The history of Scientology is peppered with conflicts between the Church of Scientology and its highly vocal critics. As ever, media depictions of the Church of Scientology (ranging from satirical lampoons to expos\u00e9 documentaries) continue to be the main cause of Scientology\u2019s woes in the public domain. Several documentaries on the activities of the Church of Scientology have been released in recent years, perhaps most notably Alex Gibney\u2019s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief <\/em>in 2015.<\/p>\n The latest Scientology documentary to grab headlines is My Scientology Movie<\/em>, featuring British documentary maker Louis Theroux. The Church of Scientology declined to take part in the documentary, and (according to Theroux<\/a>) are in the process of making a response documentary based on him. Yet, frequent critics of the Church of Scientology may be surprised to learn of their recent shift towards a more reserved method of responding to critics, in a contrast to the fierce legal lawsuits with which the Church is often associated. As Lewis and Helles\u00f8y (2016) note, the 2005 episode of South Park, \u2018Trapped in the Closet\u2019<\/em>, (which famously ended with lead character Stan Marsh yelling \u201cI\u2019m not scared of you \u2013 sue me!\u201d) marks an interesting point in the history of the Church, precisely because of the lack of lawsuit that followed the episode\u2019s release. This is arguably the beginning of the Church of Scientology\u2019s shift to its latest method of countering criticism: seeking status as a legitimate religion, and condemning its opponents for religious discrimination. It is this battle for its status as a \u2018religion\u2019 that leads to the Church of Scientology\u2019s second recent campaign for religious legitimacy, its scientologyreligion.org<\/a> website, for which the Church has turned to the expertise of the academic community. The website, which states that \u201cthe world\u2019s foremost experts\u00a0in the fields of comparative religion, history of religion, religious studies and sociology agree that Scientology is a world religion<\/a>\u201d, compiles works from renowned scholars on Scientology (including Beckford<\/a>, Wilson<\/a>, and Melton<\/a>) to add emphasis to the Church of Scientology\u2019s latest message to opponents: that Scientology is a legitimate religion, and as such should receive the rights of religious freedom.<\/p>\n This coupling of campaigning against discrimination and using the expertise of the academy to validate the religiosity of Scientology points to a Church that may be slightly more reserved than the one associated with ferocious legal battles, but is clearly still up for a fight. Time will tell how effective this new method will be for the Church of Scientology, but the conflict remains the same as it has for decades. The tactics may have changed, but both parties remain unchanged, and neither side is showing any sign of backing down yet.<\/p>\n References<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n Lewis, J. R. and Helles\u00f8y, K. (2016) \u2018Introduction\u2019, in Lewis, J. R. and Helles\u00f8y, K. (eds.), Handbook of Scientology<\/em>, Leiden, Brill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Aled Thomas, PhD Candidate The history of Scientology is peppered with conflicts between the Church of Scientology and its highly vocal critics. As ever, media depictions of the Church of Scientology (ranging from satirical lampoons to expos\u00e9 documentaries) continue to be the main cause of Scientology\u2019s woes in the public domain. Several documentaries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,5],"tags":[69,68,66,65,67],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-religion-in-historical-perspective-2","category-news-and-media","tag-louis-theroux","tag-media","tag-new-religious-movements","tag-scientology","tag-stand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Image](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/s-9qUjE40wM\/maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe release of Theroux\u2019s documentary coincided with the Church of Scientology\u2019s push of campaigns to secure its status as a religion. The first is STAND (Scientologists Taking Action Against Discrimination), a campaign \u201cfounded to put a stop to incitement of bigotry and hate crime, and to secure Religious Freedom for Man<\/a>\u201d. While STAND\u2019s prime activities concentrate on protecting the Scientology religion (including reporting the hate crimes and dispelling myths regarding Scientology), it also aims to battle all forms of religious intolerance, linking back to Scientology\u2019s emphasis on the human right to religious freedom. This demonstration of discrimination against Scientologists as being equally condemnable as any other form of religious discrimination points to the Church\u2019s latest focus of combating critics by rebutting their accusations as religious bigotry, and portraying Scientology as an equally legitimate religion as more established movements.<\/p>\n