Scientology-Fakten.de

My own Presbyterian Church -- like the Catholic Church and the Church of Scientology -- does not admit that it possesses the institutional prerequisites for the exercise of religious living by sufferance from the State. The Presbyterian Church regards the property and law and times it uses to order life religiously as given to it directly by God for this purpose. Hence, the Presbyterian Church -- like the Church of Scientology -- regards care of church property as no less a part of religious life than prayer itself. 

As evidence of this fact, it should be noted that both the Presbyterian and Catholic Churches assign ordained clergy to the ministries of overseeing property, exercising legal functions, managing personnel, or maintaining financial order. These tasks are no less valid ministries than the work of pastors who lead worship or do counselling.

Churches, because they sustain human religious life within a complex society, always include a multiplicity of ministries. The Presbyterian Church includes several specific ones: in addition to the teacher/preacher of this religion, it also includes the ordained ministry of an "elder" (like "vestryman' or 'trustee') who has responsibility for the material affairs of the church and of a "deacon" who is responsible for social reform activities and care of the poor.

Recently, churches have created new functional ministeries to relate to society such as "Washington lobbyists" (My Presbyterian Church maintains a Washington lobbyist). The Church of Scientology, like other modern churches, has developed a variety of such functional ministries most particularly through its Special Affairs Office. As earlier pointed out.the Church of Scientology has an increasingly differentiated structure of organization and ministry. The Church of Scientology contains in its doctrine, practice, and organization the same characteristics which are found in other churches whose genuine religious nature is not under dispute. For this reason, I judge it is a bona fide religion and should be treated as such under the law.

Herbert Richardson

Professor of Religious Studies,

University of Toronto

• *Scientology believes that some persons are born Clear because they have been audited in previous lives. (Scientology has a doctrine of reincarnation.)