DECLARATION OF FRANK K. FLINN
1. I, Frank K. Flinn, reside at 7472 Cornell, St. Louis, Missouri
63130.
2. I am currently self-employed as a writer, editor, lecturer and
consultant in the fields of theology and religion.
3. I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy (1962) from Quincy
College, Quincy, Illinois; a Bachelor of Divinity degree (1966), magna cum
laude, from Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and a Ph.D. in
Special Religious Studies (1931) from the University of St. Michael's
College, Toronto School of Theology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I have also
done advanced study at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania,
and the University of Heidelberg, Germany. At the University of Heidelberg, I
was a Fulbright Fellow, 1966-67. At the University of Pennsylvania, I was a
National Defense Foreign Language Fellow, Title VI, 1968-69.
4. Since 1962, I have devoted intense study to religious sectarian
movements, ancient and modern. A portion of my doctoral studies was focussed
specifically on the rise of new religious movements in the United States and
abroad since World War II. That study included the investigation of new
religions is in terms of their belief systems, lifestyles, use of religious
language, leadership, motivation and sincerity, and the material conditions
of their existence.
5. Prior to my present position, I taught at Maryville College, St.
Louis, Missouri, 19@81; St..Louis 'University, St. Louis, Missouri, 1977-79,
where I was Graduate Director of the Masters Program in Religion and
Education; the University of Toronto, Ontario, 1976-77, where I was Tutor in
Comparative Religion; St. John's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1970-75,
where I was Tutor in the Great Books Program; LaSalle College, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Summers 1969-73, where I was Lecturer in Biblical Studies and
the Anthropology of Religion; Boston College. Boston, Massachusetts, 1967-63,
where I was Lecturer in Biblical Studies; and Newton College of the Sacred
Heart, Newton, Massachusetts, where I was Lecturer in Biblical Studies.
6. I am a member in good standing of the American Academy of Religion.
the Religious Education Association, the College Theology Society, the
Council on Religion and Law, and an associate member of the Christian
Legal Society. I am a practicing Roman Catholic at All Saints Parish,
University City, Missouri.
7. Since 1968, I have lectured and written about various new religious
movements which have arisen in the 19th and 20th centuries in the United
States. In my lecture courses "Anthropology of Religion" (LaSalle College),
"Comparative Religion" (University of Toronto) and "The American Religious
Experience" (St. Louis University), I have dealt with such religious
movements as the Great Awakening, Shakerism, Mormonism, Seventh Day,
Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses, New Harmony, Oneida, Brook Farm, Unification,
Scientology, etc. I have published several articles and been general editor
of books on the topic of new religious. It is my policy not to testify about
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religious movements. Witness the number of bills both in Congress and in
state legislatures which espoused Investigations into the "cults," denial of
charitable status, conservatorships for deconverting adherents, and penalties
for fraudulent belief. Local judiciaries have issued conservatorships on
scanty evidence. Agencies of the executive such as the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug
Administration have been called upon to examine, scrutinize and issue reports
about the internal practices of the new religions in a way that would arouse
national furor if used against mainline religions. The response on the part
of some new religions, among whom I would include the Church of
Scientology- has been a sense of persecution and sometimes an aggressive
pursuit of such laws as the Freedom of Information Act. In such a charged
atmosphere neither religion nor state can flourish in their proper spheres.
As the relation between the new religions and the state gets clarified and
rectified by the higher courts, my expectation is that these skirmishes will
diminish on both sides and both will be wiser and less wary of one another.
Only then will religion and state be less inclined to view one another as
conspiratorial enemies, which unfortunately is the present perception on
both sides.
(c) Another area for which the Church of Scientology is faulted is the
manner with which it seemingly controls the daily life of its members, in
general, and the apparently harsh discipline imposed upon Sea Org members in
the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), in particular. In Scientology the
Sea Org(anization) is composed of highly dedicated members who take vows of
eternal service and live a life in community. The RPF discipline is used
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when Sea Org members find themselves "non productive" or, in Scientology
terminology, "stat crashers." In these situations, members are put on a
definite schedule, spend several hours a day studying Scientology Technology,
and have co-auditing sessions to achieve what believers call "release" and
"full cleanup." Members do physical labor, but also got lots of healthy food
and lots of rest.
Critics of the new religions charge that this kind of discipline
constitutes "mind" and "milieu control" of the sort used by the Chinese
Communists to enforce political re-indoctrination after the Communist
takeover in 1949. The aim and goal of the RPF however is entirely different
than that of the Communists in China. The Communists wanted to guarantee
political uniformity, whereas the Scientologist wants spiritual "release" and
"enlightenment" as "an immortal thetan." Secondly, Chinese peasants were
forced into the re-indoctrination programs, whereas the Scientologists freely
participates in the RPF program as a consequence of his or her vows of
eternal service. Thus the proper comparison is not to political but to
spiritual disciplines, which are present in every religion known to me and
which I have undergone myself.
When a Young adult enters a contemplative order such as the Trappists
or Carmelites, that person takes vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to
superiors. The novice, or new member, cuts all ties with family and worldly
concerns. Men receive the tonsure (shaving of the head) and women have their
locks shorn to signify the renunciation of worldly vanity. In ceremonies,
involving women entrants into religious orders that I have witnessed, the nun
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enters the chapel wearing a bridal garment to symbolize that she is about to
enter a spiritual marriage with Christ. The garments are then removed, her
hair is shorn, and she is invested with the habit of the order, which is
often made of plain wool.
Contemplatives, monks, mendicants and other religious societies not
only take the three vows mentioned above, but also commit themselves to other
religious practices such as long hours of meditation each day, periods of
manual labor, midnight choir (the singing of Psalms), fasting during Lent and
Advent, study of the rule of the order and other spiritual writings, and
silence. As member of the Franciscan Order (which I left voluntarily and was
free to do so), I myself freely submitted to the religious practice of
flagellation on Fridays, striking the legs and back with a small whip to
mortify the desires of the flesh and to commemorate the flagellation of Jesus
Christ before his crucifixion. In the tradition of St. Benedict's dictum
"cra et labora" (Latin for "pray and work"), I also spent several hours each
day, with the exception of Sunday, doing physical labor, including
woodworking, tending a garden, cleaning floors, washing laundry, peeling
potatoes, etc. These tasks were assigned to me by my superiors, and because
I took a vow of obedience, I did them. Furthermore, as a mendicant, I took
a vow of absolute poverty such that I owned absolutely no material possessions,
including the robe which I wore. When rules of the monastery are broken,
monks and friars are regularly assigned menial tasks as penances. Compared
with these Roman Catholic practices, the practices of the RPF are not only
not bizarre but even mild.
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The RPF program can also be compared to spiritual retreats conducted by
many religions in order to restructure believers' lives. including their
secular life, and to provide refreshment for the soul. The Jesuits, much
like the Sea Org members, have a period of retreat and rededication which is
called Tertianship after undergoing a period of temporary vows. During
Tertianship the Jesuit practices the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius of
Layola, founder of the Society of Jesus. After Tertianship a Jesuit takes a
fourth vow of special obedience to the Pope, much as the Sea Org members take
vows of "eternal service."
Just as the Sea Org members who go through the RPF discipline to obtain
"release" and "full cleanup" for the sake of redemption or salvation, so
religions around the world have practiced sometimes stringent disciplines in
order to attain "samsara" (escape from tie cycle of rebirth in Hinduism),
"moksa" (Buddhism), "satori" (Zen), the "beatific vision" (Roman Catholicism,
Greek Orthodoxy), or communication with heavenly beings such as angels or
transcendent "Masters" such as the theosophic Master of St. Germain believed
in by the I Am religious group. (Perhaps it is worth mentioning that the
beliefs and practices of the I Amers were subject of the famous Supreme
Court case US. v. Ballard in 1944).
It is my opinion that the spiritual disciplines and practices, such as
the Rehabilitation Project Force. of the Church of Scientology are not only
not unusual or even strange but characteristic of religion itself when
compared with religious practices known around the world. Contrary to the
generally second-hand opinions of outsiders and to the claims of disaffected
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members, whose motives are suspect, I would say that submission to such
practices is not due to browbeating on the part of church leaders but follows
as a natural consequences from a free religious commitment to spiritual
discipline in the first place.
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