A former Muslim is making a mark teaching at Falwell's university

LYNCHBURG, Va.

The new dean of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University theological seminary is a former Sunni Muslim who plans to turn out a hipper generation of graduates by relating to them with lyrics from rapper 50 Cent, TV's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and the latest movies and film stars.

Ergun Mehmet Caner cracks one-liners as easily as he quotes a Bible verse.

Lecturing to a packed auditorium of 450 students, Caner mixed religion with jokes to keep his students on their toes in a late afternoon theology class.

He asked his students which popular actors they would marry "if she or he was a Christian." Their answers brought howls of laughter from the classroom.

"In a given lecture, I'll talk about 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,' C.S. Lewis, 'Plato's Cave' and some lyrics by 50 Cent," Caner said of some subjects one normally wouldn't associate with Falwell's university. Caner sees it as a way to connect with his young audiences.

"Most college students lose attention every seven minutes and with that, it's important to have that humor to bring us back in and teach us more," said Travis Bush, a junior in Caner's class. "He's the best professor here. With the humor, it keeps us interested."

Teaching 'tecumenicals'

Caner, 39, says he wants a different approach for a new generation of Liberty students, whom he dubs "tecumenicals."

"I call them techies because on one hand they were raised with e-mail," he says. "And yet they are so ecumenical. This generation is different. They've been there, seen it and done it. They're looking for some authentic passion that's got a pulse and that sweats.

"The point is I'll use anything at my disposal. I'm not hiding from culture and I don't boycott culture. If I'm turning out students who say 'What's that dot on your head for?', that's ignorance. Or 'Why'd you wear your laundry on the top of your head?' That's ignorance."

Caner takes over as dean of the seminary in July after two years at the 8,000-student school.

The shaven-headed, goateed Caner, whose family emigrated from Turkey to Toledo, Ohio, when he was a teenager, converted to Christianity in 1982 after a persistent teenage friend kept taking him to the Stelzer Road Baptist Church in Columbus.

"That little church loved me to Christianity," Caner says.

His father, an architect who built a mosque in Columbus, Ohio, never forgave him and died as a Muslim, though most of the rest of Caner's family later converted to Christianity.

Caner, who is married and has two children, taught theology and church history at Criswell College in Dallas before coming to Liberty.

His appointment to head Liberty's 2,000-student seminary has struck a nerve with some U.S. Muslim and Arab groups, who say his frequent speeches around the country could damage fragile relations between Muslims and Americans. Some view him as hostile to Islam, Palestinian rights and the Arab world.

"He's been around a long time and has a very strong conservative view that is more hostile to Islam than understanding of it," says Ray Hanania of Chicago, managing editor of TheArabStreet.com. "If Falwell wanted to send a strong message to Muslims, he might have done it by reaching out to mainstream Muslims, rather than extremists."

Caner has been accused, as a scholar, of advancing some controversial claims, such as the prophet Muhammad was a pedophile possessed by demons. He denies saying that, asserting that his comments were misquoted by a preacher.

"What I did say was that Muhammad at age 50 did marry a 6-year-old and the marriage was consummated when she was 9 years old," Caner said. "Muslims are not hateful people."

Boyd Rist, Liberty's vice president for academic affairs, said Caner was the clear choice for the job after the former dean left for the presidency of another school.

Caner is poised not only to put his stamp on Liberty's seminary school graduates, but maybe enliven the conservative Baptist faith.

"The church, by and large, since the '50s, has been in the closet," he says. "The gays ... define the closet where as a group it's acceptable to push them down in depression and hold them in mockery. Today, it's Christians. We bring a lot of it on ourselves with our knee-jerk reactions." An example, he said, might be a boycott of a company that has supported gay rights events.

Caner is also critical of what he sees as Christian stereotypes.

"They think of us as clip-on ties, white socks, bad haircut," he says.

And Caner admits he's not comfortable being around some Christians.

"I'll watch the same (ESPN) SportsCenter three times in a row because I may miss something," he says. "So I'll run into that Christian every now and again who'll cock his head to the side and say, 'Brother, I don't watch television.' Well, you're boring. If somehow you think you 'outholy me,' you win."

"The ones who don't feel comfortable around me are the ones who will remind you how holy they are in normal conversation. They're the ones who'll say, 'You know this morning in my third prayer time I ...' " Caner says he usually ends the conversation with, "OK, you win. If you were praying at 6 o'clock, I was asleep."