Scientologists Need Not Apply

The contract I recently signed to become an English instructor for a local language school was generally standard fare. "The Agent undertakes to notify (the Principal) immediately in the event of illness or any other circumstances preventing the performance of work," and so forth. It goes about like that until the final clause, which states:

"Hereby the Agent declares that he/she does not sympathize with or support the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard. He/she is not bound by any orders or instructions of an organization promoting Hubbard's technology. He/she does not make use of its contents or methods. He/she does not pass on to a third person any information given to him/her in confidence as a result of this employment. Should this declaration prove not true, it causes an immediate dismissal of this (contract)."

Last December, after more than a decade of closely observing the Church of Scientology, Germany's federal and state interior ministers declared the church to be unconstitutional in a first and unprecedented step to ban the controversial organization.

The interior ministers' report, according to CNN.com, didn't go into much detail or offer anything in the way of specific examples, but did state, "From a number of sources, some of them not available to the public, it has been determined that (the organization) seeks to limit or rescind basic and human rights, such as the right to develop one's personality and the right to be treated equally."

The Church of Scientology, of course, called Germany's move ridiculous and out of step with the rest of the world. In fact, CNN reported that the U.S. State Department in its annual Human Rights report regularly criticized Germany for its close monitoring of the Church of Scientology.

When this was all shaking out several months ago, it made me uncomfortable. Being a Mormon, I tend to sympathize with religions that are unique and largely misunderstood. Not sympathize in the sense that I agree with their beliefs, but sympathize in the sense that I get how painful it is when the thing you love and believe in gets mercilessly shredded in the public forum. And it annoyed me that the German government felt they had the right to restrict any religion. It sounded to me like a dangerous throwback to the days of the GDR when the Stasi kept a close eye on Germans who subscribed to any religion, in particular those associated with the capitalistic West, i.e. Mormons.

The issue upset me enough that I started researching Scientology more in an effort to understand their viewpoint, because I wanted to be able to defend them. The things I learned were — unusual, which I expected. But I felt that as a Mormon, I had little room to criticize anyone for believing in any ideas that could be perceived by outsiders as unorthodox (though I will say that in the out-there category, Mormonism has nothing on Scientology).

This was all before I stumbled upon this article published by Time Magazine in 1991, which blasts the church, not for its doctrines, but rather for its dubious methods of relentlessly milking members for finances and for its scary and sneaky means of shutting down naysayers. Upon reading it, my sympathies cooled significantly and I was able to appreciate Germany's position, even if I still strongly disagree with any government's decision to restrict religion based solely on doctrine.

The final clause in my employment contract represents one of the Church of Scientology's attempts at retaliation against the German government. Since 2006 stories have been popping up about suspicious tutoring schools in Germany, in which tutors, once alone with clients, begin asking personal questions and teaching Scientology rather than the school subjects they were hired to teach. Apparently, since I will be in an unsupervised teacher-pupil relationship, potentially on a one-on-one level, they just want to be sure.

Frankly, I can't say I blame them, but after signing the contract, I'll probably be a little less free about my own affiliations, just in case. You know those Mormons. They can never be trusted.



JEM