Dr. Ergun Caner - Qualifications

While Dr. Caner may have embellished his autobiography, he does have a number of qualifications. In other words, while I think that what Dr. Caner has done is serious and needs to be addressed, I still think he has the necessary qualifications to be Liberty University's Seminary President.

Dr. Caner's qualifications occasionally come up in Liberty University materials. I have tried to review those to see the extent of Dr. Caner's embellishments, if any. There appear to be few such examples. The following list of materials comes from a Liberty University document apparently from November 19, 2007 (link). While most of the information was verified, there were a few items that were either unverified, or whose accuracy is highly suspect.

• BOOKS
  editor. Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2008.
• 27 ARTICLES: Agnosticism, Animism, Baha'I, Buddhism, Christian Identity Aryanism, Church of Christ, Cultural Apologetics, Deepak Chopra, Global Apologetics, Historical Apologetics, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, LogicalFallacies, Mythology, Nature and Attributes of God, Reconstructionism, Secular Humanism, Seventh Day Adventism, Sikhism, Socratic Philosophers, Theosophy, Tibetian Buddhism, Tritheism, Types of Apologetics, Types of Sin, Zen Buddhism
  
  
• with Mac Brunson. Why Churches Die: Lethal Poisons in Body of Christ. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005. [Verified, about 220 pages]
  
  
• When Worldviews Collide: Christianity against Religion. Nashville: LifeWay, 2005. [Verified, about 150 pages]
  
  
• Christian Jihad: When Christians Kill. Grand Rapids: Kregel 2005. [Verified, with Emir Caner, about 240 pages]
  
  
• Sacred Desk: Addresses of the SBC Presidents. Nashville: Broadman and Holman 2004. [Found "Sacred Desk: Sermons of the Southern Baptist Convention Presidents" B&H Publishing Group (May 2004), with Emir Caner, about 360 pages]
  
  
• Sacred Trust: Sketches of the SBC Presidents. Nashville: Broadman and Holman 2003. [Verified, with Emir Caner, about 260 pages]
  
  
• Voices Behind the Veil: Women in Islam. Grand Rapids: Kregel 2003. [Verified, about 220 pages, Caner is the general editor. He contributed an introduction and his wife contributed one of the chapters, about 5 pages and 15 pages respectively. Chapter 5 by Susie Hawkins becomes significant later in this list. The introduction, at pages 16-17 states: "This book also is written in a decidedly different fashion. We have attempted to allow each contributor to "speak in her own voice," with the only editing being grammatical or textual. In each chapter, the reader will be able to sense the heartbeat of the author."]
  
  
• Out of the Crescent Shadows. Birmingham: New Hope, 2003. [Verified, with Emir Caner, about 160 pages]
  
  
• More Than a Prophet: Islamic Objections to Christianity. Grand Rapids: Kregel 2003. [Verified, with Emir Caner, about 270 pages]
  
  
• Unveiling Islam: Insider’s Look at Muslim Life. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002. [Verified, with Emir Caner, about 260 pages]
  
  
• Hills and Hearts of Gold. Atlanta: Brentwood, 1995. [Verified, about 445 pages]
  
  
• Baker Cult Dictionary, H. Wayne House, editor. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008
• 12 ARTICLES: Advaita Fellowship, Ahura Mazda, Ankh, Baha'u'llah, Buddhist Zarathushtra, Maulana Muhammed Ali, Muhammed, Sikh Dharma, Sikh Foundation, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Qur'an, Zoroastrianism [I found a book by a similar title that is planned for publication this year. I could not, however, find any book like this from 2008.]
  
  
• ARTICLES IN PUBLISHED BOOKS
• Apologetics Study Bible, Norman Geisler, editor. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, October 2007
• 2 ARTICLES: Is Allah Identical to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?, How is Jihad Understood in Islam? [Verified, 4 and 6 pages respectively.]
  
  
• The Last Sermon I Would Preach If Jesus Were Coming Back Tomorrow, Forrest Pollack, editor [Semi-verified, book has about 420 pages and Caner contributed, size of Caner's contribution not known]
  
  
• Bell Shoals, FL: Encouraging Word, August 2007 "Is God a Man or a Woman?" [I could not verify this, although one of Caner's famous sermons has that title.]
  
  
• ARTICLES IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS
• "Voices from the Past; Voices for the Pew," Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry. Fall 2004. [Verified, 16 pages, available here.]
  
  
• “The Metaphor of the Veil,” Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Summer 2004). [I could not verify this. The closest result was "The Essence of the Veil: The Veil as a Metaphor for Islamic Women" by Susie Hawkins in the Spring 2004, there is no Summer 2004, issue of the JBM&W. (link to pdf of article)(link to html version of article)(link to entire journal issue) The title line has the following footnote: "This article was originally published in, and has been slightly adapted from, Ergun Mehmet Caner, ed., Voices Behind the Veil: The World of Islam through the Eyes of Women (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003) 93-106. Used by permission of Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. All rights reserved."]
  
  
• "Disciplinarianism v. Complimentarianism [sic]: Contrasting the View of Woman from the Qur'an and the Bible," Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Summer 2003). [Not verified. There is no Summer 2003 issue. The Fall 2004 issue has an article by Rob Lister that reviews Dr. Caner's Voices Behind the Veil and mentions Ms. Hawkins' article. (link to pdf of article)(link to html version of article)(link to entire journal issue)]
  
  
• “The Doctrine of Holy War in the Hadith,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. (Spring 2004). [Verified, under the title, "The Doctrine of Jihad in the Islamic Hadith," with Emir Caner, 10 pages, available here]
  
  
• “Answering the Purpose Driven Mosque,” Faith and Mission Journal. Fall 2003. [Verified except date, Fall 2002, abstract available here - see also "The Purpose Driven Mosque," Fall 2005 Christian Apologetics Journal, abstract available here]
  
  
• “The Exhorters Bench: The Call to Decision in the Preaching of W.A. Criswell.“ Criswell Theological Review. Fall 2002, 49-56. [“The Mourner’s Bench: The Call to Decision by Dr. W. A. Criswell” found in CTR, Volume 1, number 1, November 2003]
  
  
• “Resurrection: Myth or Reality- Response to Bishop John S. Spong.” Faith and Mission Journal. Spring 1995, 82-92. [Not Verified - Appears to be a book review of Spong's book.]
  

As noted above, these are the articles etc. listed here (link). The places where issues arose were:

1. Baker Cult Dictionary: it appears that Dr. Caner may have contributed articles for this work and may have expected the work to be published in 2008. However, it does not appear that it published then or in 2009, and I cannot find any record that it has actually printed this year either. What's odd is that in anther list of "Qualifications," The date of the dictionary is given as "2004" (see this list).
   
   
2. “The Metaphor of the Veil,” Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Summer 2004). This appears to be the work of Ms. Suzie Hawkins, not Caner.
   
   
3. "Disciplinarianism v. Complimentarianism [sic]: Contrasting the View of Woman from the Qur'an and the Bible," Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Summer 2003). I cannot locate anything that comes close to this. The closest article seems to be Ms. Hawkins' article above, or perhaps the review of Caner's book.

In an October/November 2009 "Faculty Focus," I found a seemingly very accurate list of Dr. Caner's many qualifications. This list omits all of the questionable or dubious items above, but includes one further item that list did not have, namely a book published in 2009:

“Holier Than Thou” Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2009. [Verified, about 110 pages]

Additionally, the list included some qualifications in terms of prior ministry experience. I've summarized and attempted to verify those qualifications as well:

Pastor Youth Director, Manchester Baptist Church (KY)

Roger Williams
Pastor, Annville Baptist Church, Annville KY
Roger Williams holds an undergraduate degree from Cumberland College, Masters in Education from Eastern Kentucky University, an DMin from Southwestern Seminary and an Honorary doctorate from Liberty University. Williams is a Longtime friend of Liberty University and had the privilege of preaching the installation service for Dr. Ergun Caner as President of Liberty Theological Seminary.

Dr. Williams has pastored 7 churches in Kentucky and Ohio over 35 years of ministry. His 1st pastorate was Manchester Baptist Church, Manchester Ky and while serving this church had Ergun Caner as his youth director. Currently he serves the Annville Baptist Church of Annville, Ky and has been there 6 years.

(source)

While here, I really got my start in ministry. I preached in area churches on weekends, served in the BSU, and then got my first fulltime ministry job, as youth pastor at Manchester Baptist Church in Manchester, Kentucky.

(source)

Twenty-five years ago, I served as a youth pastor at a church in Kentucky.

(Holier Than Thou, page 67)

Pastor Associate and Youth Pastor, Ridgecrest Baptist Church, Vincennes, Indiana

Rev. Ergun Caner had been called in June of 1990, as Associate and Youth Pastor. He began the Powerhouse Youth Ministry which grew to over 100 youth, and ministered to the church membership until August, 1991.

(Source)

Pastor, Wood Baptist Church (Wood, NC)

Dr. Ergun Caner, now president of Liberty Baptist Seminary in Lynchburg, offered many of these challenges to his church when he was a student pastor at Wood Baptist Church, Wood, NC. His church averaged 60 in Sunday School. He actually had to do the sky-diving thing!

(source)

Compare:

In many ways, Ergun is an adrenaline junkie. He has parachuted, bungee jumped, parasailed, and scuba dived. On one occasion, he challenged his deacons at Wood Baptist Church in Franklin County, North Carolina, to a Bible study goal they had never acheived. The town of Wood had a population of 115, and though the worship attendance was equal to the town's population, the Bible study attendance was averaging only 60. So his challenge was this: If on Easter Sunday the church had at least 115 in Bible study, then he and his associate pastor (brother Emir) would parachute at the area airport.

(pages 162-63 of Brunson and Caner's Why Churches Die)

And again:

It was Ergun's first Wednesday night prayer meeting at his new church. It was supposed to be part of the "honeymoon" period. Instead, it turned out to be a nightmare.

Walking into the sanctuary of that small country church, Ergun felt like he was in a dream. It was his first full-time church, complete with a parsonage. In a town of 115, the pastor would obviously be a central character.

(page 47 of Brunson and Caner's Why Churches Die)

One of Emir's biographies provides this description of Emir's presence at WBC:

Interim pastor, Liberty Baptist Church, Hampton, Va., 2004-05; interim pastor, Wood Baptist Church, Louisburg, N.C., 1999-2001; other staff positions in Ohio, North Carolina, Texas.

(source)

And another provides this:

* Interim Pastor, Liberty Baptist Church, Hampton, Va., 2004-05
* Interim Pastor, Wood Baptist Church, Louisburg, N.C., 1999-2001
* Co-Pastor, Friendship Baptist Church, McKinney, Texas, 1996-99
* Other staff positions in Ohio, North Carolina and Texas
* Seminars, mission conferences, mission trips, revivals and addresses in a variety of settings including 25 states, Europe (including The Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania), Asia (India and China), and The Bahamas.

(source)

Also compare:

After moving to North Carolina in August 1992, I ended up in my first pastorate! I pastored the Wood Baptist Church in Wood, North Carolina, in Franklin County, where I met my wife Jill. Loved it here, and it was only about a 45 minute drive to seminary.

(source)

Additional evidence in the "middle name" post (link to post).

Pastor, Central Baptist Church (Aurora, CO)

(Plenty of evidence from the era of the Littleton massacre, see the "middle name" post linked above.)

All in all, it is an impressive resume. While Dr. Caner may have embellished his autobiography at several points, he still does have qualifications that can be verified, in terms both of writing and pastor experience.

- TurretinFan