Ergun Caner, the controversial religion professor at Liberty University, is leaving LU to join Arlington Baptist College in Texas, where he will serve as its provost and vice president.

Caner, the former president and dean of Liberty Theological Seminary was demoted when it was discovered that he was lying and exaggerating about his Muslim childhood, according to the Associated Baptist Press.

Arlington Baptist College, a fundamental bible Baptist institute, was founded in 1939 by J. Frank Norris and is affiliated with the World Baptist Fellowship. Caner, aside from serving as provost and vice president of academic affairs, will also teach theology, apologetics and church history, the ABP said.

Caner has coauthored many books, including “Why Churches Die,” “Unveiling Islam,” and “When Worldviews Collide.” He  was taken into Arlington on a unanimous vote from the board of directors of the college, Baptist Press said.

Ron Godwin, LU’s administrator said, “We wish Ergun the very best in his new assignment and would have been delighted to have him continue serving here. We will miss his contribution,” The News & Advance reported.

Of his new assignment, Caner said, “I am thrilled to be joining the Arlington Baptist College. This is an historic institution, founded by one of Christianity’s most courageous voices, Dr. J. Frank Norris,” ABP reported.

Norris, founder of Arlington Baptist College and the World Baptist Fellowship, was a Texas fundamentalist Baptist leader and one-time editor of the Baptist Standard. He was once called the “Texas Tornado” over a long-term feud with the Southern Baptists, ABP said.

Norris founded his own independent fundamentalist group, originally called the Pre-millennial Baptist Missionary Fellowship but renamed the World Baptist Fellowship after a split, ABP said.

Caner said, “The vision of President Moody is profoundly exciting — to train a generation of Christian warriors who are prepared for ministry on every level, intellectually and spiritually,” The News & Advance reported.

9/11 circuits

Caner rose to fame after 9/11 when he shared his testimony of being a trained jihadist terrorist before his conversion to Christianity in several speaking engagements and during the Southern Baptist Convention, ABP said.

However, blogs and news reports emerged that he was actually raised in Ohio. Liberty trustees investigated his case, and, among other things, reviewed recordings of Caner’s speeches, according to ABP.

LU determined that “factual statements … are self-contradictory.” In 2010 Caner was demoted after a committee headed by Godwin looked into the professor’s claim of having grown up Muslim and converted to Christianity as a teenager, The News & Advance said.

The committee determined that there seemed to be no doubt that Caner had converted to Christianity. However, Caner did make “factual statements that are self-contradictory,” and demoted Caner, giving him a one-year teaching contract, ABP said.

Caner often said he is a Turkish immigrant and said in speeches he gave in other states that he was trained as a teenager in Islamic jihad. However, documents of his parents’ divorce which are filed in an Ohio courthouse indicate otherwise, The News & Advance said, indicating that Caner was born in Sweden and the family moved to the U.S. when he was four years old.

Last fall, Caner taught two online cases, and in the spring taught two classes in LU.

Utmost confidence

President D.L. Moody of Arlington Baptist College presented Caner to the Texas school’s board of directors and said, “I have the utmost confidence in Dr. Ergun Caner,” according to The News & Advance.

Moody said, “I believe that he has the abilities, wisdom and passion to enhance the work and ministry of Arlington Baptist College as we prepare a ‘Generation of Giants for Jesus Christ.’ He shares the values that I have for biblical authority, evangelistic fervor, and godly example,” BP reported.

Ergun Caner will no longer be dean of Liberty University’s theological seminary.

Caner, a Baptist minister, gained fame as a Muslim-turned-Christian who spoke across the country and on television of his conversion, and was considered an expert on Islam. When he joined Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in 2005 enrollment trebled, the AP said.

However the university’s board of trustees concluded after an investigation that Caner made contradictory statements, fabrications and embellishments in a number of public speeches and in his book, particularly with reference to names, places he claimed to have lived in and dates, the AP said.

The story of Caner has led to a rise in skepticism about other ex-Muslims turned Christian, some of whom claimed to be former terrorists and who found welcome among Christian fundamentalists, the Washington Post said.

Other Muslims turned Christian who claim to have formerly been terrorists are U.S. citizens Walid Shoebat who wrote the book, “Why We Want to Kill You,” and Kamal Saleem, author of “The Blood of Lambs,” the Washington Post said.

Concern has been raised that some are even accepted as experts on terrorism by the media, Congress and the military. They have delivered speeches at Harvard Law School and made appearances at Fox News and CNN, the Washington Post said.

They have also given talks at a terrorism conference and the findings were sent to Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has called this a national security threat, the Washington Post said.

Weinstein expressed concern that they were spreading fear of Islam and fomenting prejudice, the Washington Post said.

According to the AP, Caner will still be part of the faculty of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. The school has cited his cooperation with the investigation and issued an apology for misstatements.

The investigation of Caner came about when Muslim and Christian bloggers cited irregularities in Caner’s claims on YouTube. This led other apologists and pastors to raise questions about the contradictions, the AP said.

When the issues arose, Caner changed the biography on his website and asked some groups to remove damaging video clips from their own websites. Nonetheless the questions remained, and Liberty University conducted their investigation, the AP said.

Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia—the world’s largest Christian university–announced recently that they have formed a committee to investigate the background of their seminary president Ergun Caner, the Washington Post reported.

Liberty University is investigating its seminary president, Ergun Caner over allegations that he's not the ex-Muslim he passed himself off to be.

The investigating committee will be headed by Liberty university administrator Ron Godwin.

Findings will be released by June 30.  Ergun Caner distinguished himself as a Muslim expert and is a popular speaker in the university lecture circuit.

Since he became president, he has tripled enrolment in the school that was owned by the late Jerry Falwell, Sr., according to Christianity Today (CT).

The CT said that among the claims that Caner made which have been brought to question are:

• That he grew up in Turkey (when he actually grew up in Ohio).
• That he was raised in a devout Sunni Muslim home (rather than a nominal one).
• That he had been involved in Islamic jihad.
• That he has debated dozens of Muslims about the Islamic faith.  (There is no video or audio evidence).

Caner’s reputation came to task when Mohammed Khan, a 22 year old London based Muslim, posted 17 of Caner’s speeches on YouTube.  Khan interjected portions of the speeches with his own commentary.  Among others, Khan said that several times when Caner claimed to be reciting the Shehada, (part of the Islamic creed), he was actually quoting a prayer from the Qur’an, which Khan said is very different.  Khan disputed Caner’s claim to be an Islamic expert.

This set off a rash of bloggers who commented on the issue.  Christianity Today quoted several bloggers including the following:
Debbie Kaufman, an Enid, Oklahoma Southern Baptist laywoman, who said, “This matters because we are to win people to Christ.”
Gene Clyatt, a Southern Baptist pastor in Superior, Montana, questioned Caner’s claim that he was trained as a jihadist until the age of 15.  In Ergun’s book, Unveiling Islam which he co-wrote with his brother Emir, he said that his parents married in Sweden and the family moved to Ohio when he was a young boy.

In the book the brothers said they recited daily prayers, visited the mosque weekly, and read the Qur’an and Hadith regularly.  They said they were raised to be devout, serious Muslims.

James R. White, director of the Phoenix-based Alpha & Omega Ministries, said “The president of a large theological seminary has created a myth concerning his background that is incredibly self-contradictory.”  White teaches Islam at golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

Sympathy

Some bloggers however expressed sympathy for Caner.

Hussein Wario, also a former Sunni Muslim who converted to Christianity, noted that while Caner had co-authored 17 books, it is only now that he is being criticized because of Khan’s videos.

Wario also said in his blog, Cracks in the Crescent, “I am a Reformed Christian and I am utterly ashamed of Dr. White. In my opinion, he is a disgrace to the Reformed faith—sola scriptura—because of his meddling in this matter and his disregard of the scripture. He is tacitly helping Muslims with their war against Muslim converts to Christianity.”

Roy J. Oksnevad, director of Muslim Ministries at Wheaton College said that the American church tends to pressure ex-Muslims to talk very negatively about their former faith.

Repent

Tom Chantry, on the Christ Reformed Baptist Church blog, suggested repentance on the part of Caner and Liberty University.  Chantry said in his blog that while it is difficult to make restitution in cases of deceit, it can be done, and that Caner can apologize and seek forgiveness.

However Liberty University must do the same, Chantry said, noting that the institution had benefitted from the celebrity culture of Evangelical Christianity and if they had instead put their focus on the Word of God, this may have been prevented.