Is Reza Aslan Anti-Christian?

[rug]

The author of Zealot explains his views on faith and historical scholarship

By Belinda Luscombe, July 30, 2013

Reza Aslan, whose exchange with a Fox news anchor this week sparked a lot of outrage, used to be a Christian. As he discusses both in his book and his interview with Time this week, he “gave his life to Christ” at a camp when he was 15. Born in Iran to a Muslim family, his mother and sister also subsequently became Christians. His mum is still a believer.

While studying religion at university however, Aslan came to the conclusion that the claims of the Bible didn’t hold up. Nevertheless, as a scholar of religions, he kept studying it; his new book Zealot is partly a result of all that scholarly inquiry.

It’s certainly true that the book disputes many of the New Testament’s teachings. Zealot’s premise is that the life of an ordinary man sparked the world’s biggest religion. Aslan’s contention is that Jesus had no intention of starting a religion and neither did his disciples. The real brains behind the creation of Christianity, suggests Aslan, was Paul. The Christ “is an invention of the early church.”

This sounds like a position that undermines Christianity, yet in the extended answers from TIME’s interview below, Aslan treads gingerly around other core Christian beliefs. Here are his own words on faith and religious scholarship, and how to differentiate the two.

http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/30/is-reza-aslan-anti-christian/

The link has part of the interview. The entire interview is behind a paywall and in the print edition.

[Jim__]

1. If his book is meant as a historical document, does it matter if he's anti-Christian?

Shouldn't the book be judged on its historical accuracy? If his historical account is biased, then I would expect that historians will be able to see that and point out where he is wrong.

[Promethean]

2. As far as I can tell

Reza Aslan is just simply a religious scholar that honestly just writes what hes interested in. It is people who are insecure in their beliefs that are attacking him trying to make themselves feel better.

[AlbertCat]

3. Who cares?

Unless you think all of Christendom will fall because of his book.

We can hope!

[riverbendviewgal]

4. Who knows

I was raised a catholic...I saw the hypocrites in my family and they turned me off to religion.

I say show me the money...I saw his interviews on several shows. He studied all religions and he wrote a book on Jesus. He may be right about Paul, or the later Christians in the 300 ADs...Jesus never left any writings....It is said he wrote on sand.

Who knows.

The best story of Jesus' life is in the book of Urantia. It is huge and a little weird but the very Lengthy story on Jesus was awesome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Urantia_Book

[hrmjustin]

5. I would hope not. LOL

[okasha]

6. Categorically: He is not.

Thanks to the hot tip from Fox I bought the book yesterday and am reading it right now. Aslan covers some of the same ground that Crossan does, but his narrative style is exponentially more open and accessible. There are a few things so far (about a third of the way through) that I disagree with him about, but that doesn't detract from my enjoyment or appreciation of the book.

Aslan's emphasis is on Jesus' emergence as very much a Gallilean/Nazarean teacher opposed to the priestly hierarchy in Jerusalem. A large part of that opposition, he argues, came from the rapidly widening gap between rich and poor as a result of encroachment of 1st. century "agribusiness" on the traditional subsistence farmer and the growing ranks of the unemployed and newly impoverished.

[dimbear]

7. Aslan's book is very ordinary liberal theology. No real surprises to

those on that side already. The comparison, however, to a prisoner who daringly escapes from Alcatraz, swims the icy waters of the Bay, and then knocks for admission at San Quentin is too tempting to leave on the table.

[okasha]

8. Not really. The comparison

looks like turnip greens and pickled pigs' feet to me.