Scientology: Religion Or Racket?
Marburg Journal of Religion: Volume 8, No. 1 (September 2003) Scientology: Religion or racket? Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi The name Scientology (a copyrighted and registered trademark) brings to mind a wide array of claims, observations, impressions, findings, and documents, reflecting a complex and controversial history. The religion/not religion debate over various groups and organizations, prominent in the Western media over the past thirty years, has usually presented the public and politicians with a religion versus "sect" or "cult" dichotomy. The classification issue in this article is framed differently. Hopkins (1969) offered us the terms of the debate in the bluntest and most direct way when he asked in the title of an article in Christianity Today more than thirty years ago "Scientology: Religion or racket?" Read today, the Hopkins article sounds naive and charitable, but this question still stands before us, and yet deserves an answer. The question of whether any particular organization matches our definition of religion is not raised very often, and this is true for both old and new religions (cf. Beit- Hallahmi, 1989; Beit-Hallahmi, 1998; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997). That is because there is no shortage of religious behaviors and groups whose authenticity is never in doubt, but in some rare cases, authenticity and sincerity are put into question. Regarding Scientology, we have two competing claims before us. The first, espoused by most NRM scholars, as well as some legal and administrative decisions, asserts that Scientology is a religion, perhaps misunderstood and innovative, but a religion nevertheless, thus worthy of our scholarly attention. The second, found in most media reports, some government documents in various countries, and many legal and administrative decisions, states that Scientology is a business, often given to criminal acts, and sometimes masquerading as a religion.
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