This makes me happy. Often you hear about the pressure from the blogosphere having an impact on the political spectrum, but the Christian “sub-culture” is a little more insulated. So this is big news for us in this “sub-culture.” I first brought this up last year on my older blog December 8th, 2009:
As well as on March 12th, 2010:
I was one of the earlier blogs to catch this story, but the real credit goes to the larger blogs and people who veraciously followed this story. I found my information out via LiveLeak [DEAD] and then through Mirele’s Miscellany’s [NOW PRIVATE] post (dated August 1st, 2009)
There is an entire series of video critiques [by Mirele’s Miscellany] HERE. Be aware, much of his critique is noteworthy, but he or she is still a Mooslem, so, there is theology one need to be aware and cautious of when he interprets Christian positions.
One such site is the Ministry of Reconciliation [DEAD], and it moved up the chain of larger blogs until apologists themselves took notice, like Alpha & Omega Ministries (James White).
I was happy to be a small part in this larger cog.
Good debate took place on this subject all over the Net… many Christians thought it was done with a spirit of malice (see the more recent defense of Caner at Christianity Today [oooops] and click out to James White’s response to it from my post:
It was not, it was done in the spirit of truth. So it is with joy — joy for truth triumphing over fabrications — I post this story dated June 25th, 2010. (The earliest I could find it is 2013 in the paper I mentioned, but here is an original reference dated 2010: Egrun Caner Out As Head of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary)
LU WON’T RENEW CANER’S CONTRACT AS DEAN OF SEMINARY (ARCHIVED… FOUND IT!)
Liberty University said Friday that Ergun Caner would no longer be dean of its seminary, following an investigation into some of his claims about being raised as a Muslim.
Caner has signed a contract to be a member of the seminary’s faculty next year, the university said in a statement Friday afternoon.
Four members of Liberty’s Board of Trustees who conducted the investigation found that “Dr. Caner has made factual statements that are self-contradictory,” the university said.
The panel, however, basically supported Caner’s testimony of being a former Muslim who converted to Christianity.
The contradictions came in “matters such as dates, names and places of residence,” the LU statement said.
Although LU didn’t provide any more details about the discrepancies, Caner said in several speaking engagements in 2001 and later that he was raised in Turkey before coming to the United States as a teenager.
He also said he was trained in Islamic jihad, a term associated with terrorist activity, according to recordings made in 2001 of his comments at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., and Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
However, his parents’ divorce papers, on file in a Columbus, Ohio, courthouse, indicated the family moved from Stockholm, Sweden, to the U.S. when Caner was about 4 years old, and continued to live in the Columbus area.
Caner’s father was a Muslim who sought to raise his children in the Islamic faith, although he had only part-time custody after the divorce, the documents indicate.
“Dr. Caner has cooperated with the board committee and has apologized for the discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review,” the LU statement said….
…(I assume the paper had an update or change to their website, so the 2013 version is here – behind a paywall)…
(I took the liberty in this updated links and graphics “rehab,” 7-18-2026, to update the original graphic I used — click the black and white to see the color version of it via AI)
In updating this posts links and showing which are dead, I do have to say I will look into Caner’s views on Calvinism a bit more. I posted the following James White linked graphic many years before I realized the truth of this.
So, in reading quickly through some old responses to Caner, I can see I agree more with him than the 5-Pointers on this topic. For instance:
1. “Double Predesitination.” Calvin believed this. Are we to label him a hyper-Calvinist? John Bunyan believed this. Is he a “neo-Calvinist?”
Yes. But I say that a neo or hyper Calvinist is one that integrates Exhaustive Devine Determinism into his or her worldview. Which is why at first Phil Johnson defined “hyper-Calvinism” initially, and later recanted in order not to sweep up friends into his net, so-to-speak.
At any rate, this will be a fruitful detour in the future.