Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 2013-07-29

There is no doubt the media is in a slump and a recent Fox News interview conducted by the network’s Spirited Debate anchor Lauren Green has only contributed to this trend.

Some are calling it the most embarrassing interview Fox News has ever conducted.

Fox News invited academic religious scholar and prolific author Dr. Reza Aslan ostensibly to discuss his latest book on Christianity, ‘Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.’

However Green launched into a vicious Islamophobic attack on Aslan’s credentials and repeatedly and insultingly questioned how and why Aslan, a Muslim, felt compelled to write a book about Jesus and maintain impartiality.

Throughout the interview, Green inaccurately sought to portray Aslan as a religiously-motivated agitator with a hidden agenda out to discredit the very religion that he himself once practiced:

GREEN: This is an interesting book. Now I want to clarify, you’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?

ASLAN: Well to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees — including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades — who also just happens to be a Muslim. So it’s not that I’m just some Muslim writing about Jesus, I am an expert with a Ph.D in the history of religions…

GREEN: But it still begs the question why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity?

ASLAN: Because it’s my job as an academic. I am a professor of religion, including the New Testament. That’s what I do for a living, actually.

Green continued unabated by citing one of Aslan’s critics, John Dickerson who, in an online op-ed article for FoxNews.com, claimed that the book is marred by falsities. The critic charges that these falsities are part of Islamic doctrine, and doctrine that he believes Aslan seeks to advance in his book rather than provide historical truth.  

Dickerson dismissed Aslan’s academic pedigree, referring to him simply as “an educated Muslim” with an “opinion” about Jesus.

Green would pivot back to Aslan’s religion at least seven more times during the interview, simply refusing to accept that a Muslim could also be an impartial scholar of Western religion.

Aslan pointed out towards the end of his interview that many scholarly works have been written about Islam by Christian academics.

“Those authors, he reiterated are rarely if ever asked to defend their credentials or explain why they chose to cover a religion apart from their own, certainly not on Fox News, which regularly provides a platform to hate-mongers like Pamela Geller and Frank Gaffney and passes them off as experts on Islam.” – Think Progress