Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Highlights of the FBC Lindale Ergun Caner Presentation

Last night First Baptist Church of Lindale (TX) hosted a James White presentation on the Ergun Caner scandal and what White calls the "Great Evangelical Cover-Up".

White not only laid out clearly the decade long deceit of Ergun Caner, but he also explained in length how he himself became involved in the controversy. Fully understanding White's interest and purpose in helping expose the Caner scandal is quite helpful to anyone who might question the validity of White's claims concerning Caner.

At the bottom is the entire 2+ hour presentation. If you don't want to listen to the entire presentation, here are some highlights:

1. Pastor Tom Buck's Opening Comments

For those of you who have followed the Ergun Caner saga over the last 3 years, I highly recommend listening to FBC Lindale's pastors comments on the video that start at the 17:00 mark of the video, and end at the 25:00 mark. It is very significant to finally hear a Southern Baptist pastor call out Caner for his deception and fabrications.

In his comments, Buck explains why he hosted the event. He expresses his concern over the "fabrications" of Ergun Caner, and the removal of videos and bios as a part of the Great Evangelical Coverup. He expresses concern over Caner's latest Tweets categorically denying the charges and claiming he has been exonerated.

"It saddens me....that there are so many who have participated in the cover-up of this. And so tonight really is an interest in the pursuit of truth....I think this is an important issue to be addressed, has nothing to do with reformed theology, it has to do completely with whether the claims of Dr. Caner are true or not true....I found it also quite proper, or appropriate I should say that Dr. Caner gave his same presentation behind this pulpit, prior to me coming here. Many of the same fabrications were declared directly from here. So I think its quite appropriate to examine these in one of the places he stood." Tom Buck, 9/10/13

So my hat is off to Tom Buck for being as far as I know, the only SBC pastor to stand publicly and call for Caner to admit to his lies and deceptions. It is too bad that there are not 100s of SBC pastors who have the same concern Buck has for the integrity of his profession and his convention and for the Christian message they proclaim.

2. Caner's "Opening Statement" - 2006 Sermon from Thomas Road Baptist Church

I think White made a very wise decision in opening his presentation by playing a 10 minute excerpt of Caner's testimony that Caner delivered in a sermon back in 2006 at Thomas Road Baptist Church, with Jerry Falwell sitting behind him on the platform. I don't think I've ever seen this sermon before - and it shows that even in that very large venue Caner was not truthful about his background. This starts at the 32:00 minute mark of the video.

Caner has the same phony Arabic-sounding dialect as he preaches, declaring that he came as a missionary.

This sermon reminds me much of Caner's 2001 sermon in Jacksonville, with Jerry Vines sitting right behind him.

3. White's Response to a Question at the End

One of the most important parts of the presentation I think, that points to the opportunistic nature of Caner and the motives for his decade of deceit, is White's excellent response to a question about what brought Caner to his prominence? White absolutely nails it:

"Before 9/11, he was 'Butch Caner'. He just went by the name Butch. Very shortly, I'm not sure of the date, was it First Baptist Jacksonville?...shortly after 9/11 all of a sudden he is asked to speak at a very, very large Baptist church, and this story starts to develop. And because of the fact that it was post 9/11, I mean all of us are sitting around going 'How and why did they do this?'  Here comes someone who says 'I was trained in this, I know this, it's my background, I'm a Christian now.' And there was a real thirst for that. He's not the only one who's done this, by the way, in the sense of cashing in on the hysteria and unfortunately ignorance on the part of many Christians....and that's why he still gets to travel and do the things he does."

Yes, Butch Caner became "Ergun Mehmet Caner" after 9/11 and with the help of the likes of Jerry Vines and Jerry Falwell Caner became an instant hit as gullible Christians (myself included) were seeking to make sense of the events of 9/11 in the context of our Christian faith. This is precisely why I was originally involved in this controversy on my blog - because myself and my family and extended family were present in that First Baptist Jacksonville sermon that launched Caner to stardom, as my pastor Jerry Vines nodded approvingly on the platform as Caner deceived Vines' entire congregation that day. It is too bad that Vines didn't do his due diligence in checking Caner out back in 2001.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this, Tom. Hope you don't mind my teasing you on Twitter the other day about your vigorous promotional activities.

    SMG

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  2. No problem at all Serg!!! I thought it was funny, my vigorous promotional activities...

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  3. 49 It seems to me that (as I've said before) he converted a good testimony to a business plan through the enhancements. And he has done pretty well with the improved business plan--especially as compared to what you would have projected from the days when he was plain old Butch.

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  4. What's this "shrill" comment re: Tony Miano? I saw that on Twitter, tried to follow it to its origin, and it was a dead end.

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  5. My former Pastor and I did Sunday School classes about Islam using the Ankerberg series featuring the "Caner brothers" and their books when they first came out. 

    I considered the brothers at the time, of the very few who were bold enough to counter-act the false notion of the PC "Religion of Peace" being portrayed.

    I was shocked when the truth came out, being a dedicated listener of White's Dividing Line Web-Cast for years. The Ankerberg series and books were more on the nuts and bolts of Islam with a very light sprinkling of their testimony. Big difference from Ergun's public speaking engagements!!  I understand the Ankerberg series and books have been reviewed to be found questionable in areas.

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  6. You wrote: "It is too bad that there are not 100s of SBC pastors who have the same concern Buck has for the integrity of his profession and his convention and for the Christian message they proclaim."
    As a former SBC pastor (just left the denomination recently - or should I say "was delivered from")I couldn't agree more. To my shame I will admit I kept my mouth shut because I felt I had no real influence - and because I needed my job! I am convinced there are 1000's of pastors like me...but we never discuss it in pastor's meetings, or even in private. I guess that makes me partly responsible - although I was careful to never reference the Caners or their bogus material around the church.

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  7. Do you think that the EC supporters have learned that jumping into this sort of thread just gets both EC and them knots on their heads? It does not seem reasonable that they would, but they have been quiet.

    Or maybe they have just recognized that EC is not worth their support?

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  8. And the bottom line is that absolutely noone even cares about any of this.

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  9. Pastor Tom Buck likes a taste of controversy so this doesn't surprise me. I'm glad that somebody is calling out the nonsense of Mr. Caner. Just an FYI, Lindale, TX is NOT in the backyard of Arlington. It is over 100 miles away and most people in the state would not even be able to find Lindale on the map. I should know - I had never even heard of it before moving to the region.

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  10. Thanks for posting this. I watched the whole thing and even though I followed the Caner saga this puts everything in a concise summary with lots of documentation to back it up. How can anyone watch this and say that Caner didn't lie? White came across as very humble and having a desire for the truth to be known.

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  11. Great Christian Leaders rebuke you!!!

    Apologist Dr. Norman Geisler declared: “We posted complete and detailed response to criticisms against Dr. Caner on our website (www.normgeisler.com).” He concluded that, “Having examined all these charges against Dr. Caner carefully and having looked at the related evidence, I can say without hesitation that all of the moral charges against Dr. Caner are unsubstantiated. Further, no one had demonstrated moral intent on any of the factual misstatements he made (which we all make).” He added, “Dr. Caner is a man of honesty, integrity, and loyalty to Christ.”---Dr. Norman Geisler, author and Professor of Apologetics at Veritas Evangelical Seminar

    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. (Liberty University)

    Tim Rogers of SBC Today (A Southern Baptist news organ), declared and defended his claim that Ergun Caner was “exonerated” of the charge against him by citing Merriam-Webster’s definition “to clear from accusation or blame.”

    SHUT UP AND LEAVE HIM ALONE...HE IS WINNING SOULS AND YOU ARE SOWING DISCORD.

    SHUT UP


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  12. Guess life can't be too bad for Ergun...his 419K house in Virginia still hasn't sold and it appears he bought a $415K house in TX. How many people can swing two mortgages like that?

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  13. Jax: I found James White's presentation accurate and clear. Some of the tweets Ergun has been sending concerning Muslims is totally unacceptable. How are we reaching Muslims with this kind of garbage talk. For example:

    Jan 20, 2013 Ergun sent the tweet:

    "My favorite part of doing what I do is when towel head stalkers take a break from bombing houses for Allah the moon god to attack me. :) "

    This makes me so angry and a huge reason why churches should no longer listen to Ergun Caner. He is a bigot. That's as clear as I can be.

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  14. Let me guess. Tom Buck is a Calvinist?

    Wonder if he will have an expose Mohler and Dever night over their support and defense of CJ Mahaney and his shepherding cult which protected child molesters?

    At the very least, CJ is more recent.

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