Christian leader faces questions about Muslim past

USA TODAY article-- Christian leader faces questions about Muslim past




James White has a list of questions for Caner

Gentlemen, there are a large number of direct questions Ergun Caner must answer. Nothing but open and clear explanations, not excuses, will do. I strongly suggest that you ask the following questions of Ergun Caner, and then publish, openly, the responses, for all of these questions flow from his public pronouncements.

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

What about Blumenthal?

New York Times Vietnam story
On May 17, 2010, the New York Times published an article stating that Blumenthal "never served in Vietnam, despite statements to the contrary. The Times has found that he obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war." (On June 30, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11360, mandating that no deferments for post-graduate study be granted in the future, except for those men pursuing medical and dental courses.) The Times also published a March 2, 2008, video in which he states that "I served in Vietnam".[58][59]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Blumenthal


Richard Blumenthal served our country, but he lied about being in Vietnam . He also claimed to have been that captain of Harvard’s swim. He attended Harvard but he wasn’t the captain of the swim team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_xAfu5xA04





Democratic Official Says Blumenthal Claims Were ‘Wrong’
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: May 23, 2010

On how many different occasions did he say that he served in Vietnam?

Drop me an email if you know?

My Take on the Ergun Caner Controversy

I was on the phone with a truck driver in my church who listens to a lot of Christian radio while on the road. While I was on the phone with him he said that he listened to a great program from Focus on the Family about a man who was raised Muslim and had become a Christian. Here is my dilemma. How do I explain to him Ergun Caner’s inconsistencies? Now that there is controversy surrounding many of Caner’s claims, I did a little research to make sense of it all.

I believe that Ergun was raised in a Muslim home and in his teenage years became a Christian. I think what happened with Ergun was that he was born into a Muslim family and his father no doubt disowned Ergun when he became a Christian. However, after the events of 9-11, Ergun’s testimony was greatly embellished (a euphemism for lying) to bring more drama to his conversion story. The sermon that aired April 26, 2010 on Focus on the Family was from a sermon he preached in 2001. It has some outright dishonest statements in it that he has continued to make for many years. It would be nice if Ergun would just set the record straight—publically.

I wish that Ergun would have just stated the facts. His father was a Turkish Muslim who married his mother in Sweden. Ergun was born in Sweden and moved to America before August 25th, 1970 (Emir's birth date), not 1978. So he was under the age of four when he moved here, not 13, 14 or 15. He was born into a Muslim home and when he converted to Christ as a teenager, his father disowned him for it. Later, both of Ergun’s brothers became Christians but his father remained a Muslim until his death in 1999. Praise God for saving him and his brothers. We all wish he would not have lied by changing dates and other details.

You see, there would be no controversy over Ergun’s testimony if he would not have embellished it. We can only hope for him to repent and set the record straight. I have waited a couple of weeks after Ergun’s sermon aired on Focus on the Family to see if there would be some kind of public statement. I (and others) even emailed Ergun and Elmer Towns to see if they had a response to these problems and I received no response. If you know of a response where Ergun has stated he was wrong about the dates I would like to see it.

James White has 22 questions he would like Ergun to answer (click here).

I would like to hear an explanation on when he to America. Here is why:




Here are some of the websites that have provided information regarding the Caner controversy:

Alpha and Omega

FBC Jax Watchdog

Witnesses Unto Me
*check out the documentation files

Squirrel in Babylon

Christ Reformed Baptist Church (5 articles)

Ministry of Reconciliation

Grace And Truth To You