I have real mixed feelings about this... Ruth Gledhill posts the statements of Canon Delaney of St. Pauls...
Canon Peter Delaney, Archdeacon of London and a Canon of St Paul's, hosted a welcome "tea party" for the Scientologists at his home close by the cathedral. Senior clergy from churches in the City of London were also invited to get to know their new neighbours. Canon Delaney told me: "The aim was to show them that we are not hostile to visitors to the City, to show that while we may not agree with them in detail, we were certainly not going to cold shoulder them and were going to say, 'Welcome to the City.' I do not consider them a threat. Why would we consider them a threat? There are two things about them that are important. They do not call themselves a church in the sense that we understand it. And they do not call themselves Christians, but are another faith. Their faith community cannot be a threat to people of faith. One of the things that is impressive about them is their drug treatment programme for young people. I think people have been hostile to them. My concern is that we cannot talk about following Jesus Christ if we are not welcoming to people."
My gut reaction is to agree, but... can we take tolerance that far? You may be aware, if you read this blog regularly, that we have a stall at our local Mind Body Spirit fair, and that I went to the Manchester Fair last year. My reaction at Manchester was not what I expected, I found myself split between loving some and feeling decidedly uncomfortable about other groups... the ones I found I loved were the people who genuinely felt they were helping people, who had an openess to people, who had a positive spirituality to them; the Eastern healers, pagans, Wiccans, aura people, Reiki healers etc. OK some may charge but there was something genuine about them... whilst I may not believe in the things they do, I may have concerns about it, may feel they are misguided, being decieved spiritually or whatever, but I couldn't help warm to them as genuine spiritual seekers and givers (there were no doubt exceptions)... it was the Cults that gave off an 'aura' of darkness; control, secrecy, power, abuse etc. if I felt evil there it was not the witches it came from it was the pseudo-scientific cults... the
Aetherians etc.
I decided, on seeing the news about the new London 'Church', to do a bit of googling on Scientology... wow, what an interesting evening... I read about murder, abuse, very high up leaders disappearing and having their names expunged from all historical records, secret societies within Scientology, militarism, rewriting of the leaders biography... and even the scriptures themselves... the 'religion' has Cult writ large... secret knowledge only revealed as you ascend the levels (which incidentally get more and more expensive as you go up!), all powerful leaders (I would quote this, but I can't afford the legal fees!), manipulation of statistics and photographs (making their rallies look huge when they are not and lying about numbers), attempts to gag critics and to destroy their character, those who leave being declared 'fair game' for abuse, being ostracised and being financially and socially attacked, going to disaster sites but only offering help on their terms and, easy (but increasingly expensive) solutions to lifes problems which make the person dependent on the Cult etc. etc.
I think where I'm going with this is that we need to be careful, to be discerning with our tolerance... yes, we need to welcome people, but when the "faith community" is itself abusive; spiritually, financially, mentally, socially etc. then should we welcome it? I'm afraid I think they may well be a threat, not to 'The Church' which seems to be the Canon's concern, or even for those within the Church... but for the hundreds of vulnerable, hurt, needy people of our communities. So ultimately I disagree with the Canons statement that the only concern is that they a) aren't Christian and b) don't claim to be Christian (so they wont confuse Christians)... I think there is a third concern, that they will and are abusive and oppressive in the name of religion... Yes, I know the Christian Church has been guilty of some of these things in the past... but we have freedom of speech and membership (anyone is free to leave without threat of abuse - and many do!) and I believe in most cases we recognise our historic failings and abuses and have/are moving on! So I believe we have a duty to fight for the oppressed (of our own and others making) and not to sacrifice needy people on the altar of tolerance!
(NB, I know I may sound hypocritical here... and may well be so, but I have to be honest, otherwise there is no point posting anything... oh and, there are many links I haven't put on here... do your own googling ;-) )
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