngsters.  “There is a need to be outside, to climb trees and feel the grass under your feet and in your face.”  Experts opine that overuse injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis, and tendonitis once reserved for long-time computer users could impact these youngsters.  They also fail to develop socialization skills as long hours of being caught up with video games leave no desire for one-on-one human company.  This is normally accompanied by a decline in verbal memory performance.  In the case of children, loss of physical activity and excessive eating that accompanies gaming often lead to obesity and neglect of studies leads to drop in academic performance.

Most importantly, the Home Video Game consoles tend to suck individuals into addiction.  Such an addiction leads to gross wastage of precious time, distracting the individual from life’s greater purpose.  John Wesley’ mother Susanna Wesley had cautioned her young son against anything that took off his relish of spiritual things.  God asked Gideon who was leading an army of 10,000 for battling the Medianites to separate out folks who cupped water in their hands and lapped it up like a dog while stopping at a river for a drink, and send away the rest.  These were folks who kept an eye for potential approach of the enemy unlike those who were distracted from their purpose, being immersed in water literally while quenching their thirst.  Any pleasure to be legitimate must refresh us without distracting us from, diminishing or destroying our final goal.

Ravi Zacharias: "FAITH is NOT ANTI-THETICAL to REASON"

Contributed the following article to the October 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

Ravi Zacharias, international Speaker and Author, has been goaded by the thought that much of evangelism was geared towards the unhappy pagan. “What about the happy pagan, who had no qualms about his life?” That gave him a vision to equip evangelist-apologists who would reach out to the educated.  In 1984, with the sponsorship of a couple who God brought into contact in an amazing way, he founded the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Over more than a quarter of a century, he has been travelling to several nations and speaking to various kinds of audience – Communist officials, Students, Religionists, avowed atheists, Thinkers and Seekers.

In 1990, he took a sabbatical and that turned him into a writer.  Since then, he has written more than 25 books.  A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism, Can Man Live Without God?, Deliver Us From Evil, Cries of the Heart, Light in the Shadow of Jihad: The Struggle For Truth,  Recapture the Wonder, The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives, Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend, The End of Reason: A response to Atheists, Has Christianity Failed You? and Why Jesus? Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality are some of them.  Jesus among Other Gods, The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha, Sense and Sensuality: Jesus Talks with Oscar Wilde, The Lamb and the Fuhrer: Jesus Talks wth Hitler, New Brith or Rebirth: Jesus Talks with Krishna are some of his books that bring out the uniqueness of Christ among different world views. His Radio programs ‘Just Thinking’ and ‘Let my People Think’ carry his speeches to a very large audience around the world. He has been engaging the learners and the seekers across the world’s renowned portals of learning including Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge.

Ravi Zacharias was born in Chennai to Mr. Oscar Tobias Joseph Zacharias & Isabella Manickam Zacharias.  His family moved to Delhi when he was four and had thus grown up as a northerner.  His parents hailed from Kerala and his great grand parents had accepted Christ about 5 generations before him. However, by his generation, they had grown cold. 

His father had studied abroad and had risen in the ranks to be Deputy Secretary in the Home Ministry.  His elder brother Ajit, Sisters Prem and Shyamala and younger brother Ramesh, were brilliant and top in their studies. Ravi on the other hand, was a failure in school, stemming out of his indiscipline and hatred for studies.  He simply did not measure up to his father’s expectation and had been told in so many words that he was a disgrace. That together with a sense of meaninglessness in life had driven him to suicide. “A quiet exit will save my family any further shame, and it will save me any further failure”, he reasoned. He consumed poison and was rushed to the hospital. While coming to his senses after a day of hospitalization, on the advice of Fred David a YFC director, his mother read out John chapter 14 for him.  Jesus’ words in John 14:19 struck a chord with him, “Because I live, you also will live.”

After his conversion, he became a voracious reader. He chanced upon an old commentary without a cover “The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary” by W.H. Griffith Thomas and devoured it.  He was presented with The Cross and the Switchblade, the story of conversion of gang leader Nick Cruz through David Wilkerson’s ministry. He lapped up stories of William Booth who founded the Salvation Army, David Brainerd the missionary to American Indians and C.T.Studd who took the gospel to China and India, foregoing the opportunity to represent England’s cricket.  He then began to read books by C.S.Lewis, the converted journalist Malcolm Muggeridge and Christian Expository Writers like F.B.Meyers, G.Campbell Morgan and James Stewart and Bible Commentaries by William Barclay.  The standards these men set by their examples and writings raised the bar for him.

At the end of his first year in the Delhi University, he had picked up interest in Hotel Industry and his dad had helped him join the Indian Institute of Hotel Management. True to what Victor Frankl had said, “Without meaning, nothing else matters.  With meaning, everything else falls into place”, now studies had meaning, his family had meaning and even his failures began to make sense.

In May 1965, when he was 19 years old, he got to participate in the Preaching Contest that was part of the YFC Youth Congress, that was being held in India (in Hyderabad) that year.  He had spoken on ‘the Love of God’ after picking up the topic. Though it was a moving sermon, another girl had outshone and she was being adjudged the winner.  However to everyone’s surprise, a tie was announced and Ravi Zacharias was adjudged the joint winner.  This meant that the two had to preach again, and this time he had to speak on the Cross of Christ. Years later he found that when the Judges panel had been ready to give the prize to the girl, Sam Kamalesan had spoken up, “I think we are seeing a young man today whom God has put his hand on. Yes, it’s a tough call and they are both outstanding young people. Let us make them equal winners and have them preach again". Ravi went on to win the contest but what matters to him was that it proved to be a turning point in his life.

His next development as a preacher came about when inspired by an American Teen Preaching Teen Team that came to India, he and a small team (his friend Sunder, his sisters Prem and Sham, Kenny a guitarist and Fred of YFC) went around India on a 10day preaching trip.  They hit four cities – Chennai, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Madras – and one of his first sermons was at Emmanuel Methodist Church, Madras and in the audience was Sam Kamalesan, senior pastor who had invited the team.  He had preached 29 times from only 5 sermons he had written out to bring along.

A year before his retirement, his dad decided to move to Canada while planning for his post-retirement days.  He decided to send Ajit and Ravi first so they can get to understand the country before the rest of the family moves. Within a week of arrival in Toronto, his brother Ajit secured a job in IBM.  Soon, Ravi himself got hired as Assistant manager in the Banqueting department, at Westbury Hotel. They started attending a Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA) church pastored by Ray Deitz.  In about 2 years since having fellowship there, Ray asked him to come on the Church board, lead the church youth. There too, Ravi formed a Youth preaching team of about 10 people and went around places in Canada.  On hearing his sermons, people would often come to him and say, “The Lord has gifted you with evangelism”.

Soon he realized that he desired more than what books could offer. So he took up part-time Theology classes in Baptist Seminary. As a banqueting manager he was encouraged to get customers to order more liquor. He could no longer live honorably with having to entice people to consume more liquor.  He had earlier considered  starting a restaurant with Waterbury’s nationally acclaimed chef Tony Rolden.  Now, his passions were changing and he decided to join the Ontario Bible College full time. Two years into college he got an invitation to preach in Vietnam, at the height of war in 1970. He finally landed in Saigon in May of 1971, with someone offering to pay for his trip and for his remaining period at the Bible College. A seventeen years old Hien Pham became his interpreter in Vietnamese who also took him around in his motorbike. A week after graduating from the Bible College in April 1972, he got married to Margie.

He was then appointed as an Itinerant Evangelist by the C&MA.  Soon, Ravi decided to pursue a Masters in Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. In the summer of 1974, in the midst of his Maters, he was asked by C&MA to go to Cambodia for five weeks. It was a country about to fall into the hands of one of the most vicious regimes in world’s history - the Khmer Rouge.  After he had arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he opened a letter his dad had handed on his departure and was moved to tears as his dad had told how sorry he was for the hurt he had brought into his life and how he was thrilled now that one of his sons had been called into God’s ministry.

After his graduation in 1976, he was commissioned on a forty eight weeks trip around the world. In those eleven months, he preached 576 times. Soon after his return, he was asked by C&MA to teach in their Seminary in Nyack, New York.  In 1983 and again in 1986, he had the honor of being invited to speak at Amsterdam, in a Conference for Evangelists organized by Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Association, on “The Lostness of man” and “Preaching across cultural and religious barriers” respectively.  On returning to New York, he gave a year’s notice to C&MA that he will be leaving. Over the last 25 years, he has been reaching new frontiers through RZIM.

All of this and more have been intricately woven into a life story in Ravi’s own words in his book ‘Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows'.  God has been using him as a Speaker and a Writer who reaches his word to the elite world – literate, self-sufficient and happy.  We are proud to have one of our fellow Indian, hailing from Chennai, making a mark internationally for God’s glory.

CORRUPTION: Are we Immune?

Contributed the following article to the August 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

Year 2010 saw several scandals break out and much corruption in high places coming to light.  Scams around expenses made for organizing the Common Wealth Games, around allocation of 2G spectrum to mobile service providers, around politicians, bureaucrats and even ex-army officials procuring Adarsh flats meant for 26/11 martyrs, around land grabbing in the mineral-rich parts of Karnataka and so on.

Just the previous year, India saw the biggest fraud in the corporate history – Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers had fudged account books over a decade.  It is not that corruption has suddenly let out shoots.  It has been there for eons and what we see reflected in the highest places of political, social and corporate power is but a reflection of the social fabric that these individuals come from. We are all guilty of corruption and if we do not watch out, we could end up like them in our own spheres of influence and activity.

How do we stay away from becoming perpetrators of such corruption that often has a small insignificant start but slowly begins to work out like rust and finally leads to rot?  We need to protect ourselves like Daniel and his three friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah better known as Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego.  They determined that they would not defile themselves with the King’s food.  To many of us, had we been put in the same predicament, it would not even have looked like defilement.  We would have come up with 10 reasons why we cannot forego the King’s food.  We might even have come up with 10 good reasons why we need to indeed partake of the Royal Menu with the rest of the Jewish Royalty that was undergoing training.  Most of us try to see how closer we can get to the line separating evil from good, and stay uncontaminated.  Daniel on the other hand, was one who tried to stay as far as he could from the thin dividing line so that he does not even by a remote chance pollute himself.

Eric Liddell, the famed sprinter-missionary had similar discipline.  His moral conviction did not permit him to participate in Sports on the Lord’s Day.  He therefore refused to participate in the Heat for the 100 meters race which he was widely expected to win at the 1924 Paris Olympics, having set a record of 9.7 sec in the AAA championship the previous year.  He instead regimentally prepared for the 400 meters event, even while having already decided to go to China as a Missionary. He would pummel himself so much in preparation for an event that he was not used to, even against a strong possibility of not succeeding at it, but would not compromise on his commitment concerning Sundays.  As history would have it, he broke the previous Olympic record and won the middle-distance event of 400 meters in style, though he was not expected to win in this category.

The point is not about whether it is wrong to play on Sunday.  With Daniel too, the point is not about  whether it was a sin to eat the King’s food that probably did not adhere to Kosher rules, or had likely been offered to idols or had intoxicating drink.  It is about whether we stick to our moral convictions or do we sidestep them for some allurements.  Most people who have long gone into the wrong side of life have trained their appetite with ideas and decisions that have restructured their thought of what they need. By redefining in their minds what it is they think they need, they end up hungering after the wrong things and these wrong things end up ultimately devouring them.  Daniel decided to train his appetite by not letting it get used to the lavishness of the King’s table and getting his taste spoiled.

Clayton M. Christensen, a 1979 Harvard Business School graduate and author of ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’ says that everyone has to address the question, “How can I be sure I’ll stay out of Jail?” He reminds us that 2 out of 32 people in his Rhodes Scholar class of 1977 (Awards for outstanding all-round students at the University of Oxford) spent time in Jail.  He tells us that we often unconsciously employ the ‘marginal cost’ economics doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong.  We think, “I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this.  But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing a wrong thing ‘just this once’ seems alluringly low.  It sucks you in and you fail to look at where the path is ultimately headed and at the full costs that the choice entails.  Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once”.

Clayton too has had a ‘Eric Liddell’ like experience and discipline about what he will do on Sundays.  The Oxford University varsity basketball team that he played on had become the best of friends and had made it to the final four in the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament. While it turned out that the championship game was to be played on a Sunday, he went to the coach and explained that he had made a personal commitment at age 16 never to play ball on Sunday. The coach and the teammates just could not believe it and said “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule just this one time?”  He went away, prayed about it and decided that he shouldn’t break his commitment.

Looking back at that small decision, involving just one of several thousand Sundays in his life, he says, resisting the temptation of ‘Just this once in this extenuating circumstance’ has proven to be one of the most important decisions of his life.  His life as anyone else’s has been one unending stream on circumstances justifying mistakes.  Had he crossed the line that one time, he would have done it over and over in the years that followed.  He learned that it is easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.  If we give in to “just this once” we’ll regret where we end up.  That’s what happened to Jeff Skilling of Enron fame, Clayton’s classmate at Harvard Business School.

We do not have to look far.  We have our own examples in this nation - Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju, Harshad Mehta and the likes.  We better define for ourselves what we stand for as Christians and draw the line in a safe place. In each transaction that we make, let us keep our integrity intact - be it paying Tax, making expense claims, or filing reports.  Let us not make minor compromises, lest we soon find ourselves compromising large and wide.  It is easier to say NO before you have tasted it than to say NO after you have tasted it. The life of a Raju or a Mehta had gone wrong not when he chose to cross the line but possibly when he failed to draw a line well before the line that he ultimately crossed.  Like the frog that is slowly roasted to death when the vessel is gradually heated, we too will get sucked into the quicksand of corruption before we know it, if we allow ourselves to be dishonest even just once. May the Lord give us the strength of character and help us live true to the light that we have received. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.

TITHE (One-Tenth) and CHARITY

Contributed the following article to the Feb 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

The english version that was adapted for the Tamil magazine can be found at

Giving-as-we-should