By Bob Allen
Ergun Caner, the colorful and controversial president of Georgia Baptist Convention-affiliated Brewton-Parker College, resigned Jan. 20, saying his son’s suicide six months ago has left him emotionally unequipped to provide the kind of leadership the institution needs.
Caner opened Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting of the school’s board of trustees by telling a packed room he was stepping down as president. Caner explained that when his older son, 15-year-old Braxton Caner, died on July 29, “a part of me died” with him.
“Brewton-Parker College cannot become a healthy, growing and stable college under the leadership of a man who is broken,” Caner said. “And I am admitting to you that I am broken. I can’t get over his death, and I am not sure I want to. I do know that I cannot muster the fight needed to be the leader of our college. My family and my heart need healing, and you deserve better.”
A month ago Caner celebrated news that the college commission of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools had reaffirmed the school’s accreditation and removed it from probation on Dec. 9. Previously the SACS Commission on Colleges had voted to revoke Brewton-Parker’s accreditation after five years of struggling to meet membership standards.
Caner told trustees that he returned to work just a week after Braxton ended his life at the family’s home in Aledo, Texas, “because, frankly, that’s all I knew to do.” In November he was hospitalized for a heart catheterization, removal of fluid and tests.
Caner said he plans to return to Texas so he can heal with his wife and their 10-year-old son, Drake. “It is one thing to lead a college through a crisis, but this position demands a person’s full attention and full strength,” he said. “At the moment, I have neither. When Braxton died, a part of me died as well.”
Caner said he would try to fulfill any necessary obligations through the year, but his first priority right now is attending to the needs of his family.
After an executive session, the board of trustees passed a resolution expressing “thanks and appreciation” for Caner’s service and pledging to pray “for God’s blessing and restoration” for Caner and his family and for Caner to have “much success in his future endeavors.”
Peter Lumpkins, vice president of communications, said trustees are in the process of assembling a search committee for a new president. He said Caner’s only participation in the meeting was announcing his resignation.
Caner, 49, took office last year, moving from Arlington Baptist College in Texas, where he had served as provost and academic dean since 2011, to become 16th president of the private Christian college in Mount Vernon, Ga., effective Jan. 1, 2014.
His selection was controversial because of lingering accusations by several bloggers that he embellished details of his supposed conversion as a teenager from a Muslim terrorist-in-training to a born-again Christian that became wildly popular on the Southern Baptist Convention preaching circuit after 9/11.
Caner lost his job as president of Liberty Theological Seminary when trustees demoted him in 2010 after finding “factual statements that are self-contradictory” in videos of Caner’s sermons posted online over the years.
The following year Caner was hired as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Arlington Baptist College, a small fundamentalist school founded in 1939 by J. Frank Norris, the long-time pastor of First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, and one of the most controversial Baptists of the 20th century. Norris split from Southern Baptists to organize what is today known as the World Baptist Fellowship.
In the summer of 2013 Caner sued two bloggers for posting videos of past speeches noting alleged inconsistencies in various versions of his “jihad to Jesus” testimony, claiming copyright violation. He lost his case and was ordered to pay $59,000 in attorney fees.
When Caner came to Brewton-Parker, a press release quoted an unidentified trustee as saying he wasn’t picked “in spite” of the attacks against him but “because of them,” the reason being that “we need a warrior as our next president.”
Last summer another blogger frequently critical of Caner interacted briefly with Braxton Caner on Twitter a few weeks before his death. After Braxton died without leaving a suicide note, supporters of Caner accused the blogger of “cyber-bulling” and suggested it may have been the cause of his death. Pulpit and Pen blogger J.D. Hall apologized for involving the teen and said he was deeply affected by the experience.
In October the chairman of Brewton-Parker’s board of trustees announced establishment of The Braxton Caner Memorial Fund for the Prevention of Suicide and Cyber-bullying. A press release explained that while it might not be possible to “prove” that cyber-bullying was a factor, “the impression nonetheless exists strongly enough” to warrant the effort to raise awareness.
Last November the Georgia Baptist Convention passed a resolution on social media and cyber-bullying mentioning both Braxton’s suicide and a list of rules for social media conduct that the youth posted prior to his death.
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