Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Cost of What?

My friend Dr. White posted a link earlier today to an article by Tim Rogers (link to article). The article is titled, "The Cost of Following Christ."

One might expect, then, that the article would explain someone's struggle in view of persecution for being a Christian. What a surprise, then, when the article is mostly a complaint that my friend Dr. White has criticized Dr. Ergun Caner. After all, my friend Dr. White has never (and would never) criticize Dr. Caner for following Christ.

The article points out that there is a ten part video that aims to show that Dr. Ergun Caner was never a devout Muslim. If the article had simply noted that much of that ten part video is absurd, I'd agree (it seems that most of the ten part video series is criticism of Caner for not using the correct pronunciation of various words), I'd agree.

Frankly, I think one should be careful about trying to silence criticism of Caner, given his apparent propensity to report facts inaccurately. Listen to the following two clips and let me know if you can reconcile the two of them.

9 comments:

Pilgrimsarbour said...

Gads! It's a Christian birtherism scandal!

For my own part, I often tell groups of people that I was born in San Diego when I was really born in Syracuse.

Nora said...

Egads,I've never liked this guy. Even though my arabic is not the best, this guy messes up phonemes left and right. eeeeeish, my ears hurt.

He can't even get his ethnic slurs correct: he's Turkish, not Arab.

Anonymous said...

http://www.mapcrow.info/Distance_between_Stockholm_SW_and_Istanbul_TU.html

Unknown said...

@ OumAmir

Born in Syracuse and disguising it with a fake supposed birth in San Diego? Shame! (I assume you mean the lovely Syracuse, New York...from which I may or may not be a resident.)

Apologies for the bizarre first time post completely devoid of substance.

Well here's some substance: Caner preached at a church I attend. SBC. It was more of a comedy show the first 15 minutes. Good enough?

Alex said...

Where are the Birthers when you need them...

Anonymous said...

What I believe we experienced watching those two clips wasn't a minor lie by him, but rather an honest explanation for the physiology of conception as it relates to the biological birthing process. You see, his parents traveled a lot!

Putting the very best construction on what we heard him say, apparently it is an overt and obviously unsettling misunderstanding by us of just where he comes from, literally. What he said in the first clip was he was conceived in one country, rationalizing it so biologically technologically and actually the origins of where he is from is there in Istanbul Turkey. All should really understand that, that that is where he was conceived, all the while, he physically was and began his natural life in Stockholm, Sweden.


That makes perfectly good sense to me! Doesn't it you? :)

Turretinfan said...

I don't think that he was "lying" in either case. I just think he's not careful with the way he expresses himself.

Coram Deo said...

Can any good thing come out of Stockholm?

Anonymous said...

CD,

while I think I understand your point about anything "good" coming out of Nazareth, ah, I mean Stockholm, I think it falls flat as Dr. Caner is no Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ did, in fact, come out of Nazareth:

Mat 2:19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
Mat 2:20 saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead."
Mat 2:21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
Mat 2:22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.
Mat 2:23 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: "He shall be called a Nazarene."