Faith-Based Fibber?: Liberty U. Seminary President Accused Of Fabricating Life Story
Rob Boston printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu May 13, 2010 at 12:02:43 PM EST
The last time we heard from Ergun Caner, the president of Liberty University's seminary, he was riding around his Lynchburg, Va., campus on Election Day in a truck (accompanied by a GOP elephant made out of chicken wire) urging students to vote for Republican candidates.

Americans United asserted that Caner's overt electioneering was just another example of the fundamentalist school's determination to push candidates favored by Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., despite a federal law that forbids tax-exempt religious institutions from intervening in partisan politics.

Now Caner is back in the news - and once again it's not in a good way.

Caner has made a name for himself by highlighting his unusual life story: He says he was born into a stridently Muslim family in Turkey, where he learned to hate America and Christians. As Caner tells it, he flirted with jihad before undergoing a life-changing conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. He then persuaded most of his family to convert as well, and they now spread the gospel.

It's a compelling story, and Caner tells it well. I heard him address last year's "Values Voter Summit" sponsored by the Family Research Council. Even though I didn't agree with Caner's Religious Right perspective, I had to admit that he was a funny and engaging speaker.

But now it turns out there may be some problems with