Liberty Baptist Seminary and “Building Bridges”

Following is an entry posted on Ergun Caner's site on August 9th, 2007. Caner was then the president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.

Press Release 12/18/2007

GOING BACK TO THE OLD SCHOOL WITH A NEW MISSION:
LIBERTY SEMINARY RESTATES ITS BAPTIST HERITAGE AND NAME

In an era when denominational identification is anathema, the Liberty Theological Seminary has retrofitted its name to the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. The irony is the man who lead the seminary to take Baptist out of the name is also the one who lobbied to reinsert it, the President of the Seminary, Dr. Ergun Mehmet Caner. Last week, Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. agreed, and the announcement was made during the Seminary Christmas Banquet on Friday, December 14, 2007. The following is taken from Dr. Caner’s address:
“When I became President of the seminary at Liberty University three years ago, I was compelled by Dr. Jerry Falwell to shake things up. With enrollment on the mountain approaching 10,000 resident students, the seminary was the smallest of the eight schools of the university. The name change served notice to the larger Christian community that we were willing to do anything for the sake of the mission, short of changing our doctrine. We did not change our doctrine one whit. In fact we redoubled our commitment to the vision of the Seminary’s founding in 1973- soul winning, church planting and cultural confrontation with the Gospel. Changing the name was just one small component in our overall strategy. It obviously worked. We have had three straight years of growth and have doubled our residential enrollment to over 400 in the seminary.
“However, since 2004, much as changed, both here at Liberty University and in the Southern Baptist Convention. Too many schools have Baptist in their name but not in their doctrine. Some have drifted into liberalism and cultural relativism; still others remain orthodox, but have drifted toward non-Baptist reformed doctrine and cultural isolationism. For us, this was our line in the sand. We want to build bridges to a lost world without burning the bridges of our doctrinal heritage. We are putting Baptist back in our name, and taking back a term that has been misused.
“We want to train students from across the evangelical spectrum, in the classic Baptistic stance of our Anabaptist tradition and Sandy Creek revivalistic heritage. These doctrines include:
• The inerrancy of Scripture
• General atonement
• Free church polity and pastoral authority
• Missions obsession
• Imminent return of Christ
It just made sense, following the vision of our founder and the new chancellor, to proudly state that we are Baptist with a capital “B.” Since 1525, the word Baptist has meant something and it still does at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.”