Islam Unveiled -Dr. Ergun Caner

CBN ^ | 4/2/02 | CBN Interview

[tutstar]

INTERVIEW

Islam Unveiled

By The 700 Club

Think you know what Islam is all about? What former-Muslim-turned-Christian-theologian Ergun Caner reveals may shock you.

CBN.com - Born into a family of Muslim clerics, Dr. Ergun Caner is now a professor of Christian theology and has written a new book called Unveiling Islam. In this interview, Caner shares the truth about the Islamic faith.

Pat Robertson: It is a pleasure to welcome to The 700 Club Dr. Caner. You have a Muslim background.

Dr. Ergun Caner: My father was the one who would do the call to prayer. In a mosque the only person who has a title is the imam. My father was very active and helped found the mosque in Columbus, Ohio, after we came to America.

Pat Robertson: What happened to you? You were brought up as a good Muslim boy. What happened?

Ergun Caner: I was the equivalent of a preacher’s kid, if you can imagine, and then I came to the point where I was invited to church by a friend who didn't care how I dressed or what I looked like. I found the Lord on a Thursday and went back to the mosque on Friday assuming they wanted to hear about this grace that I had received from Christ. That was not the case.

Pat Robertson: What did they do to you?

Ergun Caner: They beat me up.

Pat Robertson: When you say beat you up, what does that mean?

Ergun Caner: Exactly what it sounds like.

Pat Robertson: With fists or clubs?

Ergun Caner: With fists.

Pat Robertson: Who did this, the leadership or your fellow employees?

Ergun Caner: The ones who were in the youth jihad.

Pat Robertson: Really? That drove you closer to the Lord, I guess, didn't it?

Ergun Caner: What's wonderful is that day my father disowned me, but both of my brothers accepted Christ. My younger brother teaches at a seminary, I teach at a Christian College, my middle brother is a strong Christian and a member of a church, our mother accepted the Lord and is married to a church planter, and my grandmother accepted the Lord right before she died.

Pat Robertson: The president of the United States has said over and over again that Islam is a religion of peace, but these terrorists are an aberration. Tell us about that.

Ergun Caner: I have heard it over and over, as have you, 'How can they do this? Islam is just a religion of peace.' We are taught jihad from our youth. We are taught jihad in the hadith and the Koran from our youth. As a matter of fact, I am under the sentence of death, as is any Muslim who finds Christ, because the Koran says and the hadith teaches that anyone who changes his Islamic religion must be killed.

Pat Robertson: Just like that?

Ergun Caner: Hadith 957. It is one thing to say that they don't accept jihad. They can say that. They can be the equivalent of liberal Muslims, if they wish. But it is another thing to say that the Koran and Muhammad and the hadith does not teach it, because we are taught to convert or to conquer.

Pat Robertson: Jihad is explained as resist evil.

Ergun Caner: No.

Pat Robertson: You say not true.

Ergun Caner: Muhammad's last words were 'Push the infidels out of the Arabian Peninsula.' Those were the last words that he said. Anyone who does not worship Allah in the last day, it will not be accepted of him, paradise is under the shades of the sword -- these are the teachings of the Koran. The promise of forgiveness for men like Muhammad Atta was that you would be translated to paradise if you died in Allah’s cause.

Pat Robertson: Why don't Americans know this? Why doesn't our president know this? He has advisors. Surely someone up there has read the Koran.

Ergun Caner: I wish he had more contact with you, Dr. Robertson.

Pat Robertson: Regrettably he doesn't.

Ergun Caner: Last week while you were in China, he sat at a Ramadan iftaar, the meal that they have after they break the fast at night. This is the Muslim equivalent of a closed communion. Anyone who sits at that table has to pledge allegiance to the Muslim faith. Thus, at that meal, our president professed Allah.

Pat Robertson: Did he know he was doing that?

Ergun Caner: I do not know.

Pat Robertson: Everybody says Allah and God are the same.

Ergun Caner: I consider it the Oprah-ization of our culture. You know the national cathedral and the prayer service at the stadium and they said, 'I pray in the name of Allah and Jehovah and Jesus.' It was offensive to me as a Muslim to say that Allah and Jehovah are the same. It is blasphemous to us as Christians. It is not an issue of semantics. Allah has no son. The Koran teaches that. There is no way an intellectual and honest Muslim would ever say that they are the same.

Pat Robertson: I have heard that Allah was one of the genies that hung out at Mecca. He was sort of like a demonic spirit. Were did he come from?

Ergun Caner: I think the terminology is as you said. But Muhammad had this view of a god who is remote and removed. The most amazing thing to me as a Christian, when I became a believer in Jesus, was the intimacy and the relationship with Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so a Muslim views Allah as remote and as judge. As a matter of fact, the only intimate term that Muslims know about Allah is as a threat. Allah is as close as your jugular.

Pat Robertson: So, the God of love, there is no such thing?

Ergun Caner: No.

Pat Robertson: How does a Muslim get saved besides blowing up the World Trade Center?

Ergun Caner: Since the events at the World Trade Center, I have spoken at the United Nations and I have preached around, and I get the same question from the media that you do: 'When did you switch?' I didn't switch anything. I got saved. The distinction is that I found grace, where as before I had lived with works. Muslim boys and girls and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they train us from youth to die for our faith, hoping to shed our own blood so that we can find forgiveness, the release from our scales.

Pat Robertson: What about the concept of kismet? It is fate. Isn't that deeply involved in the Muslim religion?

Ergun Caner: Absolutely. I always say to my students that Islam is hyper Calvinist. Islam believes that if you are a believer in Islam, a believer in Allah, great. If not, it is our job to kill you and send you to hell faster. If you kill us, we go to paradise. It’s the only eternal security that a Muslim has.

Pat Robertson: That's it? In other words, if you live your life and you die, you have no knowledge of where you are going to go eternally?

Ergun Caner: Muhammad even said, 'I don't even know where I will go.' He said, 'Only Allah knows.' The founder of the faith in which I was raised had no assurance of his own salvation.

Pat Robertson: What about the satanic verses? Salman Rushdie said that in the Koran Muhammad admitted that certain of it came from Satan. I have not read the Koran and certainly not in Arabic. Is that true?

Ergun Caner: He started to have seizures at the age of 40 and his wife assured him it was from god and not demonic. What Salman Rushdie did was he switched it. He asked, What if the seizures and the visions that Muhammad received were from Satan? That's why it is called the 'Satanic Verses'.

Pat Robertson: I was under the impression that Rushdie found something where Muhammad was questioning if it was from Satan.

Ergun Caner: He did. Muhammad did question that. His wife said it was from god. She is the one who told him, 'God is trying to reveal something new to you.' Muslims who become Christians who speak Arabic, they don't even use the word Allah. When they speak of God, they call him 'Khoda,' a Persian word, because we are so terrified of confusing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with Allah, the false god that we served as Muslims.

Pat Robertson: There is so much misinformation in this nation about Islam. We have been given a massive public relations snow job, and unfortunately at the highest level of our country. These are questions from the Internet:

Internet Question: What do you think is the best way to encounter a Muslim and by God's help and grace lead him or her to Christ?

Ergun Caner: For me, the most liberating thing was hearing about grace, not the fear of the scales. You have to earn a hearing with a Muslim. But hearing that Jesus Christ not only died for me but that He did for me what I couldn't do for myself and promised to give me peace was huge.

Internet Question: Does the Koran contradict itself in the area of violence to other human beings?

Ergun Caner: It doesn't contradict itself. Islam at its core is a religion of warfare. Muhammad was a warrior. We are taught to conquer. We are taught to fight. If anyone says in the media that Islam is a religion of peace, they either don't know their faith, don’t know the Koran, or they are lying.

Pat Robertson: Strong words, ladies and gentlemen. You heard it here.

[tutstar]

Hilarious. Funniest thing I've seen all week.

What's so funny about it?

Unfortunately, it also suggests that our national policies are based on incredibly bad information.

I think most would agree with that.

Got any more of these comic books?

Real life experiences of a former Muslim and some facts about Islam, a comic book? What's your point? On one hand it seems you accept the facts Dr. Caner states, on the other hand it appears you think they are hilarious comics. Which is it?

[backhoe]

I will add this to that collection of links I keep handy for pro-Arab apologists around here. tutstar, be advised that shoshoni character seems to be one.

[dennisw]

Mohammed headed a robber band. His religion is a justification for doing what the head of a robber band does, stealing, murder, rape, sexual with 9 year old girls (no I'm not making that up).

Jews wouldn't recognize Mohammed as one of their prophets, so he murdered hundreds of them. Islam spread as a robber band grew and attacked their neighbors as sources of loot, slaves and sex.

 

How true. The default religion of 3rd world brigands and thieves. Marx, Engles, communism is out and Islam is in.
The 9 year old was Muhammad's 4th wife Aisha

[dennisw]

I'm going to get this guy's book.

[Samir]

Ibn Warraq was born into a Muslim family and grew up in a country that now describes itself as an Islamic republic. His earliest memories are of his circumcision and first day at Quran school, and his family still consider themselves Muslims. He, however, now considers himself a secular humanist who believes that: `all religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious'. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ibn_al-rawandi/review.html
Library: Modern: Ibn al-Rawandi: Review of "Why I Am Not a Muslim"

[Samir]

The massacre of 8,000 unarmed Muslims at Srebrenica never led to a flood of posts about the violence of Christianity and rightfully so because attacking a religion for the acts of a handful of criminals is bigotry and Un-American.
It is very sad to see how low bigots can stoop in their cowardly hate-mongering against Islam. It is the same mentality that attacks the Jewish community or the African-American community.

[Samir]

In an historic meeting with Muslim and Arab Americans at the White House Wednesday, September 26, 2001, President Bush said he wanted the word "Islamic" dropped as an adjective to the word "terrorism." So those who insist on putting the two words together are anti-Bush disruptors.

[Victoria Delsoul]

We are taught jihad in the hadith and the Koran from our youth. As a matter of fact, I am under the sentence of death, as is any Muslim who finds Christ, because the Koran says and the hadith teaches that anyone who changes his Islamic religion must be killed.

Muslims who become Christians who speak Arabic, they don't even use the word Allah. When they speak of God, they call him 'Khoda,' a Persian word, because we are so terrified of confusing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with Allah, the false god that we served as Muslims.

Thanks for flagging me to this interview.

[HockeyPop]

Interesting read along with a few nuggets. I was more tuned in to the structure of the examination and Robertson's leading questions. But that's how I'm wired.

[brat]

Please keep me on the ping list dennisw. Thanks!

[dennisw]

Is the phrase "Muslim terrorism" acceptable to you?

[dennisw]

You are on the original ping list and still on!

[Terriergal]

http://goodnewsforisrael.org/events.html

I am just noticing they are having him preach again on Sept 27th - likely in Minnesota where GNFI is located.

MInnesota PING - I heartily recommend this event, or at least ordering his book, and a tape of the event. He is a delightful speaker with a wonderful sense of humor, and great passion for his faith!

[Terriergal]

OH wait a minute... it's just the Sabbath meal I think on the 27th, but they put it on the same page as the info about Caner... it's a little misleading.

[Rays_Dad]

Bump for later

[Cronos]

another post I found on this Dr. Caner

[Cronos]

It was offensive to me as a Muslim to say that Allah and Jehovah are the same. It is blasphemous to us as Christians.

[Cronos]

Once it reached its limit, ie neighbors strong enough to stop them, Islam has stagnated. They're primarily parasitical and require a healthy body to live on

Quite rightly put -- it won because the Persian and Byzantine Empires had become tired after fighting each other for hundreds of years. If the Persia of Cyrus the Great had been around the Muslimswould have never conquered it. Since then, the disease has feasted on the civilisations it conquered -- the Byzantine, Syrian, Persian, Indian (in Western India what is now called Pakistan), Egyptian etc. and now it wants to feast on the West.