Well, Mr. Burleson was right. Yesterday the bio that had included the claim that Caner came to the US in 1979 (you can still see that date in the search data found here, currently the third entry, which reads, “… homeLIFE Ergun was born in Stockholm, Sweden to turkish parents and in 1979 immigrated
to the United States with his parents, grandmother, and two brothers. … “) disappeared from the Liberty website. It has now been replaced with this, which conspicuously lacks…well, almost anything relevant to Caner’s own false claims about his past, being trained as a jihadist, living in Turkey, majority Muslim countries, etc. and etc.—his stock story he’s been telling since 9/11. The claim to have debated “leaders” in major religions remains, however, despite Caner’s inability to provide evidence of such debates. At the very same time the bio link became active again on Ergun Caner’s personal website, here. This one is even more vanilla, lacking almost all detail. It even drops all mention of debates!
I’m sure for most of Ergun’s supporters, this will be enough. I mean, didn’t he sorta apologize for something back in February (though only for a few days before pulling the apology down)? And what if he were to stop claiming all the things he has claimed for all these years? What if he stopped claiming to have been born in Turkey and to have been trained as a jihadist and attending madrassa there and knowing Arabic and living in only majority Muslim countries before coming to the US via Beirut and Cairo in 1979 as an older teenager and debating known Muslim leaders and…all that stuff? Isn’t that enough? Well, you tell me! When you were a child (assuming you had a good upbringing here) and you lied to your parents, would you have gotten away with, “I am not admitting I lied, nor am I apologizing for having done so…I just promise not to tell that particular lie again in the future”? If you think that is sufficient, well, you are welcome to your opinion. I just hope you don’t raise your kids to think that is sufficient.
Meanwhile, the white-washing continues at Liberty University. It seems this goes all the way to the top, and the “good ol boys” mentality of “circle the wagons, them nasty folks will go away eventually” remains in full swing. Removing falsehoods from Caner’s biography does not explain how they got there in the first place. Silently deleting them (well, how can you do that in this day of Internet perma-documentation?) without notice, without explanation, and without apology, does not explain to the student who enrolled at Liberty under the false impression that the leader of the seminary was an expert in things Islamic why he or she has not been misled and deceived. And in all of this, what is being said about the integrity of high-profile leaders, entrusted with the theological education of young men for ministry? I wonder, would a Liberty Seminary student be admitted who submitted an application filled with the kinds of myths Ergun Caner disseminated for so long? Would he pass a class wherein he submitted papers citing from such great Muslim leaders as Abdul Saleeb, or from interviews he never had with Shabir Ally? If not, why not?
