Good Example Of Critical Thinking On Aslan Interview

Having seen the interview on YouTube, I have to say that I was not impressed by what I saw or heard. The interviewer was biased and her aggressive posture as the interview went along was a total give-away. The interviewer was unfair to Aslan, and in most cases, kept asking the same question again and again without justification. It was also obvious that she tripped, as her emotions got the better of her. Aslan was so convincing with his response that Lauren Green, the interviewer, made the interview so personal and hit out at Aslan, without even thinking about her reactions to it. Aslan, as he rightly stated, had every right, as a scholar with a PhD, to create a book that could be debated on. Green, as the host on Fox News, introduced Aslan Reza as a person who converted from Christianity to the religion of his forefathers. Why would someone want to stress on a person’s personal affiliation? Aren’t we, as American citizens, allowed the right to religious preferences? She then goes on to say that Aslan, a Muslim, chose to write a book on Jesus in which certain tenets of his interpretation of Christianity was questionable. Right at the start itself, one can see through her biased sarcasm, as she asks Aslan, “You are a Muslim, why did you write a book on Christianity?” The question here is why should she stress on Aslan’s religious background and question him for writing on another religion? Such personal attack on a person’s religious background is unbecoming of a person conducting an interview on national television.
I don’t think anybody has to be of the same religion to write a book on it. Instead of asking questions that would have helped the viewers understand the thought process of the author, and understand pertinent issues in the book, that would otherwise be difficult to elicit from the author himself, Green spent the whole time trying her best to make the author retract his knowledge, and research authenticity. Despite making it clear on numerous occasions that he was a historian with a PhD in religion, she kept asking him about his knowledge on the subject. Aslan has conducted over two decades of research on Christianity, and to question his knowledge on the subject is illogical. Just by quoting certain scholars who have disagreed with his views on Jesus Christ, she seems overtly confused and makes the blunder of saying that he wasn’t writing from the point of an observer, despite the fact that Aslan said that Jesus fought for the poor against an oppressive state and sacrificed himself to launch the greatest religion in the world. I felt that Aslan was very forthcoming in his support of his writing, which I believe, was not written to hurt the sentiments of Christians the world over. Without knowing facts, she went all out to attack Aslan just because he happened to change his religious priorities.
In support of my observation, I would like to present a few points that I believe made the interview disappointing. Aslan was very clear that, as it was his job as an academician, to write on religious practices around the globe. On the question of writing on religion, he says, “I am a professor of religion, and that’s what I do for a living, actually.” I am not just a Muslim writing on Christianity and Jesus, but as a PhD researcher in the studies of Religion. He also says that whatever he has written in the book is an effort of his reading thousands of scholarly research materials, and not a personal observation of his. He stresses that the book is an academic work and not something to do with his religious background. On the argument from William Craig that Aslan is repeating certain bygone claims of historical Jesus that has then been abandoned and refuted, Aslan says that anyone who has differences of opinion about the credibility of his view, should read the 100-odd pages of endnotes in the book that cites every scholar who disagrees and agrees with his views to understand from where his scholarly argument on Jesus comes from. Green’s persistent indifference makes Aslan tell her that she was fundamentally assuming that he had some faith-based bias in the work. He clarified that as a historian on religious studies, he had written books on Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, and the book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, was on the religion that was launched by Jesus. He was quick to add that she (Lauren Green) was unfair to question his research just because of his religious background. “Scholarship is about making a debate, and my views have been disagreed on by a number of scholars and they have been agreed on by others as well” he signed off.