This is a little too ironic to not share. Over at pastor Tim Guthrie’s blog, SBC Today, we find a response from him regarding the issue of Liberty University demoting Ergun Caner from the position of dean of LBTS to that of professor as a result of their investigation into the fabricated history Caner had erected about himself. (For those who are not aware, Guthrie had involved himself rather deeply in the controversy surrounding Caner and taking heat over it.) For several months Guthrie has been rightly cautioning people against the easy temptation of gossip and to reserve their judgment until all of the relevant evidence had been collected and sifted through and the Board of Trustees at Liberty University had weighed in on the matter. (We will ignore the dissonance of Guthrie not taking his own advice, nor will we comment about how he has conducted himself in the affair.)

What I want to do here is interact directly with Guthrie’s concluding thoughts, in his article oddly entitled “The Exoneration of Dr. Ergun Caner,” to critically analyze the various statements he made therein.

Testimony of Caner is exonerated.

The first point Guthrie raises is that the “testimony of Ergun Caner is exonerated,” by which he means that Caner did not lie about being “a former Muslim.” While that may indeed be the case, that was not the lies Caner was caught in. A certain young Muslim in London, 22-year old Mohammed Khan, made a lot of noise about Caner being “a fake ex-Muslim,” targeting the mistakes Caner made regarding the Quran and the Arabic language, etc., along with the support of one Debbie Kaufman. However, the lies Caner was caught in were far more considerable and not exonerated at all. For example, there were his lies about being raised in Turkey as a Muslim terrorist trained in jihad before coming to the U.S. as a young teenager. But since court documents establish that both he and his family moved to Ohio when Caner was about three years old, that testimony is proven to be a blatant fabrication. Contrary to Guthrie’s deflection, it was these sort of lies that many Christians were imploring Caner to repent of (e.g., James White, Tom Rich, Gene Clyatt, Wade Burleson, Jason Smathers, etc.). The evidence that confirms these as falsehoods remains compelling and Caner has not been exonerated of them.

Caner’s degree is legitimate.

Guthrie then highlights that Caner’s degree is valid and legitimate, drawing attention to the fact that the investigating committee referred to him as “Dr. Ergun Caner.” Be that as it may with respect to his Doctorate of Theology, the degree which people have taken issue with is his alleged Ph.D. His claim to have received a Ph.D. is one that has been cast far and wide (e.g., Vantage Point 2009 at Star City Bible Conference, 2009 Pastor’s Conference with Severns Valley Baptist Church, 2010 Bible Conference with Jerry Vines Ministries, Amazon.com profile for When World’s Collide, etc.), including one of the countless versions of his biography on his web site (click for larger image):

(Screenshot dated 11 July 2009. I have screenshots of those other web sites, if for some reason they are revised to delete the references to his Ph.D.) While I don’t believe there is anything amiss about referring to him as Dr. Caner—and so the Board of Trustees doing so is largely irrelevant—the fact remains that Caner lied about getting a Ph.D. and was not exonerated of this.

Caner simply misspoke and apologized.

That is a curious word, is it not? “Misspoke.” I confessed to some associates of mine that the meaning of the word was lost on me, to which one of them responded, “You haven’t taken Politics 101, have you?” Clearly not, I admitted, although upon reflection I had to admit that I have heard such political jargon before—e.g., Hillary Clinton claimed to have been “misspeaking” about her trip to Bosnia. (I listen to a lot of talk radio on my Sirius XM satellite radio.) Out of curiosity I decided to look the word up, wondering if it is even recognized in English dictionaries.

Apparently so. According to Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford University Press), the word is chiefly American—go figure—and is used in the sense of expressing oneself in a manner that is “insufficiently clear” or in an “insufficiently accurate way.” According to John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, the word has developed a couple of meanings in the U.S. since the 19th century: either speaking unclearly or failing to tell the whole truth. So this serves as an adequate test for determining the difference between a person who misspeaks and a person who lies. In the case of Hillary Clinton, she did not merely fail to tell the whole truth; her version of the events (that the plane landed under fire and she had to duck-and-run to her vehicle) was not simply less than the whole truth but, rather, a stark contradiction of what really took place (that she stepped off the plane with a smile and wave to a small crowd and greeted a little girl). As noted by Cormac McKeown, an editor of Collins English Dictionary, it seems that a lot of people invoke this word to avoid admitting they told a falsehood.

Perhaps one of the clearest indicators for determining whether a person has misspoke or told a blatant falsehood is the amount of time involved in their speaking. If it is just one sentence or two then certainly we can extend to them the benefit of doubt. Considering Hillary Clinton, she spent several long minutes spinning her yarn, making it is very difficult to give her the benefit of doubt; i.e., it was no mere slip. And then there is also clear evidence which contradicts her story, in the form of video footage. It is basically beyond questioning that she did more than just “misspeak,” but rather told a falsehood and, as per McKeown, she could not bring herself to admit it.

The example of Hillary Clinton is unfortunately appropriate here, although in the case of Caner we find some disappointing similarities that were far more egregious. Whereas Hillary spent several minutes spinning her tale, Caner in fact spent roughly a decade spinning his. For Hillary her tale was contradicted by one piece of clear evidence, while for Caner his tale was contradicted by several pieces of clear evidence. And let’s not gloss over that particular word, “contradicted.” That is, Hillary did not simply neglect to tell the whole truth but, rather, told a version of events utterly at odds with what actually took place. The same thing can be said about Caner, insofar as the notion that he spent his childhood in Turkey or some Muslim majority country is not just divorced from some larger truth but, rather, thoroughly contradicted by the facts. It is simply impossible for him to be raised in Turkey as a Muslim terrorist trained in jihad and then move to the U.S. as a young teenager (circa 1979) when the truth is that he was living in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, from about three years of age (circa 1969). Like Hillary, Caner did not just misspeak but spun an elaborate tale of falsehood.

Guthrie claims that Caner “has apologized for these.” Although he does not specifically indicate the apology being referenced, my guess is that it is the statement released on 25 February 2010 by Caner (which vanished from Caner’s web site but a copy can still be found at SBC Today). In that statement Caner did apologize: “For those times where I misspoke, said it wrong, scrambled words, or was just outright confusing, I apologize and will strive to do better.” The problem, however, is that Caner neither addresses the falsehood of spending his childhood in Turkey as a Muslim terrorist trained in jihad nor apologizes for it. He admits that criticism is helpful sometimes because it enables him “to correct the careless mistakes I addressed above,” but nowhere in this statement that contains his apology does he address or correct the most egregious falsehoods that many have implored him to repent of. They remain conspicuously outstanding.

He has acknowledged and repented of his claim about being born in Turkey; of debating people he did not actually debate or, in one case, even meet; of misspeaking regarding Arabic words and such. That is surely commendable. But there is one thing he has not ever acknowledged nor has he ever repented of, the biggest thing that so many of his Christian brothers and sisters have implored of him, indeed the most salient thing that Caner has consistently described and referenced over the last decade: that is spending his childhood in Turkey as a Muslim terrorist trained in jihad and moving to the U.S. when he was a young teenager, and the contingent details of that historical falsehood. Against Guthrie’s claim, the evidence shows that the information was indeed made up and that Caner was actually not who he said he was.

Updated: 5:37 am

Found this from Tom Chantry:

It has been my theme from the start that Caner’s failings are the failings of the whole church and that every Christian must shoulder a portion of the blame. I do not mean that Caner himself is either innocent or justified; he is neither. However, his particular failings are not unique. They should have been anticipated. They are not only likely; they are in fact unavoidable in the twisted culture of evangelism in which the church currently languishes.

Ergun Caner has certainly manipulated American fear in a way that has made him a Christian superstar. He has certainly made a mockery of the gospel by turning the pulpit into a comedy stage. He has certainly been defended by many who believe that his results justify any methods at all. To hold out hope that his often-told life story is anything other than a self-serving lie is to stretch magnanimity to the breaking point.

Did the church honestly expect anything different? Have we not made a virtue out of each of these vices? The truth is evident: we cannot embrace Finney without engendering many Caners. That is why while it is true that Caner himself must repent, he is not alone. The church as a whole must repent in dust and ashes before the Lord for the dishonor we have invited upon the name of His Son.

Other related Aristophrenium articles:

• The wonderland of Peter Lumpkins (0)
• Liberty University demotes Ergun Caner (1)