Kregel & Caner

Kregel author Dr. Ergun Caner will no longer serve as Dean of the Liberty Seminary following an investigation by a university committee of allegations that Dr. Caner made misleading or false statements regarding his past. His contract to serve as Dean of the Seminary expired on June 30 and was not renewed. Dr. Caner does, however, remain a faculty member of Liberty University.

 While news sources and anti-Caner bloggers have been quick to seize upon the committee’s finding that Dr. Caner made “factual statements that are self-contradictory,” the report also concluded:

However, the committee found no evidence to suggest that Dr. Caner was not a Muslim who converted to Christianity as a teenager, but, instead, found discrepancies related to matters such as dates, names and places of residence. Dr. Caner has cooperated with the board committee and has apologized for the discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review.

 In February Dr. Caner issued a statement on his Web site that said in part that he “never intentionally misled anyone. . . . For those times where I misspoke, said it wrong, scrambled words, or was just outright confusing, I apologize and will strive to do better.”

 Dr. Caner’s story, as presented in his 2002 national bestseller Unveiling Islam (co-authored with his brother Emir), has been verified by numerous persons who knew the Caner brothers as teens and throughout their adult lives. Kregel Publications has found no credible evidence that contradicts the facts presented in Dr. Caner’s writings.

 Moreover, evidence presented on anti-Caner Web sites, such as the legal documents related to his parents’ divorce proceedings, confirm that his father was a devout Muslim who did his utmost to insure his sons’ training in the Muslim faith. As Dr. Caner acknowledges in the introduction to More Than a Prophet (Kregel, 2003), “We were both [Ergun and Emir] raised to be faithful Muslims with the Turkish culture, yet our religious upbringing and understandings were those of devout Sunni Muslims everywhere. . . . Whatever deficiencies we may have had in our understanding have been compensated by over twenty years of study in Islam as we have tried to understand the Muslim mind” (pp. 19–20)

 Kregel Publications has found no reason to withdraw Dr. Caner’s books from publication or revise any substantive statements in his books. We believe the books are trustworthy, factually accurate, and helpful to both Christians and seekers wanting to know more about Muslim belief and how those beliefs compare and contrast with biblical Christianity.

In Further Defense of Caner | See this article