Reza Aslan Discloses Secret Muslim Plan To Promote Jesus [Video]
From the archive: published Aug 1, 2013, 13 years ago. Details may have changed since.
Reza Aslan is continuing his victory lap after winning the internet this week, when his Fox News interview with Lauren Green went horribly awry and terrifically viral.
In the clip, Reza Aslan patiently explains to Green the difference between scholarly interest in and adherence to a particular religion, and in response, Green basically accuses the academic of a sneaky conspiracy to smear Jesus and insult Christians.
Aslan later said he expected something of the sort when agreeing to go on Fox, adding:
“Well, look, I watch Fox News, anyone who watches Fox News knows that they have an inherent anti-Muslim bias in their reporting and has been for quite some time… It’s very successful for them. I don’t actually blame them for it. They’re a commercial enterprise. They know how to sell a product and, frankly, fear sells a product. I do want to say one quick thing though. Look, I feel really bad for Lauren Green. You know this, Alex, anybody on your show knows this that Lauren was sitting there being yelled at by some producer in her ear.”
He said that something good may have come of it as well — besides the book responsible for the controversy shooting to the top of Amazon’s charts, unseating JK Rowling:
“And one of the things that’s most satisfying about this is that I’m getting a lot of emails from conservatives, Fox News watchers, who are saying that this has turned them away… In a sense, this is kind of Fox News’ ‘jump the shark’ moment.”
In a recent appearance in a Portland bookstore, Reza Aslan also in part addressed the silly insinuations of Green by explaining part of his attraction to and admiration of Jesus:
“If I do have some kind of philosophical objective—behind my secret Muslim objective—I want to show people you can be a follower of Jesus without necessarily being a Christian.”
Reza Aslan told the rapt audience that his book was inspired by a man “who took on the greatest empire the world has ever known in the name of the outcast and the marginalized and the dispossessed.”