Press zealotry for Zealot

The anti-Christian beat goes on. Last month I wrote about the extraordinarily fawning reception a well-written but falsehood-filled book, Reza Aslan’s Zealot, was receiving. Ten days later I noted some of the obvious historical errors. But Aslan, using brief television and online appearances with uninformed interviewers (Lauren Green on FoxNews.com was the exception), has smiled all the way to the bank, with Zealot becoming Amazon’s No. 1 best-seller (it now has slipped to the No. 2 spot).

Earlier this month I saw more kiss-ups in secular publications. Some examples:

But it’s not all bad. Reviewers at two left-of-center publications showed a regard for fact by noticing problems. Washington Post readers could learn that “Aslan is more a storyteller here than a historian. … There isn’t much new here other than Aslan’s slick writing and cinematic sensibilities.”

Across the pond, a reviewer in The Guardian of London wrote that “Zealot, to be as kind as possible, trudges down some very well-worn paths; its contribution to studies of Christianity is marginal bordering on negligible; and its breathless style suggests hasty thought.”

Tomorrow, WORLD will run a column by the most thorough critic of Aslan I’ve run across, John S. Dickerson.