The former dean of Liberty University’s seminary still is a member of the faculty, LU officials said Wednesday as reports circulated that he had cleaned out his office this week.
Ergun Caner “is now a faculty member at LU,” Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said Tuesday night in an e-mail to The News & Advance.
Falwell’s comment reaffirmed the university’s statement in June that Caner, whose contract as dean was not being renewed, would continue as a faculty member.
Johnnie Moore, spokesman for the university, said Wednesday that Caner would teach online courses. Moore indicated no decision had been made about whether Caner would teach in LU classrooms.
“Dr. Caner will likely be teaching online courses this fall, but his course load hasn’t yet been determined,” Moore said.
“He will still have an office at LU,” Moore said.
A four-member committee of Liberty’s board of trustees investigated Caner’s background this spring after questions surfaced about whether he actually had all of the experiences of being raised as a Muslim that he had described.
Caner had said in several speaking engagements after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that he was raised in Turkey before coming to the United States as a teenager.
He also said he was trained in Islamic jihad, a term associated with terrorist activity, according to recordings made in 2001 of his comments at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., and Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
However, his parents’ divorce papers, on file in a Columbus, Ohio, courthouse, indicated the family moved from Stockholm, Sweden, to the U.S. when Caner was about 4 years old, and continued to live in the the Columbus area.
Caner’s father was a Muslim who sought to raise his children in the Islamic faith, although he had only part-time custody after the divorce, the documents indicate.
After the investigation, Liberty University issued a statement on June 25 that said the committee concluded the Caner “has made factual statements that are self-contradictory.
“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.”
The statement said Caner would no longer serve as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary after his contract expired on June 30, 2010. It also said Caner had accepted an employment contract for the 2010-2011 academic year and that he would remain on the faculty of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary as a professor.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement