Tuesday, May 17, 2011

ARLINGTON BAPTIST COLLEGE CALLS NEW PROFESSORS, APPROVES NEW PROGRAM IN WORSHIP MINISTRY, AND CALLS ERGUN CANER AS PROVOST AND VICE PRESIDENT OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

The Arlington Baptist College announced a number of new initiatives at the annual World Baptist Fellowship meeting at the Texas campus today.

Upon the recommendation of President D.L. Moody, the Board of Directors voted unanimously to call Dr. Ergun Caner as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs. Along with his administrative duties, Caner will also teach Theology, Church History and Apologetics.

Founded by Dr. J. Frank Norris in 1939 as the Fundamental Bible Baptist Institute, the Arlington Baptist College is affiliated with the World Baptist Fellowship (WBF). In addition to Dr. Norris, the school has been led by such Baptist luminaries as Drs. Louis Entzminger, Earl K. Oldham, Wayne Martin and David Bryant. Dr. Moody was elected President in 2009.

In further action, the Board unanimously approved the hiring of Craig Dunning, to teach Bible and Missions, and Bill Bingham, to chair the new Music and Worship Ministry Program at ABC. Dunning has been a missionary in Jerusalem for the past eighteen years, and Bingham has served at the Southwest Baptist Church in Amarillo for the past twenty years. Additionally, Ted Marvin was also presented as part-time faculty member, teaching in the area of Youth Ministries, where he has served for over twenty-five years.

All four men were presented on Tuesday afternoon to the Pastors’ Advisory Council of the WBF.

In presenting Caner to the full Board, President Moody noted, “I have the utmost confidence in Dr. Ergun Caner. I believe that he has the abilities, wisdom and passion to enhance the work and ministry of Arlington Baptist College as we prepare a Generation of Giants for Jesus Christ. He share the values that I have for biblical authority, evangelistic fervor, and godly example. I am excited to welcome him to our administrative team.”

“I am thrilled to be joining the Arlington Baptist College,” Caner said. “This is an historic institution, founded by one of Christianity’s most courageous voices, Dr. J. Frank Norris. The vision of President Moody is profoundly exciting- to train a generation of Christian warriors who are prepared for ministry on every level- intellectually and spiritually.”

Caner will be following Dr Helen Sullivan, who has served ABC as the Vice President of Academics since 1979. “Dr. Sullivan is an icon at this institution,” Caner said. “No one can ever replace her. I just want to learn from her as best I can.”

Raised as the son of a devout Muslim, Caner converted to Christianity along with his two brothers. His younger brother, Dr. Emir Caner, is president of the Truett-McConnell Baptist College in Cleveland, Georgia.

Caner has been teaching at Liberty University since 2003, and has co-authored such books as Unveiling Islam (Kregel), Why Churches Die (B&H) and When Worldviews Collide (Lifeway). He also co-edited the Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics with Ed Hindson (Harvest House).

Evangelist Tim Lee said, “I have learned that my good friend, Dr Ergun Caner has accepted the position of Executive Vice-President and Provost at Arlington Baptist College in Arlington, TX. I am excited for Arlington Baptist College! They could not have made a better choice. I believe Ergun will have a very positive impact and that it will be realized immediately! Both Arlington Baptist College and Dr Ergun Caner have my support!”

Arlington Baptist College (ABC) is located on thirty-five acres in west Arlington, Texas, and the campus is

recognized as a Texas Historic Landmark. It is accredited through the Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) and is certified by the State of Texas for Teacher Training.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: abconline.org

Human made gods tend to be very self-focused, egomaniacs whose whims we basically have to placate. We mere mortals have to duck to avoid their temper tantrums. They are projections of the human ego. We indeed want to be masters of the universe in this clash of the titans.

Jesus Christ is the Master of the Universe and yet he became the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 42:1-7). He is the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 1:8), yet died the death of a common criminal (Isaiah 53:12). However, He told His disciples before His Passion (John 10:14-18) that (emphasis mine):

I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,15even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Last Sunday, we celebrated real power; the power of the one, true living God over death and hell. He laid down his life and He took up his life again. His clash with evil won our freedom and deserves our all. The gods we create are amateurs in comparison.

Our Seminary’s Center for Ministry Training recently hosted a “Church Planting Emphasis Week.”  Church planters and churches that actually plant churches were invited to Liberty’s campus to share the vision and to prayerfully seek out those who are willing to go to the edge of the map for lost people.  Imagine going into areas where your faith is considered a cult.   Imagine meeting people in the United States who have never heard the name of Jesus in a meaningful way.  To get the gospel to them, evangelical, Bible-believing churches have to be planted among them.

One of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary’s passions is to train those whom God has called to go outside the boundaries of the conventional pastorate.  Perhaps you have a passion for the lost and yet find yourself at odds with people who practice “Churchianity” rather than Christianity.  It is time to get out of the box and be trained for the calling that God has given you.   Are you ready and willing to go?  You can come to us for our best training (residential programs) or we can come to you in the field (online programs); either way, let’s get the job done.  American Christians have lived too long in the safe center of the map – let’s go where the lost are – at the edges.

Perhaps you or someone you know has questions and sneaking suspicions about some of the claims of Christianity. Can Christianity really stand up to intellectual scrutiny? Haven’t scientists and historians proven that the Bible is full of myths and errors? How can anyone claim to have the truth?

This book faces these doubts and misconceptions head on and proves that the Christian faith is not only reasonable and true but that it is the most intellectually and existentially coherent option among all others. Christianity is both sensible to the head and satisfying to the heart.

About the Editors:

Norman L. Geisler (Ph.D., Loyola University of Chicago) is cofounder and longtime dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary. He has published countless articles in academic journals and is the author of more than fifty books, including the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Ethics.
Paul K. Hoffman (J.D., University of California at San Francisco) has been a trial lawyer for twenty years. He has authored articles in a variety of periodicals.

LOST, the TV series, focuses on a group of people thrown together by a tragic crash and trying to cope with their situation and each other.  This is the proverbial “men on a life raft” situation; only there is no good solution—only more questions.

Do we realize that every day, every man, woman and child lives in a situation and is trying to cope with it?  The situation, the condition, is called being lost.  They are misplaced.  They have wandered away from the Great Shepherd.  They are outside the boundaries of God’s plan for their lives.  They do try to cope in the land of the lost.  Enjoying material possessions, family, pets, extreme sports, hobbies, even religion does not assuage the guilt of sin and rebellion against a loving and holy God.  Their situation is hopeless.  Unlike the LOST cast, who head for their air-conditioned, rented condos in Hawaii when the day’s filming is done, lost people wake up everyday to the same emptiness gnawing at their soul. It may glitter on the outside but it is not pretty on the inside.

Whether you look into the eyes of an earthquake victim or into the eyes of a smug Hollywood starlet, you see the same emptiness; the same lack of hope–the lostness.  We think we can handle this; we can cope successfully with our lostness.  We can help the earthquake victim.  We can keep our reputations clean.  We can do whatever is required by a god we have hitched our hopes to.  It will be OK; only it won’t be.  There is no earthly rescue on the way.

But “the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2).  Jesus said, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness.”  A shaft of divine light has pierced the darkness of humanity’s hopeless, lost condition.  The hopeless have hope; the lost can indeed be found.  Those outside are invited inside.  The misfits can fit.  By God’s grace, we can all be made right through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Light.

Do you carry the light to those around you?  What about to those who are as far away from you as it is possible to get–right over there on the edge of the map?  Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary is training warriors who will lead the way to islands of lostness; who will “preach the gospel to the poor; heal the brokenhearted, preach deliverance to captives, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Isaiah 61:1-2).  Every human being living outside of Christ is lost and it is dark out there.  Let’s go find them and bring them home.

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.

The Christmas event is the one fact of history that brings hope.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  God invaded the world and now the devil does his best to divert attention from the stable (see Matt. 2:13-23), the cross (Matt. 27:35-50), and the empty tomb (Matt. 28:1-6).

Satan’s diversion tactics are multi-faceted this time of year.  Merchants dazzle us with deals for gift-giving and we allow ourselves to become distracted from the Gift-giver.  People sue cities to remove distinctly Christian symbols from the city hall.  The world tries to manufacture “canned” happiness so that people will swallow it and be filled on the “cotton candy” instead of the Bread of Life–Jesus.   It takes a choice to keep Jesus as the center of Christmas.

Christmas is a celebration of an unspeakably wonderful gift—Jesus Christ, who as the Son of Man and God the Son, did the Father’s bidding by taking on flesh so that he could redeem the crown jewel of God’s creation, us – all the people of the world.   Indeed, how great our joy!  We give gifts to commemorate the Gift that God gave.  We celebrate the fact of God’s invasion of enemy-occupied territory by decorating our homes with light.

This month, whether you are in Wal-Mart, the mall, or stuck in godless traffic, and your hear Bing, Mariah, or Burl singing, and you see people all caught up in the American “pursuit of happiness,” remember, Christmas is about God, in his omnibenevolence, invading this world to give every soul the chance to be born again. Remember what  C. S. Lewis, in his essay “A Lost Chapter of Herodotus,” wrote, “Exmas distracts the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.”   Let us indeed make merry; Christ is born!  Just don’t let the canned happiness crowd Christ out of your Christmas.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the prayer of one of the writers of the Proverbs that could not be misconstrued in any way.  Now I am not saying that the Prayer of Jabez is a bad prayer; obviously, it is a prayer of Scripture.  I noticed it turning into a Christian-type of mantra over the course of time, where Christians would repeat it every day; not as if they were repeating Scripture but as if they were trying to conjure up the same results.  It draws our attention to biblical texts that are prescriptive and descriptive.  Descriptive texts are those that explain what was taking place–inspired just as much as the rest of the Bible, inerrant of course.  But describing the acts of another person is not the same as prescribing it for all Christians.  The betrayal by Judas, the doubts of Thomas, and the insolence of Peter are just a few examples.

Prescriptive texts are universal in their application.  God calls us to the same action.

Look at the words of Agur, one of the minor writers in the Proverbs: “7 There are two things, Lord, I want you to do for me before I die: 8 Make me absolutely honest and don’t let me be too poor or too rich. Give me just what I need.  9 If I have too much to eat, I might forget about you; if I don’t have enough, I might steal and disgrace your name.”

Do you see what he was asking?  He was not praying to be rich.  He was not praying to be famous.  He was not asking God for as much wisdom as Solomon, who wrote the majority of the Proverbs.  He was praying for satisfaction.  Make me neither rich nor poor, Lord; neither fame nor fortune.  He was not asking for instant popularity or notoriety.  He was not asking in the vein of “name it and claim it.”  Agur prayed the realist’s prayer—“Lord give me enough bread to satisfy me; provide for me enough money that will take care of my needs.”

It has quickly become one of my favorite prayers of the Bible.  Lord, do not allow me to fall in love with those things you have provided for me.  You see it there in verse 9 when he says so that I don’t lose focus on the provider and focus only on the provision.

Now this book needs to be published; someone needs to write the Prayer of Agur, but I doubt that it would be a best seller.  Every one wants to be rich and famous, even Christians, but the difference between success and satisfaction is a profound one.  There are many successful people who commit suicide; whose lives fall apart; whose families disintegrate.  But satisfied people rest in the realization that what they have is a gift from God.  Try praying the prayer of Agur for a couple of days; your situation may not change but I can promise you that your heart will.

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