I was dismayed when I learned today that the Liberty University committee organized to investigate the habitual exaggerations of Dr. Ergun Caner has given him more or less a pass, demoting him from President and Dean to Professor of Global Apologetics. The committee found that Caner “made factual statements which were self-contradictory.” Not only is the verb-age extremely unclear, it is appears to be a cop-out. For one, Liberty did not even bother to answer whether the statements Caner made were true or false, or which story is true – only that they failed the consistency test. Of course, they have long stated that this is not an ethical or moral issue (right – since when is lying a moral issue?). SBC Today even declared that Caner was exonerated!
Unbelievable. I am very disappointed in LU today, and grieving for Ergun Caner. While Caner has apologized to the board for ‘misstatements’ which caused the investigation, he has not apologized to anyone for publicly lying or exaggerating about his upbringing (I listened to Caner jaw on for 20 minutes about his life as a teenager in Turkey – all completely made up), his knowledge of Islam, his supposed linguistic ability (claiming to know Turkish and Arabic, faking an Arabic accent, and pretending that English is his second language), and his attempt to smooth the whole thing over by claiming a right-wing Calvinistic conspiracy. Instead of repenting on the day the report was issued, Caner was tweeting things like, “Donuts R holy“.
I’m not hoping for blood. But the world is watching this, and this must be handled in a biblical way; not swept under a rug. Very sad.
