Not bad pastors, or fighting members. These issues may be symptoms, but the arena in which they fight is WORSHIP

Instead of avoiding the argument, or trying to get everyone to get along, Dr. Ergun Mehmet Caner attacks the issue head-on.

In this four part series on Worship, Caner investigates the nature of worship, and the principles behind it. You will be surprised at the results of following the models of worship throughout the Scriptures.

This is a series that everyone needs to hear…

Click here to read about the new DVD release of
Ergun Caner’s new DVD series Houses of the Holy.

Preview video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Go to Lifeway.com to purchase the member and leader materials.
Member Book
Leader Book/DVD

My interview on Rifqa Bary, the Muslim girl in danger of honor killing for converting to Christ. We can be silent no more.

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By JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Executive Editor
Published: August 28, 2009
Article originally taken from: http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/10713.article

ORLANDO (FBW) – Is it really possible the life of a teen-ager in America could be at risk because she rejected her parent’s Islamic faith to become a Christian?

That’s the fear of Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, who ran away from home earlier this month to Florida. At least for now, the State of Florida believes there’s enough evidence of possible danger that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) has taken emergency protective custody of the girl.

Bary’s fear of death for converting to Christianity is an all-too common reality for ex-Muslims across the world, according to a former Muslim who grew up in the Columbus mosque closely connected with the Bary family’s mosque.

“I’m Rifqa Bary and I’ve been a Christian for four years. I just want to say that I love my parents. … Yet I’m so in fear for my life because of the past abuse that I’ve encountered,” said the Ohio teen Aug. 21 at a juvenile court hearing in Orlando to consider her request for emergency protective custody.

Bary’s parents have disputed Rifqa’s abuse claims, including her fear that her life is at risk for converting to Christianity.

Her father, Mohamed Bary, a jeweler, asserts his daughter was brainwashed by the Orlando pastor to whom Rifqa fled.

Bary told Orlando’s WESH 2 News, “This is cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away,” according to World Net Daily.

In an Aug. 18 petition, Stemberger – the Orlando attorney and well-known pro-family activist who is representing Rifqa – asserted the girl has been beaten by her father and brother and sexually assaulted by an uncle in Sri Lanka.

“The child is in imminent threat of harm not only from her parents but also from the extreme radical Muslim community in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio” because of her Christian conversion, the petition argues.

The petition contends Rifqa’s father threatened to strike her with her laptop computer and said, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You are not my daughter. I will kill you.”

According to Ergun Mehmet Caner, the threat to Rifqa for her rejection of Islam and conversion to Christianity is real. “There’s no question,” Caner said in an Aug. 27 interview with the Witness.

Caner, who converted to Christianity as a 16-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, grew-up in the mosque, the Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio, out of which the Bary family mosque, Noor Islamic Cultural Center, was started and remains connected.

Now a Baptist minister and president of Liberty Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., Caner is a well-known apologist for the Christian faith – activity for which a fatwa, an Islamic religious ruling calling for his death, was issued last year “that put us on the road for a while.”

Because of his outspoken repudiation of Islam and defense of Christianity, Caner said he has to take special security precautions.

Caner and his two brothers, who became Christians within 14 months of his conversion, were disowned by their father, who was the architect of their Columbus mosque.

Rather than sending his sons back to their home country of Turkey, the decision of the eldest Caner to disown his children “was an act of mercy,” Caner told the Witness. Caner said his father died in 1999 as a Muslim, while his mother is now a Christian.

“When someone says, ‘Oh, it’s horrible what happened to you.’ No, what my father did was merciful,” Caner explained, noting his fate could have been much worse.

The risk of an “honor killing” – an obligation under Islamic law for those who reject Islam – is routine in Muslim nations.

According to World Net Daily, “The United Nations tabulates about 5,000 such ‘honor killings’ annually around the world, and they have been documented even in the United States.”

“This happens every sign day,” Caner said, pointing to organizations like Voice of the Martyrs and International Christian Concern that report on Christian persecution.

“How tragic is it that the murder of someone solely for their conversion would be considered routine? But this is 1,300 years of Islamic history,” Caner said.

Caner said the conversion of a female – especially a minor – is particularly offensive under Islam because the “daughter carries the honor in the family.”

He noted under Sharia law, four witnesses are required to validate a rape claim. “Otherwise, she is put to death because she brought dishonor to the family.”

Caner compared the fate of returning Rifqa to her Columbus home to that of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of an international controversy in 2000 who was ultimately returned to his home country after a failed attempt to seek asylum in the U.S. on his behalf by Miami relatives.

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The questions concerned the ongoing Iranian populist revolt, where hundreds of thousands of Iranian youth are taking to the streets, protesting the recent alleged election results.

“The election was obviously a fraud,” Caner said, “and the youth have courageously protested. Repeatedly we hear them calling for freedom and democracy.”

With regard to President Obama’s response, Caner said, “(The President’s) response has been tepid at best. The world is watching and judging whether we abandon them by silence or stand with them. We need to be stronger.”

Starnes also asked about the growth of the Southern Baptist Convention and the alleged decline of young minister attendance. Pointing to the large crowds, Caner said, “Southern Baptists are the largest Free Church denomination in the world. We are one of only four growing denominations in America. We are not declining, we are just fighting. Baptists always fight. Get used to it,” he chuckled.

The book is a study of the Gospel of Matthew, and follows the twelve confrontations between Jesus Christ and the Pharisees. The main thesis is that legalism is personified by the religious leaders of the day, and received the most stinging condemnations from Jesus. Christianity was never meant to be legalistic, but a freedom to be holy.

Caner says, “the difference between the two is profound. Legalism binds you into a system that makes you seek God’s favor. Christianity operates from a person who was first loved by Christ. We do not do what we do because we have to, but because we want to.”

Along with his brother Emir, Caner also signed copies of the new 2nd edition of UNVEILING ISLAM (Kregel 2009).

Dr. Ergun Mehmet Caner, the President and Dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, was the final speaker at the annual Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists (COSBE), before the Southern Baptist Convention.

Meeting in Louisville, the Southern Baptists held various meetings, and the COSBE meeting is aimed for vocational ministers and their families. The speakers on Sunday morning were Dr. Johnny Hunt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Baptist Woodstock, Georgia, evangelist Sammy Tippit and Caner.

He preached on The Final Faith from Galatians 1: 1-5.

Caner spoke at the final Real Evangelism Conference held at the First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia. Speaking that night before Dr. Johnny Hunt, Caner addressed the final words of Stephen in Acts 6, and the nature of our Christian preaching. First Baptist Church of Woodstock has hosted the Real Evangelism Conference in the Atlanta for eighteen years. The Conference is sponsored by Dr. Bailey Smith, and is one of the largest evangelism conferences in America. This was Caner’s sixth time speaking at the location, and he has preached seventeen times at Real Evangelism Conferences around the nation.

Caner with another speaker at the Conference, the incomparable Dr. Robert Smith, professor of homiletics at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.

Dr. Ergun Caner joined almost 1500 Christians on a cruise to Mexico, January 12-17, 2009. For two decades, Templeton Tours have taken Christians on cruises all over the world with such speakers as Dr. Chares Stanley, David Jeremiah and Jerry Vines. This year’s speakers included Thomas Road Baptist Church pastor Jonathan Falwell and Dr. Caner, who each spoke twice. Musicians on the cruise included Greater Vision, the Kingsmen and Alicia Williamson, along with Thomas Road’s own Charles Billingsley.

“I was honored to speak on such a prestigious cruise,” noted Caner, “because some of my heroes were speaking. Four former Southern Baptist presidents spoke in sessions, including Drs. Jerry Vines, James Merritt, Bobby Welch, Jim Henry, and current SBC president, Dr. Johnny Hunt. That is, as my wife would say, ‘high cotton.’”

During the cruise, speakers and singers would team up for sessions that lasted ninety minutes, for services throughout the day. The cruise disembarked in Cozumel and Calica, Mexico on Wednesday and Thursday, and enabled the travelers to shop and see sites such as Mayan villages and ruins. Caner brought his family on the cruise. “I hate traveling alone,” he said, “and Mexico marks the sixth country that my nine-year old son Braxton has seen, the third country for my four-year old Drake, and the seventh country for my wife Jill. My goal is to take them all over the world. I want them to experience missions first hand in as many countries as possible. Though this trip was not mission-oriented, I pray it inspires my sons to reach the world for which Christ died.”

“Thankfully, many of the speakers are Liberty University trustees,” Caner joked, “so no one thought I was ‘playing hookey’ from my classes. And I had the opportunity to invite over four hundred pastors to send their students to Liberty University and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.”

The Seminary was well represented on the cruise, with two other faculty attending. Dr. Charlie Davidson, the head of the military chaplaincy MDIV brought his wife, as did Dr. Frank Schmitt, one of the two original faculty members and elder statesmen of the Seminary. Along with his wife Bobbie, Dr. Schmitt has gone on over fifteen of these Southern Gospel cruises.

Dr. Caner spoke on “Reaching Muslims with the Gospel of Grace,” and “I Learned Everything I Know in a Country Church,” both from the book of Ephesians

Dr. Ergun Mehmet Caner, president of LBTS, recently was a featured speaker at the annual Xtreme Conferences in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Over the New Year break, almost 30,000 Christian youth descend upon Gatlinburg for five different conferences that meet concurrently.

“This is the fifth year I have spoken at Xtreme, and I am honored that they keep having me back!” Caner said.

This year, Caner spoke from 1 Peter 2: 9-10, in a sermon entitled “Racial Profiling.”

“The exegesis of the text is explicit,” Caner notes, “the only race that matters is being part of the Christian race, as indicated by the term ‘race’ from the Greek word ethnos. It is our identity in Christ that defines us. The next verse says we were once NOT a people, but now we are.”

Caner used sharp humor to drive his point. He mocked the political correctness and sensitivity in our current culture. “I basically took shots at everyone, including myself. I have been called a ‘towelhead’ before, and the term means nothing to me. My ethnic background my color my existence, but it does not define me. Our culture uses the wrong markers.”

Comments from conferences:
“Dr. Caner was truly an inspiration to many of the teens from my youth group. They were challenged to take a stand for what they believe in.”

“I love Dr. Caner’s straightforward approach. He doesn’t beat around the bush and he doesn’t mind stepping on our toes. We need more preachers like him.”