Officials of Liberty University said last Friday that Ergun Caner would no longer be dean of its seminary, following an investigation into some of his claims about being raised as a Muslim.

Caner has sounded forth the strong voice of a prophet since 2001, when he and his brother Emir, president of Truett-McConnell College, began appearing on news broadcasts and other venues to discuss Islam in the aftermath of 9/11.

The charismatic speaker, prolific author, and popular leader was selected as president of Liberty Baptist Seminary in 2005. Since then, the enrollment has basically tripled to more than 6,000 students online and under 600 resident students.

However, over the last several months skeptical bloggers, most of which have a Reformed bent, began to unearth documents and statements made by Caner, which they contended, contradicted his claims. The relentless quest to discredit Caner resulted in Liberty University launching their own investigation to verify the charges or exonerate him.

In the Friday press release LU stated: “After a thorough and exhaustive review of Dr. Ergun Caner’s public statements, a committee consisting of four members of Liberty University’s Board of Trustees has concluded that Dr. 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 resident.

“Dr. Caner has cooperated with the board committee and has apologized for the discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review.”

The press release indicated that although Caner’s contractual term as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary would not be renewed after June 30, 2010, that he would be retained on the faculty for the 2010-2011 year. That in itself seems to indicate that whatever Liberty found amiss was perhaps more incidental than really substantive. Caner’s integrity and testimony was fully substantiated by the committee.

The Caner brothers have written or contributed to 20 books and none of the discrepancies cited by the critics of Ergun seem to appear in any of the volumes authored by them.

Some have concluded that Caner was guilty of embellishing his sermons. That does not seem to be the case. The report cited “discrepancies and misstatements.” Most preachers, particularly those who are on the preaching circuit, preach certain sermons multiple times. The chances are that even though one sermon may be preached numerous times it is never preached exactly the same way twice.

Consequently, those given to scrutinizing sermons rather than adhering to them can find occasional incongruities along the way. With Caner, critics could only find a few discrepancies in the myriads of sermons and even then, the committee recognized that mistakes were only made in “dates, names, and places of residence.”

Caner, who preaches with much emotion and passion, has apologized and should be forgiven.

Those who speak with the voice of a prophet are often despised and there are those who would like to silence them.  Let us accept this prophet’s apology and urge him to continue to lift up his voice with the sound of a trumpet.