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Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson, left, and GBC Executive Director J. Robert White, right, join program personalities to lay hands on newly installed Truett-McConnell President Emir Caner during the March 23 inauguration ceremony. Caner is the first former Muslim to become president of a Southern Baptist college.
CLEVELAND — The rain was torrential but the spirits were high March 26 as Truett-McConnell College installed Emir F. Caner as president of the Georgia Baptist-affiliated institution.
Caner was founding dean of The College at Southwestern in Fort Worth, Texas when he was elected the eighth president of Truett-McConnell on Aug. 8. His inauguration came just short of six months to the day when he formally began his ministry at the North Georgia campus on Aug. 31.
The two-hour ceremony in the college’s academic complex was a mix of part-honor and part-roast as professionals and even a family member lauded Caner for his deep biblical convictions but just as quickly lampooned him for foibles that laid bare his humanity for all to see. The enduring message was here is a president who closely seeks God’s leading ... but who still has feet of clay.
That populist approach played well with the audience of nearly 700 who knew little about the 38-year-old administrator – the youngest president among the three Georgia Baptist colleges – but who left with a better understanding of the soundness of his theology and his enjoyment of a good joke, even at his own expense.
Southern Baptist notables spoke briefly but succinctly about the future of the college with Caner at the helm, citing the need for graduating students with a strong biblical worldview who see their professions as entry points to mission fields wherever they live.
TMC alumnus Frank Cox, in speaking on the need for a national revival, said, “We believe a great revival can come from a college campus, and we believe it can come from a Baptist college in the mountains of North Georgia.” Cox is pastor of North Metro First Baptist Church in Lawrenceville and has served at various levels in Georgia Baptist life.
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Caner, the eighth president of Truett-McConnell College, affirmed the institution’s allegiance to conservative biblical values and to instilling a Christian worldview in its students. He also said he hopes each student will be able to take at least one mission trip prior to graduation.
SBC President Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church Woodstock, presented five points to the new president. He cautioned that “a good beginning does not always guarantee a good end” and offered five qualities for Caner to be sensitive to: humility toward God, intimacy with God, obedience to God, faithfulness to God, the ability to receive wise counsel.
Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson, who has been instrumental in the lives of both Caner and his brother Ergun, who serves as president of Liberty Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., stressed the need for students to be taught to value integrity.
“The biggest problem in the United States today is the lack of integrity. The greatest need is for today’s college students to be taught to flee as far as possible from the greed that is poisoning the greatest nation in the world,” he intoned.
Patterson concluded his brief comments by stating that Caner’s greatest challenge will be to teach students “to value personal integrity because our nation’s very future depends on it.”
Program personalities also speaking at the event included Ergun Caner and GBC Executive Director J. Robert White.
In his comments to faculty, staff, trustees, and students Caner established the college’s role as being “biblically centered and distinctively Baptist.”
Centering his address around Matt. 28:18-20, he stated the college’s four objectives as teaching “a love for the Lord, a love for the Word, a love for the local church, and a love for the lost.” He said he planned to announce in the not-too-distant future that the college would be launching a Center for World Missions with his goal of having each student being able to participate on a least one mission trip during their time on the campus.
Caner is the first former Muslim to be elected president of a Southern Baptist college. He was raised as Sunni Muslim in Marion, Ohio and accepted Christ in 1982. He has author or co-author of 16 books, many which deal with explaining the Islamic faith from a Christian perspective.
He is married to the former Hana Titerova of Prague, Czech Republic. The couple, who will reside in the president’s home on campus, are parents to John Mark, 6; Daniela, 4; and Anna, 1.
For more information on Truett-McConnell College visit www.truett.edu. For more information on Emir Caner visit www.emircaner.com.
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Nearly 700 individuals packed into the college’s field house in a torrential downpour for the two-hour inauguration ceremony. The service opened with a rousing singing of the Charles Wesley hymn “And Can It Be?”
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Hana Caner is surrounded by women praying for her expanded ministry as she and her husband begin their new lives together at the Cleveland college. The couple and their three children will live on campus in the president’s house – the first time the home has been occupied in eight years.
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Ergun Caner, left, president of Liberty Theological Seminary and brother to Emir Caner, right, visit with longtime mentor and Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson, center, before the ceremony.
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Susan Gannaway, professor of education and recipient of the TMC Faculty Excellence Award for 2008, prepares to lead the processional carrying the college mace.
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Frank Cox, pastor of North Metro First Baptist Church, left, John Yarbrough, chairman of the TMC Board of Trustees, center, and Bucky Kennedy, GBC president and pastor of First Baptist Church of Vidalia, are briefed on the program prior to the service.
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Cindy Erbele, administrative assistant for the vice president of academic services, glances outside between downpours to gauge the changing weather pattern. Erbele and two other students – Hannah Spencer of Douglasville and McClain Grindle of Gainesville, shown on the left, distributed 70 umbrellas to those in the processional for the walk to the field house. Roy Hardy, professor of math, watches the assembling of umbrellas before the processional began.
