Bryan Ronald Wilson - Abtrünnige und neue religöse Bewegungen

The Church of Scientology’s Rehabilitation Project Force

A Study by Juha Pentikäinen (Chair of the Department of the Study of Religions, University of Helsinki, Finland), Jurgen F.K. Redhardt, and Michael York (Bath Spa University College)

Introduction:

Although the Church of Scientology has been the focus of a number of studies by scholars of new religions, they have paid little attention to the Church’s core religious body: The Sea Organisation. Most members of the public today have heard of Scientology, but few are aware of the Sea Organisation (SO), and the Church itself does not publicise the "Sea Org", as it is called, except to its own members. As a consequence, such accounts as exist have appeared mostly in the media and rely for much of their content on statements by former members of the Church [1].

Indeed, few such reports have dealt with the Sea Organisation as a whole, and some have focused on one its sub-groups, the Rehabilitation Project Force, referred to within the Sea Organisation by its initials RPF. The Church describes the RPF as a programme of redemption for members of the SO who have committed severe violations of its codes. The RPF performs a specialised function within the SO, one that, according to the Church, is consistent with that employed by other religious communities to assist erring members of their core religious group to make amends for wrongdoing and return to the good graces of the religious order from whose tenets they had strayed.

Der Zweck dieser Abhandlung ist eine Bestandsaufnahme der Scientology aus soziologischer Sicht.

Die Frage ist: Handelt es sich bei Scientology um eine Religion, und wenn ja, um welchen Typus von Religion?

Wir werden in dieser Abhandlung versuchen, dieser Frage Elemente einer Antwort gegenüberzustellen. Wir werden weiterhin einige Aspekte der Scientology beschreiben, so wie sie sich uns heute darstellt.

Der von uns verfaßte Text ist das Resultat einer laufenden Untersuchung über die Scientology-Kirche. Daraus sind einige Artikel und Beiträge zu Symposien hervorgegangen. Wir beabsichtigen, ein Buch über diese Bewegung zu veröffentlichen.

Unsere Darstellung ist weder polemisch noch apologetisch.

i. IST SCIENTOLOGY EINE RELIGION?

i.i. Was verstehen wir unter Religion?

Diese Abhandlung soll keinen Anlaß für eine Grundsatzdiskussion über die Definition des Begriffs „Religion“ darstellen. Trotzdem müssen wir einen Verfahrensansatz annehmen und uns über eine Mindestanzahl von Merkmalen einig sein, die sich in den meisten Religionen finden. Wir sind uns darüber im klaren, daß diese Sichtweise die definitorische Diskussion um den Religionsbegriff, wie sie durch das Auftreten neuer Formen der Religion in Gang gebracht wurde, vorläufig ignoriert. 

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN EUROPE

When, in the United States, it is suggested that religious liberty should become an issue in foreign relations, immediate references are to Asian or African countries such as China, North Korea, or Sudan. Former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia, have been added to the list. Scholars of minority religions, however, know that serious problems also exist in some countries of Western Europe. Some cases are becoming very well known. There are, among others: the inclusion of Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, in the so-called Schengen list (preventing persons allegedly dangerous to the public order from entering a number of European countries), and the extreme measures advocated in Germany against the Church of Scientology.

These cases, unfortunately, are not simply exceptions to a general rule of religious tolerance. Pentecostal Churches, Roman Catholic organizations, Jewish groups and many other religious minorities face discrimination in a number of Western European countries, including France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. Greece, meanwhile, by keeping in its constitution a provision that outlaws proselytism on behalf of any religion other that the Greek Orthodox Church, has apparently not yet decided whether, in religious liberty matters, it really wants to belong to the West.