Liberty Seminary President Ergun Caner Under Internal Investigation

The strange saga of Ergun Caner’s story takes an interesting twist today.

Liberty University issued a press release today about their seminary president:

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Liberty University will investigate whether Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, actually has all of the Muslim background that he has described in some of his speaking engagements around the country.

You can trace down some of the links here.

Last week Christianity Today reported on the allegations about Dr. Caner’s contradictory claims, but did not do any new investigation. The CT piece included this strange line:

Elmer Towns, co-founder of Liberty University and dean of the School of Religion, says there will be no official reprimand or demotion of Ergun Caner. Towns, who had a hand in hiring Caner, says the Liberty board has held an inquiry and directors are satisfied that Caner has done nothing theologically inappropriate.

“It’s not an ethical issue, it’s not a moral issue,” Towns told Christianity Today on April 27. “We give faculty a certain amount of theological leverage. The arguments of the bloggers would not stand up in court.”

So according to this, there was an “inquiry,” officials were satisfied Caner’s statements were not “theologically inappropriate,” but they do give faculty a certain amount of “theological leverage” (I assume he meant “leeway”).

But now Liberty is taking a different approach:

Liberty University does not evaluate personnel based upon blogs. However, in light of the fact that mainstream media have recently raised questions, the provost of Liberty University is appointing a committee to look into these matters.

Liberty chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said: “In light of the fact that several newspapers have raised questions, we felt it necessary to initiate a formal inquiry.”

University spokesman Johnnie Moore said, “They are going to look at all of the accusations, one by one, and make a determination of the legitimacy of the accusations.”

A finding is expected by June 30, 2010 (the end of Liberty’s fiscal year).

James White, who has been involved in exposing Caner’s story, suggests some questions that Liberty needs to answer:

1. When did Ergun Caner live in Turkey? Dates, locations, must be provided.
2. What madrassa did he train at in jihad? Where was he a member of the Youth Jihad? When? For how long?
3. Why has he claimed in public to have been born in Istanbul, Turkey, when he was born in Stockholm, Sweden?
4. Why does he claim to be 100% Turkish when his mother is Swedish?
5. Why has he plainly implied he could speak Arabic (in response to the Islamic claim that unless you can read the Qur’an you cannot criticize it) when his mother tongue is Swedish, and he cannot, in fact, read or speak Arabic?
6. How does he explain his presence in Ohio by at the very latest age four, and possibly as early as 2 and a half, as indicated by legal documents?
7. How does he explain his claim to have always lived in Muslim majority countries before coming to the United States? Sweden is not today, and surely was not in 1969, a majority Muslim nation.
8. How does he explain his often published claim to have come to the United States in 1978 or 1979? How can this be seen as anything other than a purposeful distortion necessary for his “I came as a jihadist from Turkey” rather than “I came as a son of a Muslim father and a Swedish mother to Ohio as a small child” persona?
9. Can Ergun Caner prove he was a devout, active Muslim in high school? One that even wore traditional Islamic garb (though that is unusual in Turkey)? Does he have evidence of this in the form of pictures? Some of us have seen pictures of Ergun in his high school yearbook, and none of them show him wearing Islamic dress.
10. Dr. Caner claims in some of his talks that he learned English in Brooklyn. When did he live in Brooklyn, rather than Ohio?
11. How does Dr. Caner explain the fact that he claims to have done his prayers in the bathroom in high school, though that would be highly unusual and in fact either the act of an ignorant Muslim or one in fear of his life?
12. Why did Ergun Caner say Ramadan was forty days long when in fact it is a lunar month in length? If he had ever fasted during Ramadan I can assure you he would know the difference.
13. Why did Ergun Caner on video confuse the Shahada with the opening words of Surat al-Fatiha? Given that both are part of the Islamic prayers, and would have been repeated thousands of times during his youth as a devout Muslim, how could he be confused about such a basic thing?
14. Emir Caner says their mother became a “hippie” upon coming to the United States. Yet Ergun says she wore Islamic clothing until he baptized her. Which is true?
15. Dr. Caner often uses derogatory terms like “towel head” and “sand nigger” of himself, excusing these racial slurs because he claims to be of these ethnic groups. Yet, these are slurs mainly of Arabic people, not of Turkish people; and beyond this, he is only half Turkish, as his mother is Swedish. So why does he engage in this behavior?
16. Dr. Caner has repeatedly said “his family” disowned him upon his conversion. Yet, court records indicate he lived with his mother as custodial parent, not his father; and Emir says that while his father did disown his sons who converted, their mother was basically ambivalent, as she was no longer a Muslim anyway. Is having your non-custodial parent, who has remarried, disown you identical to being disowned by your (entire) family?
17. Dr. Caner has claimed to engage in more than sixty Muslim debates. Where is the evidence of these debates? Who has he debated? What are their names? When did the debates take place?
18. Dr. Caner claimed to have debated Shabir Ally in Nebraska. Caner admitted in February, 2010, that he never debated Shabir Ally. Who, then, did he debate in Nebraska? When? On what topic?
19. Dr. Caner claimed to debate Abdul Saleeb. Abdul Saleeb means “servant of the cross.” So why did he claim to debate a Christian along with Shabir Ally? Was he simply putting Arabic-sounding names together in a line as a means of impressing his audience?
20. Ergun Caner has often, in talks, and in print, referred to “Hadith 9:57.” Since any meaningful citation of the hadith literature requires the use of the name of the actual collection (in this case, Sahih al-Bukhari), does this not show a fundamental ignorance of the most basic elements of scholarly inquiry into Islamic studies on Ergun Caner’s part?
21. Ergun Caner holds a Th.D. in Theology. Why has he often changed the degree to a Ph.D.?
22. Dr. Caner heads up the Global Apologetics program. His claim to have engaged leaders of numerous religions in debate in many foreign countries and all across the United States is directly related to his recruiting of students. Why should his false claims about his past, and his apologetic work, not be considered false advertising and fraudulent?