Ex-Muslim Evangelical Rises Under Falwell's Guidance

New Dean a Powerful, and Provocative, Voice

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- The lecture at Liberty University was vintage Jerry Falwell -- the booming voice, the evangelical fervor, the jokes:

"The average mainline church doesn't say Jesus is the God; they say we all have our own truth. You're pushed to the outside if you say there is one God. It's like being on 'The Ricki Lake Show' all day long."

But the lecturer in Room 114 of Religion Hall wasn't Falwell, the university's founder and chancellor. It was Ergun Mehmet Caner, a bald, goateed former Muslim from Turkey who is the new dean of Liberty's seminary. His Falwell-esque charisma and his unusual heritage have created a buzz that he is one of evangelical Christianity's future leaders.

Caner, 40, told his students that infighting Christians are like bored dogs "on a coon hunt" and declared that he had "straight-up hair envy" for a long-tressed contestant on American Idol.

"The average Christian professor has been saved, sanctified and bored," he said in an interview before class. "These kids think theology is dry because we are dry."

Caner's star rocketed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when he became a controversial in-house expert on Islam for the evangelical Christian community. His 11 books have sold a quarter of a million copies, and he is booked as a speaker at churches years in advance. Falwell appointed him dean this spring, two years after he joined the faculty at Liberty, one of the fastest-growing evangelical schools in the nation.

Caner says he believes that his popularity among Christians is largely attributable to his Islamic heritage, a faith he says is linked inextricably with violence and sexism. Most of his books have focused on Islam's "trail of blood," as he calls Islamic history, and when prominent Southern Baptist leaders call Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophile" -- angering Muslims worldwide -- they have cited Caner as their source.

"There's no doubt he is an incredible personality," said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the oldest such institution. And, Mohler said, Caner "brings the credibility of being on the inside."

The rapid rise of Caner -- as well as his brother and co-author Emir, recently named a dean at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the nation's largest Southern Baptist schools -- comes as evangelical Christians are pouring more resources into learning about Muslims, with the ultimate goal of converting them. Evangelical schools, like secular ones, are expanding their Islamic studies programs, seminars are being held on how to appeal to Muslims and speakers such as Caner are beginning to preach in Islamic countries -- though he says he won't specify where because it is illegal in some places.

Caner is among a group of young evangelical leaders who say their community has been willfully ignorant of other faiths, cultures and opinions, which has cut them off from the diverse wave of people immigrating to the United States. This group -- which includes the Caner brothers and Falwell's son Jonathan -- believes that evangelicals have to engage the culture and meets to discuss issues such as how to preach against homosexuality in an increasingly tolerant era and how to spot a Hindu by diet and dress.

"It's no longer enough to, say, understand a Mormon. You have to understand Jainism, Shintoism, Buddhism," said Caner, who plans to launch a master's degree in global apologetics, the defense of Christianity compared with the other world religions.

Caner says he feels that most non-Western Muslims are ignorant of Christianity -- and that Christians are decidedly illiterate in their own history as well. After hearing much post-Sept. 11 Muslim-bashing, he was driven to write his last book about the Crusades.