An Open Letter to Ergun Caner

by Mohammed Khan

mmmirele note: Mohammed Khan is the creator of several videos that call into question the depth of Ergun Caner's Islamic commitment prior to Ergun's conversion to Christianity at 16. Ergun continues to dodge questions from Mohammed as well as others who have posted on Ergun's YouTube and Facebook pages. Instead, he puts out Q&As that are either untrue or so misconstrue the issues (see yesterday's post) that they qualify as deceptive (post coming later today). Or he simply deletes the questions and comments and pretends they don't exist. Mohammed has sent the following letter to Ergun and I'm reproducing it here.

The following message has been sent to Ergun:

I am the maker of the videos which exposed you as a fake.

We have asked you on several occasions to respond to the 40+ points I have raised in my videos, which without doubt, prove you to be a fraud and a deceitful man. You always boast about doing debates, but when the chance of speaking to us occurs, you do not reply and remove the comments from YouTube and from your Facebook account, what are you afraid of? If you have debated such high calibre speakers, then why you are afraid of minors like us?

Your only response (if I can call it that) that you have given recently is on your personal website which hardly anybody goes to, apart from your fans is merely a closed statement and a reiteration of what you have already mentioned on several occasions in your testimonies and interviews. Yes, we know you claim to be an ex devout Sunni Muslim, but by telling us the exact same thing again on your website is nothing but a repetition of everything you have already said.

Instead of a closed “response” on your website which ignored each and every point I raised, why were you unable to engage in an open discussion via your Facebook or YouTube account? You obviously have the time to delete each individual comment and to block each user that questioned your authenticity, and yet you claim to be genuine, so what is with all the avoidance? You allow comments on your Facebook which mocks Islam such as “what is this? SHOOT THE INFIDEL?” You allow these comments but you delete the honest questions.

You were even unable to answer simple questions like “who is Bahruch?” Why did you remove even these THREE WORD SHORT questions? These users were not attacking you; they were asking you honest questions. If there is a Prophet that we Muslims who follow the Sunnah (i.e. “Sunni’s”) do not know about, we would like to hear about it....

One of the first things you said in your response was “With a name like mine, you would think someone would recognize I am Turkish!” Need I remind you that this is not a matter of whether you were Turkish; this is a matter of you lying about being a Muslim. Your father most probably was Turkish, but that does not mean you were a devout Muslim as you claim to be.

Regarding your discussion section where you tried to justify your celebration of Ramadan being 40 days, a user posted you a response on the discussion board where discussions are supposed to take place, but you, in less than 5 minutes of the response being posted, deleted it without hesitation. I suspect that your discussion board is strictly only for Christians that agree with you and want to make fun of Islam, what kind of discussion board does not allow for a discussion to take place? For your information, Ramadan is an Islamic calendar month which has up to 31 days and for you to say you were a Sunni Muslim and you fasted during Ramadan for 40 days is laughable, and this in itself is proof that you know nothing about Ramadan or fasting.

One thing that caught my eye is that you have spoken about your pronunciation of words. You have taken advantage of the naivety of your fans and told them that we disagree with you because of your pronunciation of words, need I remind you that this has NOTHING to do with pronunciation. You are literally saying the wrong words and giving the incorrect definition. An example which you have ignored is that the FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT pillar of Islam which every Muslim knows, even children, is the Shahada (the declaration of faith).

The Shahada is:

laa ilāha illa Allāh, Muḥammad ur-rasūl Allāh

“There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah" (Shahada)

But you said (and failed miserably):

Bismi Allahi alrrahmani alrraheemi Alhamdu lillahi rabbi alAAalameena

“In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds” (Surah Al Fatihah)

Al Fatihah IS NOT THE SHAHADA, it is completely different

As you can see, your attempt is nowhere near the actual thing which you should have said. How could you as an “ex devout Muslim up until the age of 18” not know the Shahada? This in itself is full proof that you are a fraud.

Did you know that devout Muslims recite Al Fatihah MINIMUM 17 TIMES A DAY and you could not distinguish it from the SHAHADA which EVERY MUSLIM ON EARTH KNOWS. What would you think of a Muslim who says he is an ex devout Christian but he mistakes Jesus Christ (pbuh) with Paul of the Bible? Would you think he is being truthful? Your error is not even a single per cent compared to this.

I, as a Muslim brought up in the West, still remember the Christian songs that we sang ONCE A WEEK for a few years of my life when I was barely 4 years old, I am 22 now. And you come along not knowing these basic things which you say you practiced devoutly until the age of the 18? This has nothing to do with pronunciation! Please explain.

Another issue raised in your response which amuses me, is the fact that you have fooled your audience into thinking that the reason I accuse you of being a FAKE EX MUSLIM (which of course you are) is because we do not follow the same traditions as you.

You said –

“There are many Islamic sects, who practice differently from one another. For example, the Shiite Muslims have celebrations that the Sunni do not. There are many different forms of Islam, many using different calendars, leaders, etc. For example: Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Druze, Wahabi, Sufi, Nation of Islam, and countless others. We treat them all equally– their claims and their movements.

Thus, they get upset when we speak of a tradition that they personally do not follow. I guess their first response is to say that we were never Muslims.”

You may think you are clever by using this technique on your gullible Christian fans, but we Muslims find this humorous. Firstly because you said you were a Sunni Muslim – which basically means that you adhered to any of the four school of thought (Hanafi, Shaafi, Maliki or Hanbali), or all four. Amongst these 4 schools of thought there is a consensus with regards to the Aqidah of a Muslim. Aqidah meaning - the matters which are known from the Qur’an and sound Hadiths, which the Muslim must believe in his heart, in acknowledgement of the truth of Allah and His Messenger. May I remind you that we are also “Sunni” Muslims! There is 0% probability that you celebrated, followed, recited or practiced something that we cannot relate to.

So for you to trick your fans into thinking we cannot relate to what you say because we “personally do not follow” that particular thing, is absolutely ludicrous. In addition to this, you know too well that that is not the case, and you are taking advantage of your fans due to their lack of Islamic knowledge.

You have lied your way to such a high position that even when your brother told the world that Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abd’ul Wahhaab was a Prophet, that they believed you both. Not even I as a person who respects this Sheikh highly, believes he was a Prophet, so why are you lying?

On several occasions rather than the word “Jummah”, you said “Joo-mee-aah”. You said you grew up speaking Turkish, and the word “Jummah” in Arabic is the same in Turkish just spelt with a “C” (but still pronounced with a “J”). So why would you as a person who “grew up speaking Turkish”, try so hard to say it with a fake Arab accent when the word in your supposed native tongue is the same as the Arabic?

I can assure you now that ALL of us who have acknowledged you as a fraud have never fasted in Ramadan for 40 days, because Ramadan is never 40 days, particularly for us followers of the Sunnah (i.e. “Sunni” Muslims).

I can assure you that our declaration of faith is exactly same as any other Muslim on earth,

I can assure you that not a Muslim on earth refers to their 5 daily prayers as their “Rakahs”, rather we call it “Salah”,

I can assure you we do not pray by reciting Surah Al Fatihah over and over again (if you were devout until the age of 18, why do you not know how to pray?),

I can assure you that every Muslim on earth calls Sharia law as SHARIA, not SHEERA,

I can assure that it is not written in any Hadith that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) foamed at the mouth or roared like a “lion” or a “camel”, why did you make this up? Surely you as a Christian are not allowed to lie and make things up?

I can assure you that the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was not the same day as he got the first revelation from Allah, you are lying again and making things up,

I can assure you that no Muslim on earth calls a single verse of the Qur’an a “surah”, rather we call a verse an “ayah”,

I can assure you that NO MUSLIM ON EARTH thinks that Injeel (Gospel) means Angel,

Why do you call the pillar of fasting as “SWAN”? This is not a difference of pronunciation, you are literally saying the word wrong.

Why does your body language in all of your interviews suggest that you are lying?

I can assure you that EACH AND EVERY ERROR you have made is not due to “not following that particular tradition”, rather it is due to the fact that you were never a Muslim and do not know a single iota about Islam.

You always say that Islam is not monolithic, meaning that there is not one single person that can speak for all of Islam, then please explain why you quote that deviant fatwa of a deviant sect that tells people to kill innocent non-Muslims? If, as you say, Islam is not monolithic then why do you always tell your gullible that this is what Muslims “should” believe?

Furthermore, you called your father “Abi” which in Turkish refers to your older brother! Why would you as a person who’s English is your third language (according to your FAQ which you have now removed), and you “grew up speaking Turkish” and yet you called your father “Abi” which means older brother, please explain yourself regarding this matter?

You mentioned in one clip that you believed in a Prophet called Baruch. There is no Prophet mentioned in the Qur’an or Hadith called Bahruch. Why did you make this up? And you avoided answering such questions in your Facebook and YouTube and brushed your clear errors aside by telling your gullible fans that these errors are due to being of different traditions, which is of course total rubbish and you know it.

Furthermore, how do you explain the discrepancy of your conversion in 1982? Why did you remove this information from your biography if you are not lying? You were 16 in 1982, not 18.

Why does the Church that you say “doesn’t even exist anymore”, still exist?

Why does the picture of you in the so called Madrassa, have a girl standing next to you?

Why is there a girl praying in the same line as you “in the mosque”? This does not happen anywhere.

You said “Emir and I often laugh about these attacks”. Yeah right, you are probably thinking “oh no, we have been busted, all we can do now is stick to what he previously said”.

You said “only 20% of the Muslim world speaks Arabic. The largest Muslim populace is from Indonesia, also not Arabic. Also interesting is the issue that pronunciation is an issue at all, given how they pronounce English! No other religion in the world makes such a specious argument except Muslims. To demean its own followers as “fake” merely for speaking the language of their holy book with a different pronunciation is reckless.”

My response to the quote above is that you are pulling the wool over the eyes of your fans. You said YOU WERE DEVOUT and you cannot say anything correctly. When it comes to Islamic terms, particularly amongst those who are devout, there is no difference of pronunciation, because Arabic is a universal language of the Qur’an for all Muslims across the globe. This has nothing to do with where you come from, Islamic terms REMAIN THE SAME. The call to prayer across the world is the same as it is here in England, so why are you lying to your fans? You are indeed a fool.

I could go on with a list of your errors and holes in your story. This message is a chance for you to properly respond and clear your name.

Surely if you are truthful, you would be able to answer each and every point I have raised, there is no hiding for one who speaks truth right?

I would greatly appreciate if you reply to the points raised and not merely post a lame response which basically reminds your easy to fleece fans that you stick to your bogus story even though it makes no sense at all.

Please go through my videos, you have until Sunday 9th August 2009 to post a response and reply to each point, failure to do so will confirm you as a fraud.

A reply failing to answer each point will also be counted as failing to respond.

The best thing you can do right now is to come and out and admit you lied, you will gain so much respect from everyone for being truthful.

This message has been sent to a large number of people, so we will all be awaiting your response.

I would like to thank you for your time, but I won’t, simply because you make an outright mockery of what I believe in by the means of lying.

We look forward to your reply.

Ergun Caner's Lies Catch Up To Him, Part 1

AKA His Father Did Not Build The Islamic Center In Columbus, Ohio.

It was pointed out to me that Ergun has updated his Q & A Sessions for July, 2009. Here is the first question:

QUESTION: WERE YOU REALLY A MUSLIM? I SAW SOME GUY ON YOUTUBE WHO SWEARS YOU WERE NEVER ONE.

ANSWER:

Ah yes, one of my “fans.” We do have a number of them. I have heard about some of them, and usually I laugh these things off. With a name like mine, you would think someone would recognize I am Turkish! And, since Emir and I write under our real names (emircaner.com), we have had every possible malicious attack thrown at us. So, this is no bother. Plus, we have addressed this in virtually every book we have written. Enjoy!

1. My name is Ergun Caner. I was born and raised a Sunni Muslim.
2. Our father, Acar Mehmet Caner had three sons: Ergun (me), Erdem, and Emir.
3. We were raised Muslim. We were trained Muslim. Our father was very devout, and when we moved to America, our father helped BUILD the Mosque in Columbus, Ohio. We were there from day one, when the Islamic Foundation was meeting on the campus of Ohio State University, to the building of the Islamic Foundation on Broad Street.
4. I doubt if there was anyone who served in more capacities, or more faithfully, than our father. He did the call to prayer, he taught classes, he did everything.
5. Until our conversions, all three boys were devout and faithful Muslims. We read our Qur’an, we fasted during Ramadan, we ate by halal, we prayed five times a day, etc.

I'm excerpting the entire first half of the question (the second half is a net full of red herring that doesn't deserve comment) because I want everyone to see that I am NOT taking anything out of context.

In fact, here's a picture of the question and the response as of today, Aug. 1, 2009. I'm doing this because Ergun has a really bad habit of changing what he said after his errors have been exposed.

(Click to make larger.)

For the purposes of this dissection, one paragraph is absolutely critical, and it is, on the basis of the evidence, flat-out false. That paragraph is:

We were raised Muslim. We were trained Muslim. Our father was very devout, and when we moved to America, our father helped BUILD the Mosque in Columbus, Ohio. We were there from day one, when the Islamic Foundation was meeting on the campus of Ohio State University, to the building of the Islamic Foundation on Broad Street.

And yes, apparently Acar Caner was there from the beginning. Here's a picture that used to be on Ergun's Facebook, but has since been removed:

The caption reads: "My father built the Islamic Center on Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio" and came from the album "Back in the Day (From Muslim to Christian Minister" by Ergun Mehmet Caner. (Thanks to the person who provided this to me.)

Here's another copy of the same picture, without the caption:

However, even if we didn't have this picture and its rather damning caption, we do have Ergun's own words: our father helped BUILD the Mosque in Columbus, Ohio.

Let me proceed to very simply demolish that notion right here and now.

There is still an Islamic Center located at 1428 E Broad St Columbus, OH 43205. It's a mile or two southeast of the campus of Ohio State University. Here's a Google Street View of the location today:


It's Street View, so it's kind of crummy, but you can tell that it's the same building.

Now, let's find out more about the building. For that, we'll first go to the Franklin County Treasurer's web site. I've already done this and found out that the parcel number is 010-055927-00. Here's the record from the County Treasurer. You can see that the property is owned by the North American Islamic Trust, Inc., and, as is customary here in the United States, it is tax exempt as a place of worship.

(Click to make larger)

Armed with the all-important parcel number, I can now go off to the Franklin County Auditor, which is the government agency that assesses how much a property is worth. These sites can also provide information about how big the piece of property is, the square footage of any buildings, how many rooms are in the building and, most important for our purposes here, when the building was built.

Here's the record for 1428 E. Broad St., Columbus, OH, the building that Ergun Mehmet Caner says his father built:

(Please, click on this one!)

Under "Building Data" in the middle of the far-right column, we find this information:

Year Built	1903	Total Sq Footage	4,608
Total Rooms	20	Bedrooms	0
Full Baths	1	Half Baths	5

The most important piece of information for what we're doing here is the first one:

Year Built: 1903

Unless Ergun's father was born about 1875 or thereabouts, he didn't build this mosque. Rather, this masjid (which is the transliterated Arabic for "mosque") was a repurposed old mansion. It's possible that maybe Ergun's father might have been involved in renovating the building for use as a masjid, but I can state the following confidently:

Acar Caner did not build the mosque [masjid] located on Broad St. in Columbus.

I'd also like to suggest that Ergun's misleading his mainly Christian readership by saying his father did the call to prayer. They might think that he was the Imam or person who led congregational prayer. The call to prayer (which is important in Islam) is given before congregational prayer and it's to assemble people together for that prayer. But Ergun isn't clear on that at all and given how his readers already have warped ideas of Islam, Muslims, etc., I can't help but believe there was some deliberation about this.

However, I KNOW there was some deliberate strewing of red herrings regarding his academic degrees. I will address those tomorrow.

Coming this weekend, part deux

Ergun Caner's answered a batch of questions related to his (former) practice of Islam as well as about his degrees. Unfortunately, his answers are almost all craptacular lies, half-truths and red herrings. I'll be going through this document and exposing it this weekend as I have time.

Stay tuned....

Coming this weekend...

...a dissection of Ergun Caner's claim that his father built the mosque (masjid) in Columbus, Ohio. Complete with documentation!

Hint: the building on Broad St. in Columbus is a masjid, but it was originally a mansion built in 1903. Ergun's late father couldn't have built this building.

Stay tuned!

This week's Ergun Caner check 07.26.09

As I've said before, I really do have better things to do with my time. However, this amuses me (at least for the time being). That being said, this is what comes up on a search of ergun caner Ph.D on Google as of today.

Ergun might note that a certain blog post comes up pretty near to the top. Additionally, a YouTube presentation of that blog post (thanks mokhan247!) can be seen.

Another interesting thing which can be seen here is that the "Ankerberg Theological Research Institute" has a package of Ergun and Emir Caner's appearances that can be purchased. Additionally, this page correctly identifies Ergun's terminal degree as a ThD. However, that appears to have come from the back cover blurb from a book called More than a Prophet. At least this 2003 Kregel Publications book has the right information; why did it take Ergun six years to correct it on his website? And why do other groups promoting Ergun still have this information?

My Arabic class has started, laters!

Ergun Caner update 07.19.09

Ergun Caner has changed his website bio. (Read the original story here.)

On July 11, 2009, he claimed the following degrees:

BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, PhD

As of today, July 19, 2009, his degrees have changed again.

B.A., M.A., M.Div., Th,M., Th.D.

That's a direct copy from his website and you'll see that the same error is still there, in that his Master of Theology is still referred to as a Th,M (should be ThM or Th.M).

However, Caner has not, as far as I can tell (by going around to the sites) let those places where he's going to speak know that (a) he doesn't have a Ph.D but a Th.D (a perfectly good degree awarded by a reputable institution and (b) he has a D.Min from a, shall we say, less than reputable outfit. In fact, a search on Ergun Caner and D.Min finds a lot of places that have that little alleged credential. A similar search finds similar result for the non-existent Ph.D.

I've got much more important things to do in my life, such as learning Arabic. But I can spare 15 or 20 minutes once a week to search out and see where Ergun has changed his biography. And, by the way, how can Ergun claim that he was "[r]aised as the son of a Muslim leader in Turkey," when it's apparent from other remarks Ergun has made on video and elsewhere that he was raised for the most part in the United States? This sentence gives the impression that Ergun was raised in Turkey when I'm pretty sure that's not the case (but of course, I'm willing to change my mind based on evidence.)

Ergun Mehmet Caner (B.A., M.A., M.Div., Th,M., D.Min., Ph.D.) - You are SO busted!

(July 19, 2009 Update here)

This is going to be a very long post, with lots of pictures, but none of those kinds of pictures, so get your minds out of the gutter! You might want to get a soda or a cup of coffee for this one.

I. The Background

Ergun Mehmet Caner is the president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, based out of Lynchburg, Virginia. Yes, it was founded by Jerry Falwell. Caner had hovered around the periphery of my thinking since about 2001. That's when he found some fame and fortune in evangelical circles by promoting himself as a former Muslim and so-called expert on Islam in the wake of 9/11. In particular, Caner is the author of Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs (now in a revised and expanded edition!), which has this not-at-all provocative cover:

(No, not provocative at all. Basically, what we're seeing here is not hijab and it's not niqab. It's a fanciful Evangelical Christian view of what the Mysterious Heathen East looks like. If you want to see how real Muslimahs dress, go here and here for starters.)

As a result of this book, and others, Ergun Caner has been called on by our press corpse to offer his opinions on various and sundry matters relating to Islam. But if you read the reviews on Amazon.com, you'll come away with the conclusion that Ergun Caner really doesn't know what he's talking about.

II. Catching My Eye

Last month, as I was surfing around the web, Ergun (and I'm using his first name here to distinguish him from his brother Emir, who also is involved in some sort of evangelism to Muslims) popped into my consciousness when I happened upon several videos on YouTube that basically accuse Ergun and his two brothers of being "fake Muslims." (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.) While that is a lot to digest, and some of it is outright mockery (for which you have to be in the right mood), if you watch the first few minutes of Part 2, you'll get the gist of it.

In the first clip, Ergun says, "I was a devout Muslim." In the second clip, Ergun tells John Ankerberg, "...that Jesus was speaking of the Messenger. So that's why the shahadah, the central confession of Islam, bismillahir rahmanir rahim, alhamdullah [?] rahim, there is only one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his final prophet, his greatest prophet." As the video goes on to point out, what Ergun was quoting (and mangling, by the way) was the first two verses of Surah al-Fatihah:

1:1	In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
	Bismi Allahi alrrahmani alrraheemi

1:2	Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
	Alhamdu lillahi rabbi alAAalameena

(Click here for one of the thousands of recitations of Surah al-Fatihah on the web. Let's just say that Ergun wasn't reciting it with tajweed.)

But, and to return to my point, what Ergun was NOT reciting was the testification of faith, or the Shahadah, even though he claimed he was. Here is the Shahadah for comparison:

أشهد أن لا إله إلاَّ الله و أشهد أن محمد الرسول الله

transliteration: ʾašhadu ʾanna laa ilāha illa Allāh, wa ʾašhadu ʾanna Muḥammad ur-rasūl Allāh

which means: "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."

It's not "bismillahir rahmanir rahim, alhamdullah [?] rahim," which is what Ergun said in the video.

It's hard to underplay the enormity of this mistake. If you're a devout Muslim (and Ergun claimed he was), you are praying (salat) five times a day. In each salah [session], you are repeating Surah al-Fathihah two to four times, depending on the number of rakats you are praying. Not only that, as part of the prayer, you are also repeating the Shahadah once. It's hard to give a cross-religion comparison. I would imagine that for Catholics it'd be like mixing up the "Our Father" and the "Hail Mary," while for Protestants it'd be like mixing up John 3:16 with the Beatitudes. Really, though, there is no comparison.

In short, if Ergun was as devout a Muslim as he claims to be, he wouldn't have made this kind of basic, elementary mistake. But he did. One might be tempted to excuse it as a slip-up, except that his brother Emir made a similar boneheaded mistake in Part 5 (starting at 4:47) of confusing an ayah (or verse of a surah) with an entire surah (or chapter) of the Qur'an. Again, it'd be like someone claiming to be an evangelical Christian saying that John 3:16 was an entire chapter in the New Testament.

III. Looking Closer

This was all very amusing and I was pretty sure that the compiler of the YouTube videos had caught yet another evangelical basically trying to fleece the gullible flock with a story of being an ex-Muslim who found Jesus. In these post-9/11 days, in days when churches think it's Perfectly OK to put up signs that say "Islam is of the devil," yes, you can dine out (and more!) on your conversion.

After looking at the videos, it's my thought (and I'm willing to be corrected) that Ergun Caner and his siblings were raised in a mixed-religion household (his father was Turkish and mother Swedish) and religion probably wasn't discussed much beyond, "What religion am I?" "Oh, you're Muslim." "Oh. Thanks, Dad!" In other words, I doubt there was much in the way of prayer and Qur'an study. I can be fairly confident in saying that, if only because of the boneheaded errors described above.

However, I found this hard to believe because I also noted that Ergun has a raft of university degrees. In fact, his website claimed that he had the following: Ergun Mehmet Caner (B.A., M.A., M.Div., Th,M., D.Min., Ph.D.) Oddly enough, though, when I went digging around, I could find no record of where these degrees were earned, so I sent him an e-mail in June asking about it, care of his website. I heard nothing back.

A few weeks later, I noticed that Ergun's YouTube debunker was back with a couple more videos and that Ergun had set up his own YouTube channel. So I posted my question as a comment on Ergun's channel (here's a screenshot since Ergun is removing comments and may remove this one in the future--click to see larger):

Ergun replied with the following in the comments on my YouTube channel (again, click to enlarge):

This is what Ergun says his degrees are:

1989 - Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies, Cumberland College (BA)

1992 - Master of Arts in History, Criswell College (MA)

1994 - Master of Divinity, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv)

1995 - Master of Theology, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (ThM)

2001 - Doctor of Theology, University of South Africa (DTh),

His dissertation is called Bellum Sacrum vs. Bellum Justum

(For those of you who don't speak Latin or are not familiar with theological terms of art, what that means is "Holy War versus Just War.")

So, in a row, that's BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, DTh.

Ok, that's fine, except for one thing. That's not what he's claiming today, Saturday, July 11, 2009. Instead, he's claiming: BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, PhD (again, click to make larger)

And this is different from what he has claimed in the recent past, as can be shown by this Google search, conducted July 11, 2009. The letters are: BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, DMin, PhD

(click to make larger)

What you'll notice if you look at this carefully is that the top item lists Ergun's degrees as BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, DMin, PhD. However, the second link has them as BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, PhD. And, if you attempt to click on the screenshot, you get a 404 error as the PDF file that used to contain Ergun's very short biography has vanished.

However, once it ends up on the Internet, it's pretty much there forever. I can testify to that. And, in fact, you'll note in the same search other sites that have copied Ergun's old bio. For example, at this Worship Expo 2009 site we find:

It's the old bio, with the Campbell's Alphabet Soup of Educational Letters (BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, DMin, PhD)!

Here's another one, just to show that this is the biography that is currently being sent out. This Acts 1:11 conference is scheduled for Nov. 12-13, 2009 in Lawrenceville, GA and Ergun is a featured speaker. Here's his bio:

Again with the same OLD set of letters! (BA, MA, MDiv, MTh, DMin, PhD). In fact, you can tell they're just cutting and pasting the bio from Ergun's website, because it has the same error (Th,M instead of Th.M or ThM).

I decided to see what I could learn from Liberty University (ha ha). A bit of Google-Fu brought me to the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School Catalogue. There, on page 116, we find yet another set of academic letters after Ergun Caner's name: BA, MA, MDiv, ThM, DMin, DTheol.

There's that DMin degree again but here's the first real mention, outside of the YouTube comment, of the Doctor of Theology (DTh) degree. And there's neither hide nor hair of the PhD Ergun's been claiming all this time. Is it possible this is the correct list of degrees?

Here's another piece of evidence. Back in 2003, when Ergun pulled up stakes from Criswell College to go to Liberty, Baptist Press ran an article which contained the following information:

After receiving a B.A. from Cumberland College, Caner received the M.A. from The Criswell College, M.Div. and Th.M. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and completed a D.Min. at Emmanuel Baptist University and a D. Theol. at the University of South Africa.

There's that pesky DMin! From an outfit called "Emmanuel Baptist University." Interestingly, when I Googled this institution of higher education, the first thing that popped up was "Is Emmanuel Baptist University real?" Uh hunh. That gives me real confidence in this institution of higher "education." And, when I finally got to the "university's" website, I received the following pop-up:

I don't know about you, but this just about screams "watch OUT!" to me. This next screen with the history of the university, doesn't comfort me in the least:

And then there's the tuition, a bargain at $100 per credit hour!

Then there are the degrees, the process of which is measured out in "years," and in six "years" a person can have a terminal doctoral degree.

This is suspicious. Anyone who has done graduate-level work in the average American university knows that while one can usually predict that getting a Master's degree is going to take one year beyond the BA, that is by no means certain. And getting a PhD can take the better part of a decade, depending on the amount of work and writing one does on one's dissertation.

For example, a friend of mine spent a combined 10 years in classwork, fieldwork, exams, writing the thesis and the dissertation and finally defending the dissertation. I haven't asked him, but I suspect he might look askance at the idea that one could get a Doctor of [Some Religious Thing] one year after completing a Master's AND after the payment of $3,200, plus additional fees as required.

And finally, there are those accrediting agencies, which look to be about as reputable as a "university" that measures out time to completion of a degree in "years."

It appears that the first two "accrediting organizations" are fake. Here's what Steve Levicoff, who wrote a self-published book about fake Christian degree-granting outfits called Name It And Frame It?, had to say:

"Claiming recognition by the American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions and the American Accrediting Educational Association of Christian Schools, neither of which are legitimate agencies, the University of Biblical Studies (UBS) was originally founded in 1955 as "Modular Education." Their 22-page catalog states, "Participating colleges award Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctor of Ministry Degrees," but they do not name the participating colleges." [emphasis added, but there's more at the link!]

There doesn't seem to be anything on the third outfit, the Southern Association of Christian Schools, in a search on the web, beyond schools that claim its accreditation. I suspect it's as bogus as the first two accrediting outfits.

If Caner got his DMin from an institution that promises credit for life experience, charges tuition far underneath what is the going rate for graduate education (if you've checked lately, even public universities are expensive!), grants a "doctorate" after one year's study beyond a master's degree and has bogus accrediting agencies, then I could see why he might want to hide this fact. However, let me be clear: I am not saying that Emmanuel Baptist University is a "diploma mill." However, it is apparently an unaccredited institution of something.

But what concerns me more is that Caner continues to claim that he has a PhD. As far as I can tell, he does not. He does have a ThD from the University of South Africa (Unisa), which is a distance university of many years' standing and which has graduated some highly distinguished alumni, including Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. I'm not sure why Caner claims the PhD instead of the ThD. He can't make the argument that they are equivalent degrees, even if they are both academic degrees, because Unisa awards both the PhD and the ThD. If the intention was to get a PhD, then he could have gotten one there in the appropriate department. Instead, he got a ThD, and the information in the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary catalogue reflects that.

IV. Conclusion

Now that we've come to the end of this trek, what have we learned?

o Ergun Caner has a raft of degrees. Three or four more than me, as a matter of fact.

o All the sources on the web, the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School catalogue and the information Ergun himself provided agree on the following four degrees: BA, MA, MDiv, ThM. It's after this point that Ergun's degrees diverge.

o Ergun claimed in his comment on my YouTube channel that his terminal degree is the ThD.

o Ergun currently claims on his own website that he has a PhD and there is no mention of the ThD.

o Additionally, up until earlier this week, Ergun claimed a DMin in the bio on his personal website. That has since disappeared.

o The 2008-09 Liberty catalogue says that Ergun's terminal degrees are the DMin and the ThD.

o I learned that Ergun received his DMin from Emmanuel Baptist University and I did some additional digging around. I found the following:

• There's some question as to whether or not Emmanuel is a real university.
• Emmanuel offers credit for life experience, which is usually a sign of a "diploma mill."
• Emmanuel charges well below the market rate for graduate education. In fact, its rates are the same for graduate and undergraduate education.
• Emmanuel will award a doctorate in a whole raft of disciplines (Ministry, Biblical Studies, Theology, Divinity, Sacred Theology, Christian Education, Religious Education, as well as three alleged PhDs in Religion, Biblical Studies and Christian Education) after one year of study beyond the Master's degree.
• Emmanuel's accrediting agencies are bogus.

Here are my suggestions to Ergun Caner:

1. You need to publicly acknowledge your true academic credentials. This includes correcting them on your website to reflect reality. In short, you need to stop saying you have a PhD when you do not. Your terminal degree is the ThD and you should be proud of it.
2. You need to contact the groups that you're planning to speak to in the future and provide them with an up-to-date curriculum vitae.
3. You should disavow that DMin, as it looks like it comes from a non-accredited institution of, uh, something. That includes letting your employer, Liberty University, know that the degree is not what it appears to be so it can be removed from the school catalogue, school website, shiny wall plaques in the school, etc.

To conclude this little exercise, I'd like to point out that Ergun Caner knows very well what happens when someone fakes his academic credentials. He was peripherally involved in the fall of one Steve Flockhart, who resigned in 2006 as pastor of the First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, FL, apparently because he had lied about his academic degrees.

Here are the pertinent parts from the story, which appears to have been sourced from a story in the Palm Beach Post:

The announcement came the same day the Post ran a story about Flockhart's résumé, which said he graduated from Columbia International University and earned degrees from two other respected schools. In reality, he received bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees through correspondence classes from non-accredited Covington Theological School in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., the story said.

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The résumé also said Flockhart was obtaining a second master's from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, although the Post reported that officials at the Wake Forest, N.C., school denied the claim.

[clip]

According to the Post, one part of Flockhart's résumé was true: his plans to begin working on a doctorate at Liberty Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va. The school was founded by Jerry Fallwell as part of Lynchburg Baptist College.

According to the Post, Liberty officials said Flockhart paid registration fees directly to seminary president Ergun Caner because Caner personally recruited him, said Ron Godwin, Liberty's executive vice president and CEO.

According to the Post, Godwin said Flockhart and Falwell are friends. Falwell is the school's chancellor.

(Here is a copy of the Palm Beach Post article from Religion News Blog. It is not available on the Palm Beach Post website.)

Caner claimed in an article on his own website (in a link which now mysteriously goes to a 404 page) that the Palm Beach Post egregiously misquoted him. He was very upset about the alleged misquoting, going so far as to say in an e-mail to the Post writer (this is from a copy that was dug out and saved from Google cache):

Your “quote” (highlighted in bold) was, in fact, the exact OPPOSITE of what I said. I noted, over six times, that we would allow admittance only as far as his accredited degrees would allow. We would NEVER waive prerequisites. This is not only unethical, it is not the method of an accredited institution.

This would not be a “misunderstanding,” but in fact, an outright invention by you, and ignoring my repeated statements to the contrary. We do not, and will not, waive any entrance requirements stipulated by SACS accreditation.

I am sorry you chose to ignore my repeated statements. I ask that you print a correction immediately.

I've yet to find that a correction was printed.

I have a cached copy of that page, but I find it interesting that it's now gone. Wonder why? (Oh, and by the way, Ergun, you really shouldn't be taking advice from Bill "Falafel" O'Reilly on anything.)

The ball is now in Ergun Caner's court. Let's see what he does next, shall we?

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(For the record, I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the University of Texas at Austin and a Juris Doctor from the University of Houston Law Center. In my current employment, I am neither involved in government nor law.)