Apologia Pro Reza: Why I Like "Believer"

Reza Aslan's recent Twitter-related debacle has not only halted another season of CNN's Believer but inspired another outpouring of Reza-hating in the field of academic religious studies (along with the occasional more temperate criticism). Aslan is, so the haters assert: a fraud (since his doctorate is in sociology and he teaches creative writing, not world religions); a pompous ass (according to various personal anecdotes and a few scenes in Believer); a pretentious non-contributor to historical Jesus research (since his 2013 book Zealot did not forge any new ground but only summarized what others have already said); and a sensationalizer (since Believer seems to stress bizarre examples of Hinduism, Judaism, and so on, rather than a putative mainstream).