Scientology's 'difficult season'
A devastating newspaper series based on the allegations of former high-ranking church officials. A fraud conviction and prison sentences in Europe. The resignation of perhaps the church’s most prestigious celebrity, who writes a letter confirming practices that the church has denied.
“The Church of Scientology,” Associated Press religion reporter Eric Gorski writes, “is going through a difficult season.”
Gorski has produced a useful summary of the events and developments that have rocked the embattled church founded by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.
Church spokesman Tommy Davis tells Gorski that Scientology is flourishing, with assets and property holdings doubling over the past five years, membership growing in the United States and “absolutely in the millions” worldwide.
"From our perspective, things are going pretty great," Davis says. "In fact, that's downplaying it. Actually, what's happening with the church right now is frankly spectacular. To the degree there are these various things happening, it really is a lot of noise."
But Gorski finds a different picture in the American Religious Identification Survey, which showed that the estimated number of Americans identifying Scientologists rose from 45,000 in 1990 to 55,000 in 2001, then plummeted to 25,000 in 2008, according to the American Religion Identification Survey.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing the church is the allegations raised by four former high-ranking church officials, who told the St. Petersburg Times that they witnessed church leader David Miscavige beating church staff members.
Davis tells Gorski the allegations are "absolutely, unquestionably false" and "sickening and outrageous."
But they have been embraced by a growing community of Scientology critics, including many former members.
"When you have dozens of people speaking out, it's no longer too credible to say they're all malcontents and criminals," Jeff Hawkins, a former Scientology marketing guru who defected in 2005, tells Gorski. The church “is either going to reform or collapse, and I think it's going to be the latter because they're incapable of reform or admitting any wrongdoing."
