Religious scholar and author Reza Aslan detailed his views on the current political climate and his strategies for engaging in dialogue with the political right on Tuesday night.
Boston University’s Law Auditorium was almost full with audience members for the screening of Aslan’s upcoming CNN series, “Believer with Reza Aslan,” which was followed by a question-and-answer session.
The screening was co-sponsored by the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground. In the series, Aslan travels the United States and the world, learning about different religions, such as Scientology and Haitian voodoo, and participates in their rituals.
Pardee professor Jessica Stern, an organizer of the screening and a friend of Aslan’s, said she asked Aslan if he could include BU on his “Believer” premiere tour.
“It’s just been a thrill to watch him turn into what he’s turned into,” she said to The Daily Free Press before the screening, referring to what she called his “academic celebrity” status.
Before the screening, Aslan said he pitched his show as “Bourdain, but with faith instead of food,” referencing chef and author Anthony Bourdain’s food and travel show, which is also on CNN.
Aslan said the main goal of “Believer,” and the main goal of all his work, is to break down the barriers that separate people into groups.
“While religions are different, faith is very much the same,” Aslan said before the screening.
The screened episode, titled “Aghori in India,” explores a sect of Hinduism called Aghora. In the episode, Aslan explained that the Aghori challenge the caste system by scrapping the Hindu idea of purity, a standard that governs what caste a person is reincarnated into.
However, they do so in ways that disgust most Indians: consuming the flesh of corpses, drinking and eating out of human skulls and smearing themselves with ashes from the cremation pyres dotting the shores of the Ganges River, Aslan explained.
Aslan participates in a traditional Aghori ritual, but finds a stronger ideological home in a more modern branch of Aghorism that, instead of publicly rejecting purity, simply emphasizes the equality of all people.
One member of the audience asked Aslan how to argue with people on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Aslan responded that liberals should respond with their opponent’s point of view in mind.
“Don’t say, ‘You’re coming from another planet.’ Join them on that planet,” he said.
Still, he criticized President Donald Trump for both his policies regarding refugees and immigrants and for what Aslan called racist and misogynistic opinions.
Several people who attended the screening said they enjoyed seeing the first episode of the show.
Claudine Joseph, 24, of Brighton, is a BU alumna who graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 2014. She said she read Aslan’s book, “ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” and as a former sociology major, she is interested in his thoughts on how religion influences society.
“For him to focus on individuals and how they see what makes the religion is a powerful thing,” she said.
Ghazaleh Sadr, 27, of Foxborough, said she recently moved to the United States from Iran. She started reading Aslan’s work after her cousin recommended it to her.
“I’m really proud to be from the same country as he is and then to see him openly discuss what he thinks,” she said.
“Believer with Reza Aslan” premieres on CNN on Sunday, March 5, at 10 p.m. EST.
