A friend of mine who runs a religious blog told me about this over the phone, and I looked into it yesterday while I was supposed to be working. In case many of you are not familiar with Ergun Caner and Liberty University, the enclosed information is an entertaining read.
Without going into elaborate detail, this may go down as one of biggest religious scams of the late-twentieth century: Ergun Caner was until last month the President of the Seminary and Graduate School at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. He has become famous in the past decade as a devout ex-Muslim, who was raised in the Islamic block, but came to the US with his families to build Mosques, and to engage in clandestine religious terrorist activities. Upon his conversion he was disowned by his family and ostracized within the Islamic community as an infidel. He has gained notoriety as a self-proclaimed "expert" in the teachings of Islam and Islamic culture; he and his brother wrote a best-selling book entitled
Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs. He has kept busy through speaking engagements and conference appearances in Evangelical circles, and through his enigmatic presentation basically reinforces already horribly twisted and shameful stereotypes that most American Christians have of Muslims.
The problem is, Caner basically lied about the ENTIRE thing. He appears to have never been a sincere Muslim, and only since the terrorist attacks of 11 Sept., 2001, has he erected this facade of his past, and used it to spread misinformation to his gullible audiences. In his presentations as an "expert"—complete with a phony Arabic accent—he has confused basic Islamic teachings, standard religious terminology, and very frequently misinterprets and badly misconstrues simple things that virtually every Muslim should know. He falsified his academic credentials, has committed DOZENS of contradictions in his own biography of the most bizarre sort, and in his public presentations, likes to regularly "quote" from the Qu'ran in Arabic, when really all he is doing is muttering jibberish, fabricating a "translation" and attributing it to the Islamic sacred teachings, thus taking fill advantage of his audiences' ignorance.
Liberty University has recently demoted him, but—perhaps unsurprisingly—have agreed to keep him on as a faculty member in the philosophy dept. A number of prominent evangelical public figures have recently come forward, and have defended his actions under the guise that the end justify the means: It seems to matter very little that this busted con-artist is a complete fraud, so long as he is doing it for the cause of Christ. Liberty seems to have no qualms about allowing this man to continue to educate their student body.
Read and view more below:
http://www.fakeexmuslims.com/
http://mmmirele.blogspot.com/search/label/Ergun%20Caner
Lying Liars who Lie for Jesus: The Case of Dr. Ergun Caner
