As an online apologetics and discernment work sent forth by Jesus it’s part of the job description that Apprising Ministries keep you apprised of issues going on within the visible church. One of those going on right now I began covering in Bloggers Target Seminary President Ergun Caner. There I pointed you to a web-only report by John Kennedy for Christianity Today we’re told:

Liberty University’s board of directors has declined to take public action against Ergun Caner, president of the university seminary, as bloggers raise doubts about Caner’s account of his childhood as a Muslim… [L]ately, both Muslims and Reform-minded Southern Baptists are questioning biographical details provided by the 43-year-old Ergun…

Behind the squabble is Mohammad Khan, a 22-year-old London-based computing student who has posted 17 talks by Caner on YouTube… Both Khan and James R. White, director of the Phoenix-based Alpha & Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics ministry, say there is no record of Caner’s claims that he twice debated Muslim apologist Shabir Ally. 

“The president of a large theological seminary has created a myth concerning his background that is incredibly self-contradictory,” said White, who teaches on Islam at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. (Online source)

Yesterday in Liberty directors support seminary president amid charges of misrepresentation, an Associated Baptist Press piece run at Word and Way, we were further informed:

The president of Liberty Theological Seminary, who apologized in February for calling the head of the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board a liar, is now being questioned about his own testimony of conversion from radical Islam to Christianity.

Liberty University’s board of directors decided not to reprimand Ergun Caner, dean of the theology school since 2005, after conducting an inquiry into questions raised about his credibility in numerous blogs…

On April 26 Focus on the Family radio rebroadcast a sermon preached shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, in which Caner said he was born in Sweden, grew up in Turkey and did not learn English until moving to America in 1978. He claimed he was part of “Islamic Jihad” and said it was “my people” who carried out the horrors of the day.

The problem, according to various Internet sites, is that none of that is true… Jason Smathers, a Christian website designer, however, dug up a series of documents indicating Caner’s family was already in America when Emir, the youngest of three sons, was born in August 1970.

Caner’s parents began divorce proceedings in 1975, when he was 8. A 1978 divorce decree awarded custody of him and his two brothers to their mother. A separation agreement said the boys would spend five weeks a year with the father.

The father wanted the boys to be raised as Muslims, while the mother, whose religion is not mentioned in the documents — argued they should receive religious training through each parent so they would be better equipped to make their own religious choices at a “sufficient age” to decide.

Liberty University has not made any formal comment on the allegations against Caner. Caner has declined to be interviewed. “I shall not participate in this anymore,” said of the criticism being levied against him in his single public statement so far. “This is absolutely of no interest to me.” (Online source)

You can read this report from ABP’s Bob Allen in its entirety right here.

HT: Discern The Time