Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Liberty Lessons: Best to Be SWNIDishly Modest

Liberty University (motto: "maybe in 50 years we'll outlive the legacy of our founder") has another potential scandal brewing.

This one concerns whether the dean of its seminary, Ergun Caner, really has the dramatic personal testimony that he has claimed.

Caner apparently autobigraphically narrates a birth in Turkey and a conversion to Christianity in his teens.

Bloggers have discovered legal records indicating a birth in Sweden to parents who emigrated to Our Republic when Caner was four. A subsequent divorce left his Muslim father without custody and, presumably, without significant religious influence. So how much of a conversion Caner's was is at least subject to debate.

SWNIDish wisdom on this subject is simple: when exaggerating one's autobiography, one should exaggerate toward either modesty or self-deprecating humor. Even if your historic heroics are genuinely historical, making them your primary personal narrative simply obligates you to repeat the heroics, something that few can do. So why not be the first to ridicule yourself, thereby saving yourself the shame of hearing someone else do it?

We're sure that this advice is expressed somewhere in Proverbs.

1 comment:

B Diddley said...

You have been superb at doing this in your own life! Oh wait, you only do this in your blog. In class, you ridicule students, but at least you're funny about it!