Ergun Caner and "Assistant Rabbi" Peter Hirsch

Ergun Caner has several times complained about a post-9/11 ecumenical prayer gathering (sorry, I don't have the speeches and timestamps available).  I think that's why I was surprised to read an account from the Fort-Worth Star Telegram (apparently dated May 3, 2002), reporting Caner's participation in a National Day of Prayer group event (link to article).  The article states:

Ergun Caner, whose family is Turkish, grew up a devout Muslim before converting to Christianity.
"For the first half of my life, I assumed I was supposed to hate you. ... But through the faith and hope of other Christians, they did not return the hate I had for them," said Caner, an assistant professor at The Criswell College. "Pray for the capacity, ability and tenacity to love those who don't love you back."
During the closing blessing, Peter Hirsch, assistant rabbi of the Baruch Ha Shem synagogue, embraced Caner to the cheers of the crowd and said, "Where else can [we], committed Jews, and Dr. Caner, who grew up a committed Muslim, come together and show love for each other?"

a) Unfortunately, the article is not illustrated with a photo of this ecumenical embrace.
b) While Caner's father is from Turkey, his mother is from Sweden.
c) Considering his grandmother (who helped raise him) was apparently a Swedish Lutheran, this allegation of hatred seems implausible.
d) The idea that Caner was "devout" seems implausible in light of his making mistakes like thinking that Ramadan is 40 days long.
e) Oh, and I checked out this "assistant rabbi."  The "Baruch HaShem Synagogue" calls themselves a "Messianic" Jewish synagogue (you can read more about their vision here).

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner at SBTS - November 13, 2003

We previously reviewed Dr. Caner's comments on a panel with Mohler at SBTS on November 14, 2003 (link), but somehow we did not review his solo comments from the day before (link to mp3 - link to page for event). He presented a message he titled "The Gospel According to Oprah," which we've heard elsewhere. All time stamps are approximate:

0:10 "In recent months, most of the times when I speak, I speak before hostile crowds. Virginia Tech being the most recent. In those debates with Muslims and such, where the crowd is decidedly not Bible-believing, orthodox Christians. And so I spend a lot of my time getting yelled at, getting called names, and cursed and threatened and such. So it's always good to get among fellow believers."

a) What debates?  Almost all the speaking engagements of Dr. Caner's that we can find evidence of are speeches to Christian audiences.

b) I could not find any evidence of Dr. Caner actually speaking at Virginia Tech, although I did find a transcript in their digital archives of a news program from July 30, 2006, regarding Dr. Caner (link to full text):

Caner was raised a sunni Muslim in Turkey by his father, a prominent Islamic leader.
But at 13, he converted to Christianity, and was promptly disowned by his family.
Now, Caner uses his education as a muslim child, and experience as an immigrant to America, to explain what he sees happening in the Middle East, specifically Israel and Lebanon. 

a) He was not raised in Turkey.
b) While his father may have been a leader in the local Turkish community in Ohio, there's no evidence of greater prominence than that.
c) He was disowned by his non-custodial father, but apparently not by his hippy-universalist mother.
d) The "at 13" may be accurate, but it suggests a date from November 1979 - November 1980, which is different from other accounts of his alleged conversion.

1:10 "My full name is Ergun Mehmet Caner. I am Turkish, was born in Sweden but my family is Turkish, and so we came to this country, my father being an architect, to build mosques."

a) No, his name is Ergun Michael Caner.
b) His father was Turkish, his mother was Swedish.
c) There's no evidence to corroborate this idea that his dad was an architect or that he came to build mosques.

3:25 "You're never gonna have me back."

And not counting the next day's performance (which was already scheduled), they apparently did not.

16:00 "My brother and I do debates on university campuses. In 41 debates, I have never, I have never, did I say 'never'? I mean have never run into one Muslim who ever said "Allah of the Koran is the biblical Jehovah, Adonia, El-Gabor God of the Bible.'  Not one!"

a) What debates?  Where is even one of these debates from a university campus?
b) The Koran itself claims that the Allah described in it is the same one that gave the Torah and the Injeel.

23:25 "I went to college at Cumberland College, just about 12 months after I got saved."

That would suggest a 1983 conversion date, not a 1982 date (as suggested elsewhere), or a 1981 (as suggested in his book).

25:45 "He reached me 1000s of miles away, as a towel-head. I came to this country to be a missionary to you. I assumed that you hated me."

He came as a toddler.

27:05 "They didn't mock my language, or mock my accent, or mock the way I dressed in my full keffiyah, they simply loved me."

What language? Swedish?  What accent? He grew up in Ohio?  The photos we have of him from that era suggest he wore ordinary clothes.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Southcrest Baptist Church - April 13, 2013

Apparently Dr. Ergun Caner spoke at the Southcrest Baptist Church on April, 13, 2013 (link).  He includes some of those same comments about how bad he is or was at handling funds.

9:15 "After I said the word 'married' they didn't hear a word. I could have said, 'and by the way, I'm a member of Al-Qaeda' Right? Turk, you could believe it."

I bet people could believe it.  His jihad-related claims in the past were pretty widely accepted at first.

22:35 "Brother Jerry asked me to do something specific. I've never preached my testimony in a (your?) church twice. I did it a decade ago."

It would be interesting to hear how different the testimony sounds now.  I also suppose this explains why Caner was giving this testimony even though other messages he delivered in 2013 didn't have the same emphasis.

24:35 "For three years, he kept coming"  | 26:20 "going into my senior year"

These make it sound like he was saved in 1983, since he graduated in 1984.

34:30 "For 17 years, I am disowned. Now I live with haters, and I live with people who always mock me. The thing that really gets to me is that when they mock my testimony, they're actually mocking the boy who led me to Christ. And if you make fun of a guy who gets disowned for 17 years, you're really sort of a hard heart."

a) 17 years would mean he was saved in 1982, since his dad died in 1999.
b) It's not "mocking" to point out that Caner's testimony has often been presented in terms that are not true, such as claiming he immigrated as a teenager or that his father was a polygamist.  Even the testimony he offered at this church in 2013 is inconsistent with itself - was he saved in 1982 or 1983?

35:05 "A year after I got saved, both my brothers - all three are born again."

This has been a pretty consistent aspect of his testimony, that there was about a year (or eight months) gap between his conversion and that of his brothers.  But in Caner's book, "Unveiling Islam," it is written that Emir Caner was saved on November 4, 1982, after going to a revival service "the following year" from when Ergun had been saved (p. 19).  So, that would put Ergun's conversion in 1981.

36:20 "In 1995, my grandmother got saved.  My grandmother died in 1999 at the age of 97 years old."

That would seem to indicate his grandma got saved at age 93 or so.

43:20 "It took me 3 years, Erdem and Emir another year, my mom another nine years, my grandmother - 13 years."

That 13 years number indexes well to 1982 as the year Ergun got saved.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner Announcing Music School Re-opening(?) At Brewton Parker

Brewton-Parker's Vimeo page has a video (link - downloading is enabled for now) titled: "Breaking News: President Ergun Caner announces the reopening of the music school at Brewton-Parker College."

Around 3 minutes in, Ergun Caner states: "I don't need you money, I don't need your dollars, I need your students. Bring 'em here."  That is surprising, considering the current accreditation status of BPC (link to report from SACS).

Around 4:15 in, he states: "Oh, I don't mind if you bring your money, because what I wanna do is I want SACS to watch with their mouths agape as we build the Stanley Performing Arts Center."  I do think they may stand with mouths agape, but perhaps not for the same reasons that Caner wants.

Around 4:45 he states: "I've never seen a place like this.  I've never seen a place where people came in with checks that we have no idea what to do with. That people whose names I didn't know, who had no reason to trust me, certainly not from what they read, and obviously I've only been here 121 days."  I wonder what reading he is referring to?  Perhaps he's thinking of the Ergun Caner Affair article, which indexes Caner's own words from dozens and dozens of sources.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Ohio Free Will Baptists - Men's Retreat Early 2007

A number of recordings of Ergun Caner have been removed the Internet, including four or so from an early 2007 Men's Retreat of the Ohio Free Will Baptists, featuring Ergun Caner.  An amalgamation of several clips from these messages is apparently preserved over at FBC Jax Watchdogs (link) and is also discussed at A Squirrel in Babylon (link).  The amalgamation is only about 7 minutes long.

The first part begins in the middle of a sentence and continues until about 2:25:

... until I came to this country, I saw through television. It was whatever the Turkish government allowed into the country that passed through the censors, and secondly it was what was basically free, or didn't have to be translated. And so we got a lot of sports. And we got a lot of shows that would be almost self explanatory. And that actually became this big window into America for me. For instance, 'Andy Griffith' was a show that we would get. I didn't understand it, but I thought all of America was sort of like Mayberry, and, it's true, I thought all of America was like Mayberry. It was in black and white and they sent it for free, and so I thought, and I moved to New York. And its not a real good comparison there.
The second thing was American baseball. And, the, Cubs, WGN, would send Cubs games. And I learned American baseball by watching, they didn't have to translate it, you just - you watch the game. You would hear, apparently it turned out to be Harry Carey in the background, and that's how I thought Americans talked, but that was, that was, you didn't have to translate it.
The third thing that I got, which is a little embarrassing, but it's true, was out of Atlanta, Georgia - and in Instanbul it played every two weeks for two hours, we would get a tape, of - and I guess it was a tape, they'd put it on, Turkish television, there on Biruki, which was the station. Georgia Championship 'Wrastlin'. And nobody ever told me that it was fake, you understand. So you will hear me constantly throw out references to things from my youth, because I thought Americans were the toughest people on the planet. Y'all got hit in the head with shoes and boots and chains, and I thought Rick Flair was the governor, and, Dusty Rhoads was the mayor and so that was my upbringing.

I think Caner definitely did watch wrestling growing up, but he grew up in America, not Istanbul.  He moved when he was a toddler, not a teenager.

The next part begins around 2:25 and continues to about 2:45:

Turkish, twenty-one generations Turk, came to America in my young teens. Moved from Brooklyn, NY, to Marion, OH, from Marion, OH, to Columbus, OH, Whitehall, from Whitehall to Gehanna, OH.

As mentioned above, he moved to America as a toddler.

The next segment is part of Caner's typical story about his in-laws not being thrilled about him dating his now-wife, with assorted ethnic slurs and stereotypes. (2:45-3:15)

The following segment is him saying that if he could get a PhD then anyone could. (3:15-3:33)  Some people have pointed out that technically he got a different doctorate, not a PhD.

The next part begins around 3:33 and continues to about 4:23:

I was devout. We dressed differently, we spoke differently, we acted differently, and I drove up that highway to go to the Mosque in Toledo every Sunday. I played soccer in Marion and in Galleon, as a Muslim. And we came to this country and came to this state to build mosques here. We were quote-un-quote missionaries to you. We came in '78 when Ayatollah Khomeni said "We will not stop 'till America is an Islamic nation." And now my people come here - the olive skinned come here four times faster than any other people group except for the Mexicans, and we're not in the back of Chevys. 

The photographic evidence suggests he dressed like normal Americans.  Also, he came in the late 60's not the late 70's.

The next part begins around 4:23 and continues to about 4:45:

I was 30 before I got married. Some of y'all waited a while too, didn't you.  But in my culture you are sworn off at 5, and you are married at 9 or 13. I wasn't in any rush. Turkish women got better mustaches than Turkish men.

By the way, this is not true of any of the Turkish women I've known.  Turkish culture has (in the past) included arranged marriages, but Caner wasn't raised in Turkey.

The next segment is him talking about how as a younger single preacher ("finally, the churches that would call me as pastor, were the ones who would put up with my bad accent, and loved me in spite of me"), old women tried to fix him up with their unattractive granddaughters. (4:45-6:05)  If they didn't care for his accent, it was because he was a Yankee.

The final segment is about him joking about "women behind the pulpit" and the reason for them being there is to vacuum, and how this will shut up the people demanding women pastors. (6:05-7:01)

Update: MP3s for this have been posted and described as Caner1 - Caner2 - Caner3 - Caner4)

Caner1:

0:00 "The definition of a fraud is somebody who looks like something, but is actually something else."

Indeed.

0:45 "Turkish, twenty-one generations Turk, came to America in my young teens. Moved from Brooklyn, NY, to Marion, OH, from Marion, OH, to Columbus, OH, Whitehall, from Whitehall to Gehanna, OH."

Discussed above.

2:00 "My full name is Ergun Michael Mehmet Gioviani Caner."

No, it's Ergun Michael Caner.

2:25 "Her father - this is not a joke, this is the truth, anybody from North Carolina will know this city - her father is from Possum Kill, NC, right near Smithfield."

It's not a place on Google maps in North Carolina.

6:10 "I've had the honor of having 14 books written."

13:25 "'But Paul, being grieved' - There's one language translation in the Latin, that uses a great word here - 'annoyus' for the word 'grieved' What's that sound like? Y'all ever been annoyed on your way to church?"

It's a mystery where he came up with this, as the Vulgate has "dolens" not "annoyous."  In fact, the root for "annoy" is French, which may be related to the Latin term, "inodiare."

20:20 "I have only been a Christian, and thus a Baptist, since I was 18."

By the time he was 18, he was apparently already at a Bible college.

21:00 "I'm not a smart man. If I got a PhD anyone can get one."

Discussed above.

32:25 "I had to learn the language on Broad St. in Columbus, Ohio. You can learn the language."

His grandmother never learned the language, according to his reports.  But maybe that's because she came as an adult, not as a toddler, like he did.

32:40 "I moved to this country. Come join in our reindeer games, but I learned English."

Same note as above.

40:30 "I lived in this state, until I was almost 18 years old, and hated you and thought that you hated me. I wasn't just any old Muslim, I was devout."

40:45 "We dressed differently, we spoke differently, we acted differently, I drove up that highway to go to the Mosque in Toledo every Sunday. I played soccer in Marion and in Galleon, as a Muslim. And we came to this country and came to this state to build mosques here. We were quote-un-quote missionaries to you. We came in '78 when Ayatollah Khomeni said "We will not stop 'till America is an Islamic nation." And now my people come here - the olive skinned come here four times faster than any other people group except for the Mexicans, and we're not in the back of Chevys."

Discussed above.

41:45 "And anything I knew about you, I only learned from the imam or in my mosque - the mosque in Toledo - the mosque in Monclova - the mosque up in Cleveland - the mosque on Broad St. that my father built - as a muezzin."

His father didn't build that mosque and calling him a "muezzin" -- well, he clearly wasn't vocationally a muezzin.

42:05 "Abinadab, Salat, Zakat, Swan, Haj, all of the five pillars."

The first pillar is the Shahada - not "Abinadab" whatever that is.

44:20 "For three years - y'all hear me - he was a high school buddy."

We hear this "three years" a lot, and it fits with his "going into our senior year" comment below, but not with the 1982 date he has other times said, or the 1981 date implied in his book.

44:30 "How many of us knock on a door. We're getting ready to give them the Roman road, we're going to walk them down the four spiritual laws, we knock on the door - or the Calvinists - they knock on the door and ask the two questions, knock, knock, knock 'You elect? No? Alright, see you!'"

That's not what Calvinists say.

45:15 "I don't roller skate. There's not a lot of roller skating going on in the sand."

Considering Caner grew up in Ohio, not Iraq, the sand reference is quite misleading.

45:50 "For three years, I dressed differently, I would take my prayer rug and roll it out in the high school bathrooms."

a) The photos we've seen have shown him dressed more or less like all his peers when he was with his peers.

46:35 "I got a B.A., an M.A., an M.Div., a Th.M., a D.Min., and a Ph.D. and guess what - God ain't impressed."

He didn't earn a Ph.D.

46:55 "Finally, I decided - going into our senior year - I'll show him."

Discussed above.

49:10 "Jerry said, 'here he is,' like you gotta point out the boy in a dress, right?"

Discussed above.

52:45 "November the 4th, 1982, I go home, I tell my father, I say 'Baba, I'm saved' and it was the last day I saw my dad."

I'm not sure why he called his father "Baba."  As for the 1982 date, it's inconsistent with the "three years" and "going into my senior year" comments, since he graduated in 1984.

55:15 "I've written fourteen books."

It would be interesting to see that list of titles.

56:40 "I was 30 before I got married. Some of y'all waited a while too, didn't you.  But in my culture you are sworn off at 5, and you are married at 9 or 13. I wasn't in any rush. Turkish women got better mustaches than Turkish men."

Discussed above.

57:15 "finally, the churches that would call me as pastor, were the ones who would put up with my bad accent, and loved me in spite of me"

Discussed above.

Caner2:

0:00 "... until I came to this country, I saw through television. It was whatever the Turkish government allowed into the country that passed through the censors, and secondly it was what was basically free, or didn't have to be translated. And so we got a lot of sports. And we got a lot of shows that would be almost self explanatory. And that actually became this big window into America for me. For instance, 'Andy Griffith' was a show that we would get. I didn't understand it, but I thought all of America was sort of like Mayberry, and, it's true, I thought all of America was like Mayberry. It was in black and white and they sent it for free, and so I thought, and I moved to New York. And its not a real good comparison there.
The second thing was American baseball. And, the, Cubs, WGN, would send Cubs games. And I learned American baseball by watching, they didn't have to translate it, you just - you watch the game. You would hear, apparently it turned out to be Harry Carey in the background, and that's how I thought Americans talked, but that was, that was, you didn't have to translate it.
The third thing that I got, which is a little embarrassing, but it's true, was out of Atlanta, Georgia - and in Instanbul it played every two weeks for two hours, we would get a tape, of - and I guess it was a tape, they'd put it on, Turkish television, there on Biruki, which was the station. Georgia Championship 'Wrastlin'. And nobody ever told me that it was fake, you understand. So you will hear me constantly throw out references to things from my youth, because I thought Americans were the toughest people on the planet. Y'all got hit in the head with shoes and boots and chains, and I thought Rick Flair was the governor, and, Dusty Rhoads was the mayor and so that was my upbringing."

Discussed above.

3:15 "Stelzer Road Church is still there, it has a new name now."

Really?  Looks like it has the same name to me.

3:25 "I got to see Jerry Tackett for the first time in 20 years, just a couple years ago, and he's just a preacher boy."

I thought he was a teacher?

5:10 "When we finally settled in, we moved to a little place called Whitehall, OH, and then we moved from Whitehall to Gehanna."

What happened to Brooklyn, Marion, and Columbus? (see Caner1 message)

14:00 (This is where he makes the women preacher joke, discussed above.)

15:45 (This is where he sings the KJVO Bible song, claiming that Clarence Miller taught it to him.  The crowd cheers with amens for it.)

16:50 "I had the honor of being in London, England, debating, and in Glasgow, Scotland"

It would be lovely if there were any evidence of this.

21:20 "In my family, my father had many wives - my father had many half-brothers and sis-- I have many half-brothers and sisters."

His father had two wives, one after the other.  He has two half-sisters, but that's apparently it.

35:35 "I'm a member of Thomas Road Baptist Church that has 28,000 members, quote-un-quote, the CIA couldn't find half of them. I've learned its harder to get a church to move than it is to get somebody off a membership rolls."

That's probably not exactly right, but it's one of the more candid statements I've heard from him.

36:50 "We begin facing, I don't know East, which way is East?"

They pray towards Mecca, which is mostly East, but not exactly East, from Ohio.

37:40 "Do you know what he's doing? He's repeating the first six verses of the Koran, over and over and over. A Muslim repeats the first chapter of the Koran, the first six verses, over and over and over."

The first Surah has seven verses, not six verses.

38:05 "If you fall down and break your leg, my father said, you get up and say 'inshallah'- God willed it."

No, you might say something, but inshallah is a forward-looking statement like "Lord willing."

Caner3:

12:20 "I told her, I said, 'In Turkey, you have Persian, Arab, and Anatolian, I'm Anatolian. In the Anatolian world, the man is not in the birth room, the man is in another room."

And Swedish ...

29:35 "I spank my boys. Why? 'Cause my mama did it to me, my grandmama did it to me, I pass it on to them, I hope they pass it on to their kids."

It is interesting that Caner does not mention his father.  This seems unusually candid.

Caner4:

2:40 "The Muslims hunt me down. More often than not--- I'm not talkin' 'bout them hunting me down to try to kill me, they just try to shout me down. And so I spend most of my time in secular audiences. I have two rules when I go to a college - I go to any school, I don't care where it is - I prefer to go to state schools, community colleges and universities, because that's where the Muslims are teaching. Now I'm telling you this, because this is one of my deepest passions. We got it somehow wrong in the last 80 years. The way we think of it, as Christians, is we think well, man, if I'm really good at what I do, I'll get a church to call me, and if I'm really good at that, then I'll get to a bigger church and then a bigger church, and if I'm really good I'll end up in a denominational job, and then if I'm really good I can end up in a Bible college, and then maybe even be in a seminary."

a) Has this Muslim shout down happened even once?  I can't find any evidence corroborating this claim.
b) It is sad that Caner sees the gospel ministry as a stepping stone to bigger and better jobs.

4:10 "Because the really good guys end up in college and seminary, the guys who can't get those jobs end up teaching in community colleges and such if they can find a job at all.  Schools that look for diversity want to hire somebody who's got a name that seems unpronounceable. They end up being the only voice for faith reason to kids in the state schools and the state university."

There are Christian professors in state universities, and they are good in their fields.

4:50 "If you ever hear that I leave Liberty University, it's not going to be to go to a seminary. As a matter of fact I fought becoming the president of Liberty Seminary in the first right, until Dr. Fallwell explained to me I could keep doing what I do.  If you ever hear that I leave Liberty University, it's going to be to go to some tiny community college, some state university. Put me on the floor as the only Christian teaching in that department. Surround me with leftists and liberals and lesbians and losers and put me around those people so I can be the only candle in the midst of the darkness."

a) It sure didn't turn out that way.  He went to Arlington Baptist College and now he's at Brewton-Parker College, while apparently continuing his connection with Veritas Evangelical Seminary.

5:50 "I'm going to one of our sister - our brethren schools. Northwest Baptist Seminary is a regular Baptist seminary out in Tacoma, Washington, but it will be for the purpose of debating a Hindu, specifically he is a Shaivite, and debating a Christian professor who doesn't believe much who's published "The Sister Faiths," a book that has to do with all religions being basically the same.

a) I can't find any record of any debate by Caner at Northwest Baptist Seminary.
b) I can't find any book called "The Sisters Faiths," but Martin A. Cohen wrote "Two Sister Faiths: Introduction to a Typological Approach to Early Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity."  But Cohen is a Rabbi, not a Christian professor.

8:05 "I have in my contract for every debate, two rules. Number one, no money. So, if you've got a community college you want me to come to and you know - we gonna set up a debate - you find somebody that'll debate me, I don't want a cent. And I don't want that guy making a cent, because what do they say about us, they always say, 'well, you're always after money, you're always after money.' Well that way, I can look 'em in the eye and say, 'Look, just pay my plane ticket and put me in a room.' The second thing is, no charge. That is, everything - you go into iTunes, all you gotta do is download it. It's free. And some of the things you can get is I preach at campus church, every Wednesday night on Liberty mountain. And its not just for Liberty University students.  We have 5000 kids that come, every Wednesday nights. And they are Liberty kids, but they are also kids from Randolph-Macon - it's an all-girls school. And you'll know 'em because these girls look like they can whoop you. They are - they wear the triangle - they're the lesbians and they all sit together, but they come because we respect them enough - I'm not going to point them out, but I'm not going to back up one lick. I'm never gonna say 'well, that's a lifestyle choice,' I'm ona say 'it's sin before a righteous God,' but I'm also going to turn to the kids and say, 'But all y'all who are playing around by going to second base and thinking you're getting around God's rule, you're messing up too.'"

a) Where are any of these supposed debates.  If there were contracts signed, someone should have copies of them.

b) We've gone to iTunes and seen what was there - there weren't debates.

c) Caner is referring to what is now Randolph College, formerly Randolph-Macon Woman's College, in Lynchburg, VA.  Interestingly enough, they changed their name July 1, 2007, and began admitting men.

d) I would encourage anyone to listen to those campus church messages on iTunes and see if you ever once hear him addressing sexual sin.

10:00 "So y'all can go get those things. You can download those. Now, let me just tell you ahead of time that the music is not southern gospel, it's industrial goth."

I'm sure it wasn't southern gospel music, but come on - "industrial goth" isn't really a specific musical genre, and I doubt they were playing Marilyn Manson (which is kind of goth/industrial rock) or the like.

11:30 "The problem with Southern Baptists is this: they are so reserved, they don't know the difference between dignity and death."

And now he's the president of a Southern Baptist seminary.

-TurretinFan

ErgunCaner.com and National Conference On Christian Apologetics - October 2013

National Conference On Christian Apologetics had sessions that were apparently recorded on October 11, 2013, in Charlotte NC (link to page).  Ergun Caner had two sessions respectively titled "Jihad Me At Hello," and "The Allah-leuia Movement."

Apolo13-88 - Ergun Caner - Jihad Me At Hello

2:40 "I will tell the pastors, 'I can do one of two things: I can speak to Christians about Islam, or I can speak to Muslims about Christ, but I can't do both at the same time.' It becomes too combustible."

I am not aware of any recorded cases of Caner speaking to Muslims about Christ.  But why would it be combustible to do both things at once?  That's the very essence of what apologists do in a debate - speak to both groups at the same time.

6:15 "I had not seen my father in 17 years."

That suggests he was disowned by his father in 1982 (which is 1999 - 17).  This is the same information found on April 26, 2014, on his website (link):

QUESTION: WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER?
ANSWER:
I did not see our father for seventeen years after my conversion. In 1999, I got word that my father was dying, and the three brothers decided that we would try and see him. We all flew in, and after some time, I got to see him. He died three days later. He died a devout Muslim.

As noted above, that would imply a conversion in 1982 when Caner was 15 (or 16, if it was the end of the year in 1982).

This is a suitable place to address the next item on that same web page:

QUESTION:  WHY DO SO MANY FORMER MUSLIMS WRITE UNDER FALSE NAMES? WHY DON’T YOU?
ANSWER:
Most former Muslims live in fear for their lives because of threats (see the first question above). Thus, those who would ever dare speak or write publicly usually take pseudonyms. Emir and I chose not to use fake names. We are proud of who we are as former Muslims and now Christians. Every book we have written has been under our real names.

Actually, though, Ergun wrote under the name "Ergun Mehmet Caner" instead of his real name of "Ergun Michael Caner."

7:30 "In August of 1999, I was in Aurora, CO, the last church I pastored, before I started teaching full time. I was finishing up my PhD and that church, Central Baptist Church, allowed me to be gone a good portion of the time to-for my study."

Technically, that would be a D. Theol., not a PhD, although as Caner's website (same one as above) says:

DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY
From: University of South Africa
Location: Pretoria, South Africa
Year: 2001
Thesis: Bellum Justum vs. Bellum Sacrum. I examined the apolgetics of the “Holy War” and “Just War positions in Church History, and the ethical considerations.
NOTES: I get asked often about UNISA (the abbreviation for University of South Africa), because it is a British-system University. The Th.D. at UNISA is the equivalent to the Ph.D., according to the World Education Service (WES). The requirements are the same. Many people attend this school by distance, but I chose to travel there for a series of intensives. Frankly, I loved my experience at UNISA. It was inexpensive, and my promoter (like a mentor) was a great man. I lived in a region called Brooklyn, and truly loved their culture. The university is massive, and the library is amazing. The Pauw Building houses all the Theology faculty, for both the Ph.D. and the Th.D. programs. The British system of post-graduate work is focused on the dissertation, and is called a “thesis.”  Quite a few professors in the United States have been graduated from UNISA, and around the world.

Notice that Caner claims he "chose to travel there for a series of intensives."  I'm not sure what exactly he means by that.  I should note that 2001 is a couple years after 1999.  There is something odd about that 2001 date, though - beyond the claim about finishing up in 1999.  You may recall that some years ago the first page of Dr. Caner's thesis was posted (link to post):

It may be hard to see from the above, but the date on that thesis was 2003.  At the time, I thought perhaps the thesis had been published later as a book, as is sometimes done.  However, upon further research, it turns out that the University of South Africa considers him a 2003 graduate (link).  The university's entry for him states:

Dr

Ergun Michael

Caner

2003

DTH (Systematic Theology)

That makes the "finishing up" in 1999 claim even more odd - as well as raising a question mark as to why Caner would have the 2001 date on his website.

7:55 "My grandmother got saved at the age of 92."

I have no idea when she actually got saved.  Caner has used a number of different ages.

8:50 "When we walk in, the ulima, the scholars, are standing around my father's bed."

Really?  What ulima were in Ohio in 1999?  This is reminiscent of Caner's previous even more grandiose claims about his father's death (link), which included "surrounded by muezzins and mullahs and caliphats, and imams".

42:45 "I'm not Persian, I'm not Arab, I'm a Turk, I'm Anatolian."

He makes a similar claim on his website:

As far as we can tell, those who question our conversion do so for the following reasons:
...
2. Because we are Turks, and Turks are Anatolian, not Arab or Persian. In history, these three major groups from our region of the world have not gotten along. We were raised speaking Turkish. 

a) Really?  Raised speaking Turkish?  Why couldn't Caner speak Turkish to the Turkish newspaper that interviewed him? (link to evidence)
b) Maybe the real reason people question it is because of the glaring mistakes about Islamic beliefs and the false statements about your immigration and conversion/pre-conversion experiences? Maybe those "factual statements that are self-contradictory" are the reason people question it.

Apolo13-05 - Ergun Caner - The Allah-leuia Movement

12:50 "He's from Possum Kill, NC, outside of Smithfield."

I've looked at a map of North Carolina, and specifically in the area all around Smithfield.  No place called "Possum Kill" was found.

19:25 "That's me in maşallah - I'm not Persian and I'm not Arab, I'm Turk. This is our rite of passage."

The image he's apparently pointing to may have been from a rite of passage, but the term "maşallah / masha'Allah (Mā šāʾ Allāh)" literally means "Allah has willed it" and idiomatically refers to something good happening.

37:10 "In Surah 61, Jesus says 'I must go so that I will send a Parakletos, that's Mohammed, Ma-ha-mood.' He was prophesying the coming of Mohamed."

That's not a particularly accurate paraphrase.  Instead, Caner is conflating the text of Surah 61 and the way that some Muslim apologists attempt to draw a connection to John's gospel.

Surah 61:6 says (in the Sahih International translation):

And [mention] when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, "O children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad." But when he came to them with clear evidences, they said, "This is obvious magic."

In the Yusuf Ali translation:

And remember, Jesus, the son of Mary, said: "O Children of Israel! I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you, confirming the Law (which came) before me, and giving Glad Tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad." But when he came to them with Clear Signs, they said, "this is evident sorcery!"

A more complete discussion can be found here (link).

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Janet Parshall's "Talking it Over" - January 10, 2009

Moody Audio has posted audio from Janet Parshall's "Talking It Over" show, featuring Ergun Caner as the guest (link to page for audio).  It apparently aired and/or was recorded on Saturday, January 10, 2009.  All times are approximate

5:10 “I had a gentleman in a debate say that I must have had a mercy bypass.”

I wonder what debate that was?

11:05 “It's like someone quoting Scripture to me in a debate - and they'll say, 'well the Bible says' - you know - I had a debate with homosexuals just very recently, and he said 'the Bible says, judge not that ye shall not be judged,' and I go 'that's a wonderful quote, where is that," and he said 'you should know! you should know!' I said, 'I do know, I'm asking you,' and he gave his little talk but he never gave the answer. And I said, 'I'll tell you what, I won't quote from your authors, if you don't quote from mine'.”

Which debate was this?

22:30 EC: "I said that - you know -  'I've been called every name in the book, towel-head, camel-jockey, sand-monkey, etc. but I don't care'" JP: " and by the way, Ergun, at that point you need to tell people that's because at one time you were Muslim." EC: "Oh, yeah, and ethnically I'm Turkish, 100%, raised as Muslim, came to America as an immigrant."

He was raised more after coming to America than before, and his mother is Swedish as is his grandmother, who only spoke Swedish.

34:20 “I mean I came out of Islam. I was raised in it until I was 18.”

By 18, he was apparently in Bible college.

35:00 “You know, I have a nickname. My full name, Ergun Mehmet Caner, is tough on a southern tongue - so my nickname is Butch.”

No, his full name is Ergun Michael Caner.

Moody Audio also has another recording allegedly of Ergun Caner (link to page for audio). Unfortunately, that audio is actually Walid Shoebat.

- TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Shades Mountain Independent Church - Missions Conference 2010

"See the Fields," is the title of a message that Dr. Ergun Caner apparently preached at Shades Mountain Independent Church (SMIC) at the Missions Conference 2010, on February 21, 2010 (link to page - you may need to scroll almost to the bottom). All times below are approximate:

1:30 "He was in my dorm, eight months after I got saved, in college!"

That does seem to suggest he was saved during his senior year in high school. That does not align with some of his other claims about when he got saved.

2:15 "I am a Turk. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, but Turk."

It is nice to hear him acknowledging his real birthplace.

3:35 "Her father is from Possum Kill, NC."

It would be nice if there was any evidence that this was a real place.

28:00 "Turkish kid, active, devout Muslim, living in Gahanna, Ohio. I don't eat with them, I don't talk with them. The Koran teaches, Surah 5, do not take friends from among the Jews and the Christians, you bring their judgment upon you. I have no friends who are Jews or Christians. One guy, Jerry Tackett, who doesn't stop for over three years. He's going at me with the gospel. I eat differently, I speak differently, I pray differently, I'm talkin to a different god, yet here's this guy who won't quit."

I don't think he didn't eat with them or talk with them. He did sports, singing, and theater throughout high school (according to his yearbook).

29:00 "Four days later, when I become a believer and I lose my family, and I lose everything, one church takes me in."

Why would his custodial, hippy-universalist mother care? His non-custodial father may have disowned him, but "lose my family" and "lose everything" looks unsupportable in the face of the facts that we can document.

29:45 "A year later, this boy who had converted from jihad to Christ finds out that both my brothers got saved. All three of us from our father and our mother, our father had other children and another wife, but from our mom, Ergun, Erdem, Emir, all three born again, all three ministers, all three married to amazing, godly, Christian hot wives, and it all goes back to one person."

a) This suggests that Caner was off to school when his brothers were converted.
b) Where is any evidence that Caner was involved in any serious jihad.

30:50 "My grandmother got saved at 93!"

Elsewhere it has been other ages, always over 90, if I'm not mistaken.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - United States Marines New River, NC - September 15, 2005

On September 15, 2005, Ergun Caner delivered two messages that were recorded and subsequently released by the U.S. Marine Corps in response to a Freedom of Information Act request (see the videos here - and more background here).  The two videos are identified as "Base Theater" and "Officer's Club." All times are approximate in the following summary:

Base Theater

2:05 "Just as I only understood American culture by what I'd seen on television, so do too do most Iraqis who only get their television from controlled sources."

He came from Sweden when he was a toddler - so this is hardly surprising.

2:30 "I spend half my time debating in formats. Debating Muslim ulima - those are scholars - or debating imams, the pastors - I spend most of my time cutting through cliches."

Where is the evidence of that half of his life?

3:10 "My father had more than one wife at a time. As you know, the Koran says in Surah 4 you're allowed up to four wives. My father had three."

No, his father didn't have more than one wife at a time.

4:05 "Written on the wall of the mosque in Kabul: [gibberish that is apparently supposed to be Arabic] - do not teach the women to read and write."

It's a shame he has to resort to pretending to speak other languages.

4:15 "Democracy is like cr*p out of a bull, you cannot put it back in. Once you have allowed it free, it's there."

I realize that people use profane language and crude analogies, but it is disappointing to see it from a person who often fills pulpits.

5:55 "'Umm, excuse me, why are you always picking on Canada?' Cuz our Salvation Army could kick your *ss if you wanted us to."

Same comment as above about crude language.

6:15 "Please don't release this to Dr. Falwell, I will so get hammered over this."

This seems to acknowledge that the recording was not Caner's to control.  It also seems to reflect Caner's recognition that he was not acting appropriately.

7:00 "I want you to look very carefully at my face, not because it's worth looking at, but this is the face of the declared enemy. I wasn't just a Muslim.  My training in madrassa was three generations deep as a jihadeen. My father was a jihadeen, my grandfather was a mujihadeen. Welcome to my world."

The idea that Caner or his father (or his grandfather) was a jihadist is not supported by any evidence we've seen.

7:20 "Coming to America I did not wear jeans, pants and I wore keffiyah - I wore my robes."

Considering he was a toddler when he came ...

7:30 "We came in full gear."

That's not what the photographs of his father show.  They always show him wearing normal Western clothes.

8:15 "... pants so tight you can see the seams split the mangina. Did you really think I was going to talk like a professor?"

This question actually elicited a loud "yes" from one leader in the crowd, while most of the crowd was audibly grossed out by the crude speech.

9:00 "My father was an architect, so we came here to build mosques as missionaries to you. Again, welcome to the face of the enemy."

There does not seem to be any evidence supporting this claim that his father was an architect or that he came to America to build mosques or as "missionaries" to non-Muslims.

9:55 "My training in my madrassa in Istanbul, my training in my madrassa in Cairo, before we came to America, I was taught that you hated me."

He came from Sweden to the US as a toddler.

11:15 "Five pillars of Islam: abinadab, salat, zakat, swan, and haj."

The first pillar is the shahada - he often says "abinadab," but where he got that - who knows!

36:50 "Mohammed was a Qureshi tribe, I was a Kurdush tribe."

I would love to see any documentation showing that the Caner family were Kurds rather than Turks, as Caner usually claims.

41:40 "I have heard them, Muslims who were debating me in St. Louis, who said 'Sadat - he was a traitor, he shook hands with the unclean,' meaning he shook hands with a Jew."

I would love to see any documentation of this supposed debate in St. Louis.

43:00 "The Quran supposedly came to Mohammed on his 40th birthday."

No, he was supposedly 40 years old, but it was not supposedly on his birthday.

43:30 "But there is also a collection, called the Hadith. Now this is a term you will hear in Iraq often, because, there are four different collections of the Hadith, Al Bukhari's Hadith, the Hadith are not the sayings of Allah, they are the words and sayings and protocols of Mohammed."

It's interesting that he seems to know that there is more than one collection, and that Al Bukhari's is one, but there are not only four.  There are, however, six major Sunni collections, which are collectively referred to as the Kutub al-Sittah:

1. Sahih Bukhari, 
2. Sahih Muslim, 
3. Sunan al-Sughra,
4. Sunan Abu Dawood, 
5. Jami al-Tirmidhi 
6. Sunan ibn Majah,

There are also other collections, particularly those of other sects of Islam.

45:00 "Hadith, volume 9, number 57"

Even after tipping his hat to the fact that there are multiple collections of hadith, Caner goes back to citing hadith without identifying the collection.

49:45 "Where you stand in the square and you declare yourself, I am now to be a jihadeen."

I mostly provide this to show that when Caner says "jihadeen" he does mean jihadi.

50:10 "When I came to America, in 1978, I ran into the first group I had ever - I had never seen a Nation of Islam person."

He came in the late 60's as a toddler.  I'm sure there weren't any Nation of Islam people in Sweden at that time in any significant numbers.

51:20 "There is two nations of Islam.  As I said, I didn't run into them until '78 when we came here to America. But there are two nations of Islam."

As noted above, he came in the late 60's.

56:00 "Whenever - in a debate with a Muslim - most recently Texas Tech University home of Bobby Knight - and in this genre in Lubbock, TX, the imam that I was debating, he said 'Islam is a religion of peace,' and I said, 'Wonderful - look into that camera' because it was being taped 'look into that camera declare that the jihad was not of Allah, call Muslims to lay down their arms.' And they cannot."

If it was being taped, then the tape hopefully exists. Where is it?

1:00:05 "We got stopped at the border, because my father had listed my mother as property. It's true. And the guy said, 'Your wife's not property,' and he said, 'of course she is.' And then he brought his 'sisters' - it's his other wives, it's how we bring our other wives into America, we call them our 'sister.' "

Caner's dad was not a polygamist.

1:02:10 "One of our celebrations is called Eid al-Fitr, it's at the end of Ramadan. It is the commemoration of Abrahim - Abraham - going to the top of Mt. Moriah to sacrifice his son."

No.  The Eid that celebrates the near sacrifice of Abraham's son is Eid al-Adha, which is on the 10th day of the 12th month, as opposed to the 1st day of the 10th month (the date of the Eid al-Fitr).

1:07:00 "I taught - and our debate, which was subsequent to that - followed that - I taught that Michael Moore was an exponent of Hatriotism.  Hatriotism: mock America, get applause. But the great thing is, as we've discovered, is that that doesn't represent that vast majority of Americans, it may represent some. But it doesn't represent the vast majority of Americans. Neither does it represent the vast majority of Muslims. And so my context in our debate, was that I said, 'Dude, you don't even speak for my people. Oh, you want us out of here, we're the occupying force. Listen, you fat pig! Do you understand that you have every right to  make whatever movie you want. I love fantasy, but I don't look for hobbits underground. But your documentary is being purported to be real when it is much more fantasy than it is truth. 'Well, disprove it!' And I pointed out six things - six things that he taught that were wrong. One, he had a Muslim who was screaming in Arabic and had it - made it look like they were screaming against America, when in fact he was screaming against the Sunni. He was a Shia protesting the Sunni. Then he had another woman, who was weeping and crying and saying, 'look we're exporting America, yada yada yada' and in fact, she was a Christian woman in Iraq whose husband had been killed by the Muslims. And I said, 'Now, are you going to change those things in your movie?' 'Argh-argh-argh-argh' 'You fat pig.' You see, you understand, I like to argue. I get paid to debate. It doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when people swallow what he says hook, line, and sinker."

Caner wrote an article called "Hatriotism" (link to article) against Michael Moore.  But debate him?  Where's the evidence of that? We have records of Caner being interviewed about the article - where is the record of this supposed debate? (link to interview)

Officer's Club

7:10 "I have two half-sisters who are learning how to read for the first time in their lives"

Considering his dad died in 1999 and this was already 2005, I really doubt that Caner's half-sisters were just learning how to read.

8:00 "My full name is Ergun Michael Mehmet Giovanni Caner, Turkish, Sunni, mujihadeen, my father was mujihadeen, my grandfather was mujihadeen, Kurdish - Eastern Turk"

No, his full name is Ergun Michael Caner.  He was not a "holy warrior" and there is no evidence his father or grandfather was, either.  Also, it's very doubtful his family was Kurdish rather than Turkish, as he usually claimed.

8:30 "I get to speak in churches most of my life, or in debates. I debate Muslims and B'hai and Buddhists and Hindi and all types on university campuses. So like I said, I spend most of my time getting yelled at."

Speaking in churches, yes - but where are the records of these debates?

9:25 "I knew nothing about America until I came here when I was 14 years old. Everything I knew about American culture, I learned through American television. Whatever they allowed into the Turkish region, so that they could broadcast for free. And so for me America was anything I saw on television that came from American television that was allowed through by the censors."

He came when he was 4 or less, not 14.  And he was born in Sweden, so Turkish TV doesn't enter into it.

09:50 "Didn't understand what they were saying, there was the captions beneath."

Notice how he implies he can read Turkish.

10:05 "I watched Dukes of Hazzard. I wanted to marry Daisy Duke."

The Dukes of Hazzard didn't air until 1979.

11:05 "They were getting stomped like a preacher at a topless bar."

More of this uncouth speech.

11:20 "The last television show that I watched, I'm embarrassed to tell you. But for the sake of authenticity, I should tell you. I watched, every two weeks, for four hours: Georgia Championship Wrestling."

Notice the allegation of "authenticity"!  Amazing.

15:00 "Her father is from Possum Kill, NC."

We can't find any record of such a place.

16:45 "My little half-breed child who ignores me in two languages."

Unless he means "English" and "Swedish," then this seems hard to believe.

20:35 "My madrassa in Istanbul, Turkey, my madrassa in Cairo, Egypt, there's no question what the doctrine of jihad was."

What madrassa did he ever go to in those countries?  He grew up in the U.S.

20:55 "I was sworn to jihad, at the age of 9. Until I was 18 years old and I became a believer in Jesus Christ. I was sworn to jihad."

They swore him to jihad in Columbus, Ohio?  If so, the government really should be investigating that group.

21:50 "You can see now that when I get into debates, I'm probably not their favorite candidate to debate. Some cracker, telling them that everything's going to be ok, maybe. But if you know the language, and you understand why they say what they say, and you understand the doctrines behind it ..."

Caner himself doesn't know the language and doesn't seem to have a very deep understanding of the doctrines.

23:40 "I was Sunni. What's interesting is that my parents were a mixed marriage, in that we were Kurdish as well, and my mother had Suffi."

His mother was Swedish with a Swedish Lutheran mother.  She later became something of a hippy, apparently, but that's not the same as Suffi.

28:05 "I would sit in the mosque, in the masjid, and I still go to the mosque, because I will go in - I will not take the positions of prayer but I will go and listen to the masjid on jumiyata, I will hear the prayer, I will go hear the sermon. And it is just replete - it is replete with these teachings of [gibberish that is apparently supposed to sound like Arabic] - the Christian Crusaders are coming."

Notice how Caner is pretending to know and speak Arabic.

30:20 "I couldn't imagine when I went to my first church, I had never walked into a church before, and I'm 18 years old, I could not imagine that they were nice to me. And you've gotta picture me now, I'm walking into the church in full gear, in full keffiyah."

You'll have to imagine it, because he was apparently already off to Bible college when he turned 18.

40:05 "But you always see video of us now, saying, reading into the camera 'I am jihadeen,' or 'I am mujihadeen,' if you've made haj."

You have to love this apparent claim that the "mu" means that the person has gone on haj.

42:05 "I tell you these things because most of you have been bored to death with people lecturing about the five pillars of Islam, the six foundations of Islam, abinadab, salat, zakat, swan, haj, the halal and haram the dietary restrictions ..."

As noted above, "abinadab" is not one of the pillars - the one he missed is the shahada.

46:30 "I love asking that question to the Muslims when I debate them."

And when, exactly does he debate them?

49:45 "I often say, 'Freedom is cr*p out of a goose, because you can't put it back.'"

Note my comment above about his crude language.

53:30 "But I did work at 7-11. I worked at a 7-11. I was Apu. Yeah."

Elsewhere he says he did not.

54:15 "This guy comes up and he's trying to hook me up, trying to be my friend, trying to sell me something. and I said, (some gibberish twice) I'm not interested, I'm not interested."

Notice him again trying to suggest he speaks some middle-east language.

54:30 "The really tight, tight, tight - if there wasn't a female here, I would tell you how tight - tight tight jeans I could tell if he was Jewish, tight jeans. And I said, (gibberish) This is violation! This is violation! He said (more gibberish ending in America) Come on, I can be American!"

Note the crude selection of illustrations. Ironically, Muslims are also circumcised.  And note the fake foreign language.

1:13:00 (Similar Michael Moore story to the one provided at the Base Theater at 1:07:00, although without any explicit debate claims.)

1:14:40 "'Raise your right hand, who's the president right now?' 'Ronald Reagan,' 'You're an American citizen.'"

Reagan became president January 20, 1981.  I note this only because some people have claimed that Ergun gained U.S. citizenship in 1978.

UPDATE: Someone made a compilation of clips for many of the items quoted above:



-TurretinFan

"Many Wives" or "Other Wives" vs. "Two Wives" - Norman Geisler's Indefensible Defense of Caner

In his so-called apology, Ergun Caner claimed "I have never intentionally misled anyone."  I don't see how to reconcile that claim with the many times (not just one or two times) that Caner has described his father as having "many wives" or "other wives."  How was that not intended to mislead the listeners?

Recall that Norman Geisler attempted to defend Ergun Caner in this way (link to defense):

7. Ergun claimed his father had many wives and two half-brothers and two half-sisters, but there is no evidence for the half-brothers.

Response: Ergun’s father did have two wives, having divorced the first one.  He had three sons by his first wife (Ergun and his two brothers).  So, Ergun has two full brothers and two step-sisters (from his father’s second wife).  While speaking quickly on one occasion, he mistakenly called his brothers his “half” brothers.  This is hardly evidence of an attempt to embellish or deceive.  After all, he had the right number of each sibling, and he didn’t claim to have ten brothers or sisters!

Ergun's father did have two wives - one after the other -  not many wives.  Yet Ergun repeatedly claimed his father had "other wives" besides Ergun's mother.  "Two wives" does not support that claim, even if it could somehow be used to support the "many wives" claim.  Ergun also claimed that his father immigrated with "wives."  That also does not match the two serial marriages story.

Furthermore, Ergun did not use the "half-brothers" claim only once.  He used it at Calvary Chapel Old Bridge and in two different messages at Ashburn Baptist Church.

And Ergun was not referring to his brothers when he said it.  At Calvary Chapel Old Bridge, Ergun said "I have half-brothers and sisters who don't know Jesus."  Likewise, at Ashburn Baptist on June 3 Ergun said, "And so in 1978, my father, my mother, my two brothers, my father's other wives, and my half-brothers and sisters came to this country."  And then again at Ashburn Baptist on June 5 Ergun said "I have half-brothers and half-sisters in Chicago, in New York, and in Turkey, who live here, who are still lost as geese" and again a few second later "How dare I give up! My half-brothers, my uncles, my aunts, How dare I give up!"

In short, while part of what Geisler wrote in defense of Ergun on this point is true ("two wives" and two half-sisters) much is untrue: it was not just once that he referred to "half-brothers" and he was not referring to his own brothers when he did so.  Even the true part falls short of defending the "other wives" claim or - bluntly speaking - even the "many wives" claim.

This and a number of other serious problems with Caner's autobiographical claims are documented in the Caner Affair article (link), which is mostly an index to other posts that document a lot of what Ergun Caner has said.  Currently, the list of source posts is around 54 or so (and growing), but some of those source posts deal with more than one speaking occasion.  For example, Dr. Caner has spoken multiple times at some churches, and generally those messages are grouped together in a single source post.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - West Cabarrus Church

Apparently, on July 18, 2010, Ergun Caner spoke at West Cabarrus Church, on Acts 12, "Will You be a Rhoda?" (link) This was after the results of Liberty's investigation of Caner had been completed (link to source).

1:00 "Turkish, born in Stockholm, Sweden, but Turkish"

It would be nice if he said "half Turkish," but ok.

1:20 "I ended up in the ministry, having been raised in Islam, and then born again later in life, I ended up in the ministry"

"Later in life"?  Try high school?

6:10 "We have two kids who are beautiful half-breeds, half me and half mama, and some day they're either going to speak Turkish in a southern accent, or they're going to ignore me in two languages."

Since when does Caner speak Turkish?

6:25 "Jill does not call me 'Ergun,' my name, Ergun Mehmet Caner"

No, Ergun Michael Caner.

25:50 "Raised as a Muslim, do you know what we did five times a day? We faced Mecca, and we prayed! But do you know what we're doing when we pray? We're repeating the first chapter of the Koran over and over. Six verses."

No, seven verses.

28:25 "the guy with a 2.0 through high school"

We know he was a pretty good student in college, but interesting claim nonetheless.

32:50 "We came to America to build mosques."

He came as a toddler.

33:15  "One boy, one boy heard from God, Jerry Tackett. And when nobody believed him, and when he kept coming and I kept telling him no, freshman year, sophomore year, junior year - I kept telling him shut up, leave me alone, I don't want to go to your church, I go to the mosque ... "

If it was the first half of his junior year, that could have been 1982, but that would still not match the account in the Caners' book.

37:00 "A year later, my brothers were both Christians."

That has been one of the constants in the various stories.  I hope it is true.

-TurretinFan

Emir Caner - Salem Baptist Church

If you have an interest in the Ergun Caner affair, consider listening to a message Emir Caner delivered in 2013 at Salem Baptist Church (link to page)(link to mp3). You will hear things like "My father's Turkish, my mother's Swedish" and "Swedish was my first language, English was my second language."  I do wish Emir would come out and correct the many errors that we have documented Ergun making (link to documentation).

Then again, if I followed the sermon correctly, it sounded like Emir placed his own disowning by his father close to his conversion, and says he did not see his father for - if I heard correctly - "fourteen" years, which would seem to place Emir's conversion around 1985, rather than the 1982 mentioned in his book.

Ergun Caner - First Baptist Church, Mount Vernon, Georgia

Dr. Ergun Caner very recently (March 2, 2014) spoke at the First Baptist Church, Mount Vernon, Georgia (link to video).   Pastor Karl Hay (apparently one of the trustees that voted to call Ergun Caner to Brewton-Parker) has a rather gushing introduction to Dr. Caner at the beginning of the video.  It is another one of Caner's sermons regarding the feeding of the 5,000, exalting "anonymous" saints. It avoids some of the more extravagant embellishments we've seen - but the historical account it provides is not consistent, neither with itself nor with the testimony provided in the Caners' book.

8:05 "Turkish, born in Sweden, immigrant, Yankee"

That's better than some of the older presentations.

8:15 "Born as a Muslim, you know, raised in an Islamic home, born in Stockholm, Sweden, but Turkish. Come to America, my father builds mosques. Got saved in Columbus, Ohio."

a) I have yet to see any evidence corroborating this idea that his dad built "mosques."
b) He was apparently "raised" primarily in the non-Muslim home of his mother and grandmother.
c) He was "raised" after coming to America.  I know he doesn't say he's telling the story in order here.

8:50 "I got saved going into college, in high school going into college."

That does sound like he's suggesting his senior year, doesn't it?

9:30 "My full name Ergun Mehmet Caner."

No, it's Ergun Michael Caner.  Ergun Mehmet Caner is a pen-name or pseudonym, like "TurretinFan."

9:40 "Ergun, Ergun [using a different pronunciation], Mehmet, my father's middle name - I took it when he died and Caner is Caner [using a different pronunciation]."

Well, it's nice to see him pointing out that this was not his birth name.  But the evidence is that Caner took this name as his pseudonym shortly after the September 11 attacks in late 2001, rather than in 1999 when his father died.

10:30 "Her father is from Possum Kill, NC."

It would be great to see any evidence that such a place exists.

23:40 "It was a high school freshman who wouldn't shut up until our senior year, Jerry Tackett. Almost four years, Jerry Tackett kept coming - invited me - invited me. Now picture this, the Muslim kid moves to Columbus, Ohio, I don't look like you people, I don't know what you people do in your church, I have no idea what these Christians are, I don't want nothin' to do with you. We go to the mosque. Except in that case, the masjid was not yet built, but we would go to gather, we would do our prayers, we would spend our time, and we were surrounded by you people. And anything I ever heard about Christianity, I heard by rumor."

a) Aside from his Swedish Lutheran grandmother that lived with him?
b) Was he really saved in his senior year 1983-84 or earlier, like around 1981, as alleged in his book?
c) What does he mean, the masjid was not built yet?
d) He did look like us people based on the photos of his childhood.
e) Doesn't he mean "Muslim toddler" to be more precise? That's not the impression his story gives, is it?

25:40 "I couldn't even tell you how many times Tackett asked me. He'll tell you. 'Cause he and I are still buddies, and you'll see him, 'cause I'm bringin' him. And when that guy shows up, he hates it when I use his name. 'Cause that's all he does is witness."

This should be interesting, if Tackett will clarify the timeline.

27:00 "Finally, in my senior year in high school, at Gahanna Lincoln High School, in Columbus, Ohio, I decided to shut him up."

Still sounds like senior year...

33:25 "I go home, that night, to tell my father, [something apparently gibberish, sounds like mubin-allah], I'm saved. It's the last night I see my dad, until seventeen years later when he passes away."

His father died in 1999.  1999-17=1982  But that would be his sophomore year or junior year, since he graduated in 1984.  So, which is it?

33:45 "A year later, both my brothers got saved, all three boys raised as devout Muslims"

There's some kind of edit in the video around 34:20.  I have no idea what was deleted or how long the deletion was.  My guess, based on similar sermons, is that it was only a few seconds of lost/removed material, but there is no way I know of, to be sure.

- TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - First Baptist Church Pearl City, June 1, 2007

Ergun Caner spoke at First Baptist Church Pearl City, June 1, 2007, as part of a conference from May 31 to June 2, titled "Possess the Land:Equipping for Evangelism" (see this archive).  This message is the one that, if I recall correctly, opened my eyes to the fact that there was something fishy going on with Dr. Caner's autobiography.  I would love to link you to a copy of the full video for this, but unfortunately for you the church's website no longer carries this video or indeed the conference materials found at the archive above.

0:10 "My brother is exactly right I am sure that serving here you guys probably have people all the time going 'You know, brother, I feel led to come,' because it's Hawaii. Well, let me assuage some of your fears. I am not going to the beach once. No offense to the beach - the beach is beautiful and it's gorgeous - I'm just not a beach person. I was born in Istanbul, Turkey. I am a sand monkey. Been called worse. I came to America after going to Beirut and then Cairo. And when I came to America in 1978 at the age of 14 years old, I have lived a very urban life. I am a very citified person. Never had a lawn to mow, I've never fished - hunted - I'll share more about this in a little while, but it's all to say, I wanted to come for a number of reasons, one of which was the work that I do. Being raised a Sunni Muslim, speaking Arabic, and being raised in the world, we have - my brothers and I - find out about some of the things that the Muslim community is doing ... ."

a) No, he was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
b) There's no evidence we've seen that he came to America from Sweden via Beirut or Cairo.
c) He came in about 1969, not 1978.
d) He was two or three when he came, not fourteen.
e) He does not "speak Arabic," though he has apparently memorized the Surah Al-Fatiha and the Shahada, and knows a smattering of other Arabic words.

2:30 "I have seven degrees post-high-school, and I am going to continue to take classes and get degrees until I die."

We have found evidence of five earned degrees (link to discussion here).  Where are those extra two degrees? Is there any evidence he took any degree work after he was awarded his doctorate from the University of South Africa?

4:15 "I married a girl who does not call me by my full name. My full name is Ergun Michael Mehmet Giovanni Caner. She calls me Butch."

No, his name is Ergun Michael Caner.

27:05 "I graduated 216th out of a class of 394. Top third of the bottom half."

Compare with his claim at Olive Baptist to be 207 out of 404 (link to Olive Baptist excerpts).  I'm guessing both numbers are just made up.

29:05 "Young'uns, there was a time when I was 18 years old, and had a foot-long Muslim mullet hangin' off the back of my head"

It is possible he grew his hair out when he was 18, but he was apparently in Bible college in November 1984, when he turned 18.

35:25 "I spend my life, on purpose, around heathens."

It looks like he was spending a big chunk of his life speaking to churches and church groups.

41:45 "Until I was 18 years old, I hated you. I know that's harsh, but that's absolutely the truth. I can state it. I was raised to hate you. My father was a muezzin in a mosque - the one who does the call to prayer. And so we came to America because he was an architect and he built mosques. And He built the mosque in Columbus, Ohio and he modified the mosque in Toledo, Ohio, built the mosque in Kettering, Ohio. My father was an architect. We came here as missionaries to you."

a) Notice the reference again to age 18.
b) I question whether his father did anything more than occasionally do the call to prayer.
c) I also question this claim that his father was an architect.
d) I looked for a mosque in Kettering, Ohio.  I couldn't find one.  Maybe you can?
e) He came as a toddler, and there is no evidence I've seen to corroborate the idea that his father intended to be a "missionary."

42:25 "I dressed differently, spoke differently, acted differently, walked differently, ate differently, and I lived in a country, for the first time in my life, as a minority. And I hated you."

a) We've seen his photos.  He looked pretty much the same and I would be surprised if he sounded much different.

b) Muslims were a minority in Sweden, his birthplace, as well as America, the place he moved.

44:10 "One kid who for four years, hunted me down. He started when we were freshmen in high school in Gahanna Lincoln High School, in Gahanna, OH, and he did not stop until I was a senior - going into my senior year. 'Dude do you want to come with me' 'Dude, do you want to come with me to roller skating?' 'yeah, there's not a lot of roller skating in sand, so no.'"

a) He was a senior from 1983-84, i.e. when he was 16-17, and if it was the summer before his senior year, that would be 16.

b) What does sand have to do with it?

45:45 "so, finally, going into my senior year, I decided I would show him. Now bear in mind, I am in full keffiyah. "

He may have worn "Muslim" garb on some rare occasions, but the pictures we have of his childhood almost all show him in western clothing.

51:50 "Papa, Isa bin Allah - I believe in Jesus - [some gibberish apparently supposed to sound like Arabic] It was November the 4th, 1982, and it was the last day I saw my father. I was out. His oldest son, and I was out. I lost my family, and discovered that the church was my family. I lived in people's basements and garages."

a) It's disappointing that Caner would pretend to speak in another language.
b) His mom had custody of him at that time, so there is no reason he would need to live in someone else's home.

53:10 "A year later, I was called to preach. I don't know how y'all do it, but I came forward that morning. My grasp of the Bible was horrible. I didn't know what he was calling me to. But Clarence turned me around in front of that church, and here's what he did - handkerchief again, he said: 'Well, Bless God! This morning Brother Arrogant' - 'cause he never could get my name right - "This morning Brother Arrogant comes forward to surrender to the gospel ministry. He'll be preaching his first sermon, tonight.' I had four hours, 'cause our church didn't get out at 12, honey. It was a seven minute sermon and it was the night that both my brothers got saved."

That would mean he was preaching some time after his senior year, but he apparently when off to Bible college after high school.

55:20 "Now listen, the rest of my family - my father died a Muslim, his other wives, his other children, still Muslims."

Dr. Caner's dad apparently remarried once after divorcing Caner's mom.  But "other wives" would imply at least yet another wife beyond those two.

- TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Harold Hendrick Interview

Apparently, on September 3, 2009, Harold Hendrick interviewed Ergun Caner (link)(link to mp3).

0:35 Harold Hendrick: "He's the son of a Muslim leader, born in Turkey I believe, right Dr. Caner?"
Ergun Caner: "Yes Sir"

Ergun Caner was born in Sweden.

4:45 Ergun Caner: "Even my country, Turkey, which is sadly trying to be part of the European Union, refuses to admit - you know - refuses to admit what we did - the genocide on the Armenians, which we actually did do, and refuses to admit that honor killings take place in Turkey as well."

There may in fact be "honor killings" in Turkey, and there may be some sense in which Turkey is Caner's country: it's the country where his father and paternal ancestors were born and he may possibly even have received a Turkish passport when he was a child.  By itself this statement wouldn't be very objectionable, but in this case it serves to reinforce the previous "Yes sir" to the direct question about being born in Turkey.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - International Missions Conference 2008

Apparently, on November 2, 2008, Ergun Caner delivered a message to the International Missions Conference 2008 at Forest Baptist Church (link to page)(link to mp3). The message was titled, "Your Mission Call" and Psalm 145 was the text (all times are approximate).

1:15 "I've been preaching for twenty-five years"

That would put his beginning to preach back in 1983.

2:20 "My wife and I are a mixed marriage. My wife is from Haw River, NC, and I am from Istanbul, Turkey."

He's not from Istanbul.  He was born in Sweden and grew up in Ohio.

12:00 "I came to this country as a missionary to you - as a Muslim, Turkish, Sunni, Muslim."

He came as a toddler.

24:25 "Do you know who reached me for the gospel? raised as a Muslim, raised as jihadeen, living in a madrassa, coming to America to build mosques, worshiping a false god named 'Allah'?"

There is nothing to suggest that Caner was raised as a jihadi and - as noted above - he came as a toddler.

25:20 "Because if it wasn't for a high school boy, trying to earn his AWANA badge or an RA badge or whatever he was trying to do, I wouldn't be in front of you, I'd be behind you, and up to no good."

This suggestion that Caner would be "up to no good" seems to part of this "jihadi" mystique.  But there is no evidence that I've even seen that the Columbus, Ohio Muslims his dad was associated with were jihadists.

25:30 "Jerry Tackett started when I was a freshman in high school and did not stop until I was a senior. Jerry Tackett never took no for an answer. Jerry Tackett didn't care. I played on the soccer team, I played on the basketball team, he played on those teams. I would be praying on my prayer rug in the locker room, look up, and there he's standing."

Soccer yes, basketball no (according to his yearbook).

Also, Caner graduated in 1984 - his senior year was 1983-84.  I realize some churches make men preachers who are novices, but that would really be something - if Caner were converted and became a preacher in the fall of 1983.  Of course, that still wouldn't fit with his 1982 claims elsewhere.

It's hard to say whether Caner actually said his prayers in the locker room at high school.  I would think that would not be the most likely spot for a devout Muslim to pick.

-TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma - Annual Meeting 2009

Ergun Caner apparently addressed the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma at their annual meeting in 2009.  The following are some excerpts from that address (all times approximate) (link to mp3):

0:55 "I was born overseas, to Turkish parents, as a Sunni Muslim. We came to America with my father who built mosques. We settled in Columbus, OH, and it was in Columbus, OH, in 1982, that I found Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

a) Did Caner's dad actually build mosques?  I'd love to see some evidence of this.
b) Was Caner's mom Turkish or Swedish?  Her mother was apparently exclusively Swedish speaking.
c) I hope Caner got saved in 1982 as he claimed, but compare below:

8:40 "As a matter of fact, when I got saved at the age of 17 going on 18, I knew nothing about what church was supposed to look like. I knew nothing about Baptists, I had never been in a church, never held a Bible, I didn't go through AWANA, I'd never been to a GA coronation, had never been in a VBS, I knew nothing."

Caner turned 17 in November of 1983, and 18 in November of 1984.  So, was it in 1982 or some other year?

34:10 "I have an entire group of people - an entire cottage industry, dedicated to attacking me and my brother, and those of us who are former Muslims. 'He was never a Muslim! No Muslim has ever converted!' Well, here's one right here. 'Oh, this is all lies - this is all lies.' I maybe see five people saved a year out of Islam. My job is not about keeping score, my job is to be faithful to the task to which He's called me."

a) I hope that Caner has reached people for the gospel.
b) I don't think Caner's characterization of the "group of people" is very accurate.

37:10 "Do you know who reached me for the gospel? A Muslim who moved to this country to build mosques to you? Whose father was, for lack of a better term, a missionary to you?"

a) Caner came when he was a toddler.
b) A better term would be "engineer."  Caner's father was not, from what we can tell, an occupational "missionary" or anything like that.

38:00 "Thank God for Jerry Tackett. You'll never know his name. He's a high school teacher in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, who hates it when I use his name."

I bet he does hate it.  People probably ask him whether these stories are true, placing him in a difficult position.

41:00 "I live a weird life. My kids see me on TV. I got all these books. But I'm the same idiot I was when I was 18 years old and didn't know Ha-bak'-kuk from Ha-ba-kook' - and called Philemon, "Filet Mignon," and I couldn't find a church that would hire me as a pastor, because my English was poor, and look at me - fat, balding since I was 16 - not the good-looking preachers with hair gel - I wear a vest because it's a male girdle. So I couldn't find a church to call me."

Why would his English be poor?  He grew up in America - he was involved in theater in high school.  How "poor" are we to believe his English was?

- TurretinFan

Ergun Caner - Northwest Baptist Convention - 2007 and 2009

Ergun Caner apparently spoke at the November 2007 NW Baptist Convention (Number 1, Number 2) and at the 2009 NW Baptist Student Convention (Number 1, Number 2)  (link to the Northwest Baptist Convention homepage).  All times in the following are approximate.  If history is any guide, it may be beneficial to download the audio soon, before someone asks that it be removed.

• 2007 NW Baptist Convention - Number 1

4:00 "My full name is Ergun Mehmet Caner"

No, it isn't.

6:15 "I came to faith in Jesus Christ in 1982"

I hope he did, but that date doesn't match his testimony on other occasions.

10:05 "We have two beautiful half breed children - they ignore me in two languages.  ... I speak to them in Turkish, Jill speaks to them in redneck ..."

As far as we can tell, Caner doesn't speak Turkish.

10:25 "With my name Ergun Mehmet Caner, Jill does not call me Ergun Mehmet Caner, she calls me Butch."

"Butch" was apparently his nickname going back at least to college, but "Ergun Mehmet Caner" was apparently his pseudonym following 9/11.

10:40 "I learned the language, coming to this country. And I learned that in the South, each region of the South has a different flavor of their dialect."

I guess that's technically true, given that he came as a toddler.  I doubt he learned about dialects as a toddler, though.

11:20 "Her father is from Possum Kill, NC"

It would be great to see some evidence that this place really exists.

19:45 "I leave here after tonight's service, Dr. Cruz, I have to - apologetically I have to miss, but I'll steal your sermon later, cause I steal everything I've got - I was all into the Warren Wiersbe "Be Stolen" series back when they were coming out.  I drive from here back down to Seattle, because I'm an idiot. I get on an 11:00 flight, I fly to Washington, DC, then to Roanoke, I pick up my son.  The 9 year old Braxton and I then go to Kenya. We got on a 4 pm flight tomorrow.  And I speak at Kabarak University and debate the Maathai tribe there - the Muslims there."

Ergun did go to Kabarak University (as documented here) to sign an academic deal with that university on behalf of Liberty University (see the image and further discussion below).

I'm not sure what tribe Caner had in mind. Presumably, Caner meant the Maasai people (link), but as far as I can tell, those people are not Muslims.

Is there any actual debate that took place? I cannot find any evidence to corroborate that story.

21:00 "For some reason, the little world that I travel in, debate, is big now. And so when we debate, it builds the crowds, and people come and we have a chance to present the gospel."

I can't see how he lives in the world of debate, seeing as he does not seem to have any significant amount of actual debating experience.

22:15 "I'm happy if in a year, Emir and I will see together maybe 5, 6, 7 Muslims come to Christ.  When they come forward, they come forward to yell at us. Arcade Baptist Church in Sacramento, California, a thousand Muslims showed up. At the invitation, the pastor at the time, Daniel Henderson gave the invitation, and they came down both aisles, with Korans in their hand, yelling. Now how do you report that to the director of missions? There's not a block anywhere in that form. They come forward to yell - they throw things - they scream."

I would love to see some documentation of this supposed event.  Is there any audio or video from that day?

Also, I hope that Muslims do come to Christ through the work of anyone at all, including Ergun and Emir.  That said, when would this happen? I've found dozens of recordings of them speaking to Christians - where did they speak to Muslims?

40:15 "I had to become like them. I tried. I got FFA magazines - I did.  If you don't know what that is, Future Farmers of America, I got 4H, I got 4H, I got all those magazines and I'd write down the words they said on post-it notes, and I'd tape them, put them up on my mirror and then as I shaved, I would practice the words they use. And I would try to use the real phrases so that they could understand me.  One Sunday, I was trying to illustrate noetic sin, that man is not a sinner because he sins, he sins because he's sinner, that it's part of who you are, it's your DNA.  And I said, 'It's as natural for a man to sin as it is for a bull to chase after a --' and I forgot -- I know, I know, cow, cow, I know, I know but I said, 'as it is for a bull to chase after a she-bull.' God's truth! I couldn't even give the invitation, I had to walk out. It's the truth!"

I have trouble believing that Caner couldn't remember the word "cow."

• 2007 NW Baptist Convention - Number 2

4:40 "You know, eight months after I got saved, I went to college. I didn't know much, I didn't know anything. I went to Bible college, because I wanted to catch up."

That would imply he was saved in his senior year of high school.  That does not match with some of his other testimonies.

21:45 "My father had many wives, but from our mother, three boys."

His father, as far as we know, only had Caner's mother and one woman afterward as wives.

26:30 "My mom was divorced when my brothers became Christians. My father left her, blaming her for our conversion."

Ergun Caner's parents first filed for divorce when he was only 8 years old (see evidence here).  His father may have blamed his mother for their conversion, but that could hardly be the reason for the divorce, unless they were converted far younger than any of their testimonies have said.

32:05 "I spend the vast majority of my life, on purpose, among heathens who hate me. I go to community colleges, and universities, and state schools - that's why I'm going to Narobi, to Kabarak, because they throw things, and they yell things, because they've never seen Christians half the time."

Actually, why he went to Kenya was for the reason you can see in the embedded image.  It was to sign a deal between that university and Liberty University (as discussed on Liberty's site here).

And Liberty describes Kabarak University this way: "The country’s second president, Daniel T. Moi, founded the school in 2000 to provide Kenyan students with an academically excellent and biblically sound college education."  That's hardly "heathens," at least as described by Liberty.

35:00 "You go to Youtube and type in Caner and taser and you'll see that I got tasered live on stage in front of 5,000 kids. Why? I can't remember, it hurt that bad."

You can see this event from one angle and it looks pretty convincing (one link).  If you look at this event from another angle (second link), notice the taser operator picking up one of the leads from off the floor.  Then in this third angle, you can see the second lead bouncing harmlessly off his shirt (third link).  A lot of people recorded this, so you get yet a fourth angle here (link).  Still, those second and third angles make it clear that he did not get both barbs.

39:20 "I was 18 years old and hated you. You know what reached for the gospel as a Muslim given to jihadeen? A Muslim who hated the Jew and the Christian? A kid whose father was muezzin in the mosque - not the imam but the muezzin and an ulima?"

"An ulima" is not grammatically correct.  It should be "an alim," as "ulima" is a plural noun meaning "scholars."  I question whether Caner's dad was a muezzin in any greater sense that he volunteered to do the call to prayer a few times.

If Caner was 18 when he still hated Christians, that would put his conversion at the earliest in November of 1984, which is after he graduated from high school. That does not fit well with his own claim about when he was converted.

40:00 "Jerry Tackett hunted me down for three years. I got kicked out of my home, I lost my family, everything. I lived in people's garages and basements. A year later that same boy in the same little tiny church  reached both my brothers. All three boys, raised as jihadeen, born again."

Apparently, Caner's non-custodial dad disowned him.  However, there is nothing to support the idea that his hippy universalist mother or Swedish Lutheran grandmother did.  So, I really question this "kicked out of my house" idea and the "lived in people's garages and basements" idea.

Likewise, Caner seems to be suggesting that he and his brothers were raised as Jihadis.  There is no corroboration of this story.

• 2009 NW Baptist Student Convention - Saturday Morning

2:20 "I was bit nervous because, let me explain it this way, and you're probably going to think less of me, but that's the nature of the beast isn't it. When I lived in Istanbul, the only American television that I saw, became the window that I had into your world. The only thing I knew about America, I learned through television. Until I was getting ready to go into high school, that's all I knew was whatever I saw on TV. And so I thought that was America."

Caner came to America when he was about two years old, not when he was getting ready to go to high school.  There is no evidence that Caner ever "lived in" Istanbul, though possibly he visited it.

3:10 "Everything I knew about you, I knew through television. And so I watched Andy Griffith."

He goes on to compare Mayberrry to Brooklyn.  But I doubt a toddler would have noticed the difference.

3:30 "I watched the Dukes of Hazzard. I wanted to marry Daisy."

The Dukes of Hazzard didn't even begin to air until the late 70's, after Caner and his parents had been living in America for a decade or so.

3:50 "Every other week, for two hours, on Mehmet television, in Istanbul, Georgia Championship Wrestlin' - WWE and all that, was America to me."

As far as I can tell, this is a fictional television station.  Also, apparently Georgian Championship Wrestlin' went onto national cable in 1979 (see the discussion here). It's hard to believe it was going international before it went national.

4:45 "So I moved to America and the first two things we did, we went to a Cubs-Mets game ... and then we went to Madison Square Garden to watch wrestling."

I doubt a two year old went to those things as his first thing upon entering the U.S., although I supp

7:10 "You need to understand, my children ignore me in two languages. I speak Turkish and they speak Turkish sometimes, but with a southern accent."

28:00 "So when I talk to those people, and I say, 'Let me tell you what my parents went through. See, my father left my mom, because he blamed her that we got saved.'"

As noted above, that story does not fit the documented timeline.

• 2009 NW Baptist Student Convention - Saturday Afternoon

0:00 "You don't have to sign anything, you just download whatever debates. I have a two hour debate with the homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, every type of Muslim and Buddhist you can imagine, a Baha'i, I'm going to debate a Baha'i on Monday again. It will be my second one of this four week break. It's just something I want you to have, and I only give it to you because (a) I don't get to spend that much time with you and (b) it's coming here."

I've previously analyzed these so-called debates (see the discussion here).  Calling these interviews "debates," is very hard to justify, as there is hardly any interaction that I could hear.  They may be useful for students, in terms of hearing how various "world religions" describe themselves to Christians, but they can hardly be considered "debates."

0:30 "Every eight years there's a meeting of the caliphat, when the caliphat meets. The caliphat basically religious rulers in the Islamic world - all Sunni. What they do is they target certain states in the United States. They just finished with Hawaii they built three mosques in Hawaii. They just finished Washington, DC - the largest mosque that they built was in Washington, DC. Seattle's next - Seattle, WA, actually the state of Washington itself is next. And what they do is pump money in to that state."

The caliphate is the rule by the caliph, like a monarchy is a rule by a monarch.  There has been no caliphate since Turkish military leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished it on March 3, 1924 (see information here). I have no idea what shadowy group, real or imagined, Caner has in mind.  There is a large mosque in DC, but it opened in 1957 (see information here).

The closest thing I could find to this "every eight years" reference was the following, which describes a practice of Shia Muslims (not Sunni) in Iran:

The faqih generally oversees the operation of the government to ensure that its policies and actions conform to Islamic principles. The faqih is a spiritual leader whose religious authority is above that of the president and any other officials. However, in keeping with the practice established by Khomeini, the faqih is expected to refrain from involvement in the day-to-day affairs of governance. An 83-member Assembly of Experts, popularly elected every eight years, is responsible for choosing the faqih (or a council of three to five faqihs, if there is no consensus on a single faqih) from among the most politically and religiously qualified Shia clergy.

(source) - but I see no way to get from that to anything that Caner is saying.

6:10 "When I came to America, it was my job to get married. I'm the oldest of three sons to my father,he had other wives, three sons to our mom. As the oldest, it was my job to be the first one to get married. I was the  teenager. I had been sworn in marriage at age 8, in Istanbul, but because we moved, I didn't have to be married to that girl who had a better mustache than I did. Turkish women: my people, every Friday night, all the women Nair on their upper lip, all the men, shaving to separate the eyebrow. We all have hairy backs. Is that graphic enough for you? Well I didn't want to marry a Turk - I didn't want to marry a female version of this."

Caner had already been living in America for about 6 years by age 8.  The idea that he came to America as a "teenager" i.e. in late 1979 or later (he was born in November of 1966), doesn't match the facts we know.

Finally, this description of Turkish women is untrue and - of course - offensive.

9:00 "I want to do something with you that I can't do in most places, especially if I'm being taped, because it's sort of giving away our cards. But if I go into a community college or I go into a state university, I have two rules for every debate - I will come anywhere - I don't care where it is, I will come, as long as there is somebody who is sponsoring me, and I don't care - I will debate anyone any world religion as long as I know who they are before I walk in. There are two rules by which I operate: Rule number 1, nobody gets paid. What's the first thing they always say about Christians? 'It's always about the money, isn't it.' ... Rule number 2, a little harder - no Christians are allowed to ask me questions. When I go into a debate, I go in knowing that it's going to be hostile. I go in knowing that the questions that going to come to me are from unbelievers. I believe Christianity is only effective if it is applied in a lost world. And thus, I don't even allow Christians to ask me questions in the debates. Cause a lot of you come because you are of that first group - you don't like fights - and you start feeling sorry for me.  And you're not supposed to feel sorry for me. You know, you hear them calling me names and yelling and cussing and you're like 'it's horrible, let's send him an e-card!' or even worse, you will stand up and ask a question."

Where are any of these debates?

And how is that somehow giving away a debating secret or otherwise showing our cards?

18:10 "Inevitably in the debate, somebody will raise their hand and ask what I refer to as the Oprah question. The Oprah question goes like this: 'Umm, are you saying that a good Buddhist is going to hell?' 'Yes.' Don't ever stutter, don't ever hesitate."

What debate, dialog or interview of Caner has ever included a question like that?

21:10 "I would do my prayer time. Do you know what we're doing, aside from putting our foreheads to the ground and sitting up.  Do you know what we're doing? We are repeating the first chapter of the Koran over and over.  That's all we do. Six verses." 

It's actually seven verses, not six verses, in the usual enumeration.

- TurretinFan