Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary Gets New Dean

Dr Danny Lovett, current dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (at Liberty University), will be leaving LBTS this May. To replace him, the school has announced Dr Ergun Caner. This is GREAT news for the school! Dr Caner is young (38) and is a former muslim who is now a evangelical Christian. Dr Caner has a MDiv and ThM from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. A MA/history from the Criswell College, and a ThD from the University of South Africa.

Part of Dr Caner's plans are as follows:
-greater focus on Biblical languages
-worldwide apologetics
-Premillennial/pretribulational studies
-classes in logic, rhetoric, debate
-classes educated students on various world religions.

Wow! What a great set of goals. In the future Liberty will be even better than it is today. Future students (in just the next few years) will be trained to defend the Christian faith in a scholarly manner.

 

He's going to put a focus on pre-trib/pre-mil?

Yes, that is part of his focus (only one part). However the school is already strongly geared in that direction. In fact one may say that the school is already focused on this. The school has strong ties with Tim LaHaye, Ed Hindson, Harold Willmington, and Elmer Towns(the last three teach at LBTS). The student center is named after LaHaye. I think in many ways LBTS is replacing the void left when Dallas started drifting from the strong stand it use to take on these issues. That is the way I read the situation anyway. Zola Levitt did alot of damage to DTS and Moody.

Martin.

 

I don't remember writing the above post however my perspective must have changed soon afterwards because I don't recall being overly happy about the choice. The post was written shortly after I graduated from LBTS and it was probably based on an article I read. My view of Caner must have changed quickly. Of course Dr. Caner could have been a great president/dean. However he wrecked any chance of that with poor decisions. Despite that, I think some of the goals outlined have come to pass.

-greater focus on Biblical languages

Don't know if that has happened. It has certainly not come to pass via the distance learning program. While schools such as New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Luther Rice University, and Southern Evangelical Seminary offer a full range of language courses online, Liberty University is still only offering the basics.

-worldwide apologetics

What I know now, and did not know then, was that much of Dr. Caner's claims about his debates (etc) was not totally truthful. Also some of his statements might show that his knowledge of Islam was not as deep as he led everyone to believe. That being said, I'm happy to see several schools offering degrees in Apologetics. Liberty offers the MA in Global Apologetics (oncampus only), Luther Rice offers an MA in Apologetics (online and oncampus), and of course Southern Evangelical offers graduate degrees in Apologetics online and oncampus.


-Premillennial/pretribulational studies

They brought on Thomas Ice. Otherwise I can't see much of a change in this area.

-classes in logic, rhetoric, debate

No knowledge about this area, can't comment.

-classes educated students on various world religions.

See above (Worldwide Apologetics).