The Washington Post vs. Ergun Caner

I'm sure that the Post intended this as a nice story -- everyone knows how much they love Liberty University and Jerry Falwell. But they can't help but be critical of Caner -- he's not politically correct, the way he's supposed to be.

Caner is a former Muslim, who converted to Christianity. He has also been very critical of his former faith -- though he never made the "demon-posessed pedophile" statement concerning Mohammad that the Post credits to him.

Dr. Caner (who I never had the opportunity to hear, though I have heard very good things from those who have heard him) is regarded as an up and coming evangelical leader. He's an outstanding teacher (as is his brother, who has recently been named a dean at Southwestern Baptist Seminary), and has been appointed dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary now that Danny Lovett is headed to the "new and improved" Tennessee Temple University.

I think it's important to see things about the Muslim faith from the point of view of someone who used to be a Muslim. The Washington Post, though, paints him as a bigot. People think that he will upset Muslim leaders. Liberty is accused of not wanting to engage in dialog with the rest of the world, as one individual the Post interviewed puts it.

I guess that we're supposed to dialog without actually claiming that we have the truth. We have to assume that nobody has the truth, and sit down and figure out what in the world is going on. That's not what the Bible or Christianity is all about. Jesus said that He was "the Truth." That is the truth claim of Christianity. And a religion that is prepared to abandon its truth claims so that it can "dialog" in the "global community" is a religion that is not worth paying any attention to.

I've covered this before, many times, on the old blog.We should never abandon truth claims in the interests of being more "friendly." Christianity Today has a pretty good article on this today as well.