What is it with these guys? Surely we know that Satan is always at work, seeking to deceive even the elect, but I just don’t get it. Tom Cruise releases a video on the tenets of Scientology, and even MTV can’t make sense of it.
How is that possible? Don’t they have some sort of vulcan mind meld, where the goofballs in the media can understand the goofballs on film? Maybe not.
The other great Scientologist of our age, of course, is John Travolta, who attributes much of his success as an actor to Dianetics. It’s too bad that his movie, Battlefield Earth, didn’t include that success.
Dianetics was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, a relatively famous science fiction writer from the mid-20th century. It is a weird combination of pop-psychology, mythology, sci-fi,and goofiness. A part of the reason it has done as well as it has is because they love to litigate.
Why does the media love to give this stuff traction? Well, let’s see:
- It’s strange
- It’s about famous people
- It’s non-Christian or even anti-Christian
- It supports (in its own strange way) a multi-cultural worldview
- It contributes to the “spirituality” of the age
Like it or not, we live in a spiritual age. That spirit, of course, is no more Christian than the last age (modernism), but it is spiritual nonetheless. I expect us to see a lot more popular figures embraces borderline cults in the name of finding their spiritual center.
Kyrie eleison and maranatha,
-LL