Religion and Theology

Lutheranism

Overview In the early sixteenth century, a reform movement began in the Roman Catholic Church, instigated by the theologian Martin Luther (1483  1546). Luther did not originally intend to start a new sect, he merely wanted to reinvigorate Catholicism. However, his efforts led to Christianity being divided into two. Martin Luther has come to be called as the Wittenberg reformer and the leader of the Great Revolt (McHugh). He initiated Protestant Reformation and is considered as the father of Protestantism. Lutheranism is a main branch of Protestantism, it is the oldest Protestant sect and in Europe has the greatest number of following among the Protestant denominations. Martin Luther himself preferred the name evangelical to describe his creed, and the Lutheran Church is today more often known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church. In Germany, the native place of Martin Luther and the country where Lutheranism is still the most prominent, the state Church is called the Evangelical Church or the Evangelical United Church (Adler, Pouwels, 313).

Origins Christianity is based on the concept of the original sin. Adam disobeyed God and ate the apple and that started the whole trouble for the mankind. Man has fallen into a state of sin. Therefore every human being that is born needs to seek salvation, otherwise he would be cast into hell for eternity. Salvation is only possible by having faith in the Sonship of Jesus Christ. These are the standard tenets of the Christian religion. However in the Catholic doctrine of Luthers time, the faith in Christ was only one of the three components to attain salvation. The Catholic Church also insisted on the value of performing meritorious works and receiving grace through participating in Church sacraments or rituals. Martin Luther began to question the entire approach of the Church to salvation (Maurius, 68).

Luther was a professor at the University of Wittenberg, and on one occasion while preparing a lecture, he stumbled on a verse from Pauls epistle to Romans (117), For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (KJV) (For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written The righteous will live by faith.  NIV). This verse normally would seem to mean that the righteous or the meritorious persons have faith and live by it. However Luther saw that it that original phrase which was translated as the righteous people will live by faith can also be translated as the people righteous by faith will live. Luther had a moment of deep insight. He saw that what Paul must have intended to mean was one can only become righteous through faith, and only through this faith can one receive the gift of everlasting life. This was the seed of what later developed to be the Lutheran creed, which can be summed up in three phrases Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus  through Grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone. This meant that salvation is possibly only through faith in Jesus Christ  nothing else is needed  and also that this faith is a gift of God, it is grace. Luther felt that the Church doctrine was essentially inconsistent with the scripture (Gritsch, 5)

The immediate cause of the controversy that Luther created was the increasing importance attached to indulgences by the Catholic Church. Confession is one of the cornerstones of the Catholic religion, and there were three aspects to this sacrament during Luthers time contrition, absolution and works of satisfaction, meaning the act of repentance, the act of forgiving, and various penances. These penances could include a variety of things, like repeating Hail Marys, or fasting or going on a pilgrimage. One of the possible modes of these penances was known, ironically, as indulgences, which meant making a financial contribution to the Church. At that time the Church was in need of large sums of money, and a new trend of selling special indulgences was started. Therefore indulgence became a sacrament in itself, separated from confession. The believers were asked to buy the indulgences in return for huge reductions in the time they would spend in the purgatory, a limbo region that is very much like hell but is only a temporary habitat before one ascends to heaven. Luther saw this as a huge sign of corruption and began sending his protests to the Church, challenging not only this new trend but the Churchs entire doctrine. This resulted in public debate and controversy and led to the rise of Lutheranism and Protestantism (Maurius, 83).

Luthers teachings have been collected into a volume called the Book of Concord. However, this book is secondary Lutheranism and all or most of the various sects of Protestantism are based on the belief that the Bible is the Word of God, and the Bible is taken to be the sole authoritative text of their creeds. Usually, a very close literal interpretation is followed. The Protestant scriptural canon, however, differs from the Catholic. The Protestant Canon was finalized in 1790 C.E., by excising a few Old Testament books which were supposedly added to the Jewish Canon by the early Church Councils while the Catholic Bible consists of 75 books, the Protestant consists of 66 (Myers).

Beliefs What makes Lutheranism different from the other sects of Protestantism is of course not the concept of salvation through faith in Christ, but that this faith is entirely a gift of God. In other words, according to Lutheranism you either have or do not have faith, there is nothing you can do about it since it is a free gift from God. This is the complete about-turn of the Catholic belief that humans have to merit salvation through their works. Lutheranism insists that not only is there any need to do any kind of works or cultivate any kind of virtues to achieve salvation, but there is no need to cultivate even the faith because the faith is simply a gift from God and happens through His grace (Lacoste, 965). This is the central doctrine of Lutheranism, called the doctrine of justification. Faith is everything in Lutheran creed, but this faith happens on its own accord, by Gods grace, and not through anything that a man does. No thought or act of man can be useful in winning him salvation. It is not clear on what basis, if at all there is a criterion, God chooses to shower his divine grace upon a certain individual. Lutheranism is a doctrine of predestination, which was further refined by John Calvin and turned into Calvinism, a creed of purely predetermined salvation. 

Lutherans believe in the Catholic version of Trinity  God, Son, and the Holy Spirit  and in the angels. They also believe in the actual physical existence of the devil. However, there are many versions of Lutheranism in the present day, and followers of some of these Lutheran denominations do not hold a belief in either the angels or the devil. In the United States itself there are over 20 denominations of Lutheranism with noticeably divergent belief systems (Walker 214).

Scientology

Overview Scientology is very different from Lutheranism, because it has nothing to do with traditional religions and is a cult born in the mid-twentieth century America. It was founded not by a theologian, philosopher, mystic, healer or a person with any kind of spiritual background or orientation, but  rather bizarrely  by a noted science fiction writer. L. Ron Hubbard (1911  1986), an SF writer who achieved a moderate degree of success through his writings in the 1940s, suddenly began to develop an interest in studying the dynamics of the human mind, and went on to develop a new system of psychotherapy. He published his book, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health in 1950. Hubbard contacted AMA, APA and other medical associations to get them approve his new techniques, but his pseudo-scientific methods did not appeal to the establishment. However, Dianetics became a bestseller, and then became the Bible of Scientology. Although Dianetics is largely concerned with the mind, Hubbard developed a concept for the human soul and Dianetics evolved from a program of psychotherapy into a sort of religion. The Church of Scientology (CoS) was established in 1954.

Over the decades, Scientology has developed into a very controversial movement. It has generated a great deal of negative press in the recent times, but one of the things going for this beleaguered cult is the number of Hollywood celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta who happen to be avid Scientologists. The Church of Scientology International has over a thousand branches across the world. Scientology is also associated with humanitarian work, with over a few hundred community groups all over the world associated with Scientology.

Origins How Hubbard came to formulate the highly exotic creed of his Scientology is not clear, since there is no relation between any existing religious sect or school of psychology to the system of Dianetics. There are certain obvious resemblances with Eastern religions and Western mystic traditions such as Gnosticism, but Scientology has many novel, unique and at the same time highly dubious elements. Scientology would appear to a considerable extent to be a product of pure fantasy, something that SF writers habitually indulge in, or it could be a product of divine revelation  depending on whether you are in favor of or against Hubbards creed. But even if the initial impetus might have come out of inspiration, Hubbard developed Dianetics over years of personal research during the 50s.

Beliefs Dianetics may appear to be a very complex system, but it is based on a few simple premises. Each human being is or has an everlasting spirit, called the thetan, but this soul is encumbered in the human body. The ignorant mind is the cause of bondage for the spirit of a human being, and this ignorance is a consequence of negative thoughts (engrams) that have accumulated in the subconscious mind (reactive mind) over several lifetimes, influencing the whole mental outlook of a person. Therefore liberation or freedom can be achieved only when the mind is freed from the engrams this is possible only with the help of a guide  counselor  therapist called an auditor. The aspiring candidate has to go through years of auditing and training. Once the mind is rid of engrams, the scientologist lives in a state of freedom called the Clear. But this is not the final stage even after reaching Clear, one can go on and on further disencumbering oneself of the burden of the past thought patterns until one ultimately reaches total freedom. However, the training process after the Clear is supposedly deeply esoteric and is veiled in secrecy. 

Something called an E-meter plays an important role in the development of a subjects mental maturity in Scientology. This is a device that Hubbard invented, enlisting the help of an engineer called Volney Mathison. It is supposed to measure the tiny electrical currents that ripple across the body of a person as he or she experiences emotional reactions. The E-meter is used to objectively assess the progress of a Scientologist on the path toward the ultimate goal of liberation. Scientology has been called Technological Buddhism by a researcher (Lewis, 216). Scientology indeed prides itself on developing technological capabilities to validate deeper truths of mind and spirit, but Scientologys in-house technologies can be at best described as pseudo. As the author of the book Gods Mechanics How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion remarks, Indeed, no scientist of my acquaintance has ever had anything good to say bout Scientology  rather ironic, given its name. (Consolmagno 98)

Scientology believes in reincarnation, as do the Eastern religions. In fact in most of its core beliefs, namely, that there is an everlasting spirit called the observer-entity, which could be equated with the witness or Sakshi of Hinduism, and that the ignorance and darkness in the minds of human beings is the cause of their bondage, and that the mind moves toward light and truth over several incarnations  Scientology bears some strong resemblances to Eastern religions. Scientology would appear like an SF version of an esoteric tradition. However esoteric and mystical traditions of the world, both in the East and the West have been developed through direct experiencing, and usually by many people over the generations. In the case of Scientology, we do not know what is the source of Hubbards information or the basis of his authority but Scientology appears as if it has been developed by years of deliberate thinking, studying, speculating and imagining, not in the way any form of mysticism or Gnosticism has evolved in the past. Scientologists are supposed to experience the essential nature of reality as propounded by their religion after becoming an Operating Thetan, i.e., after becoming clear, but when and how Hubbard himself reached this state, if in fact he did, is unclear.

The fundamental difference between an Eastern philosophy such as Hinduism and Scientology is that upon liberation, the individual soul will cease to exist as a separate entity and merges into the Supreme Being, but there is no strong concept of Supreme Being in Scientology, whose existence is merely acknowledged and is not of further relevance in the training process. The Thetan continues to exist as a separate entity even after being freed from the ignorance of the mind. In the Eastern religions, the goal is oneness with the universe, whereas in Scientology the goal is brotherhood with the universe(Lewis, 5). Interestingly enough, the Thetan is supposed to be trapped in MEST (Matter, Energy, Space, Time), so upon attaining freedom, the Thetan should be liberated from the relative world and move into the absolute, but this does not happen in Scientology (Davis, Hankins, 45). We are given to understand that though the Thetan is not trapped in MEST anymore after attaining freedom, he continues to exist and experience in the world of MEST.

Comparisons between Lutheranism and Scientology

Lutheranism is the oldest of the new religions, Scientology is the newest of the new religions, in fact it is still struggling to be accepted as a religion in many parts of the world. Catholicism had been a monolithic doctrine for over a thousand years when Lutheranism began the trend of starting new religions, though these were based on the old religions. We can see this trend as culminating in Scientology where an entire self-proclaimed religion apparently started from scratch, though it turns out that this religion has many parallels with ancient mystic traditions of the world. In this context it may be interesting to compare and contrast Lutheranism and Scientology. 

To begin with, Lutheranism believes that after the original sin, human soul became fundamentally tarnished, and therefore humans are essentially sinners. Nothing that humans do can exempt them of their sin. In quite contrast, scientology believes that humans are essentially good, they have an eternal soul which is merely going through a phase of ignorance and suffering. In Lutheranism, the whole fate of a human being rests in the hands of God, with the human being unable to change it in any way, whereas in Scientology the case is again quite the opposite the whole fate of God seems to rest in the hands of man. This is so because, in Scientology, God is generally seen as the endpoint of human evolution. The God is imprisoned in MEST and in the human body and is therefore suffering, man has to bring freedom and salvation to this God. In Lutheranism, faith plays the most crucial role in Scientology, faith plays no part at all. The scientologist only asks you to be open-minded and be willing to explore and follow the first steps of the audit process. If the person experiences any benefits after counseling, he or she would be naturally prompted to go a little further. The emphasis in Scientology is not on faith, but on understanding. Also, Lutherans believe in the standard Christian concept of devil, and that the devil is responsible for all the human suffering, since it was the devil who tempted Eve to convince Adam to eat the apple. In Scientology, the origin of evil is not explained, as to why the Thetan who was originally good and pure fell into ignorance however, it is clear that human suffering is not caused by any external agency but only by some intrinsic dynamic of reality itself. In fact suffering is not something that is not supposed to be, a result of something that should not have happened, as in Christianity, but a necessary part of the souls self-discovery, or self-rediscovery.

As we can see, Lutheranism and Scientology not only have sharp differences, but in fact these creeds are quite opposite to each other in all the fundamental ways. Lutheranism belongs to the Judeo-Christian tradition, whereas Scientology is closer to Eastern religious traditions or Gnosticism in the West religious tradition.

However, while Lutheranism is clearly grounded in the Western exoteric religious traditions, the affinity of Scientology to Eastern esoteric religious traditions such as Hinduism or Buddhism has to be assessed with caution. Scientology cannot be directly linked to any Eastern religious tradition, since Hubbard did not comment about any kind of association with the Eastern traditions, or acknowledge any Western tradition by name. Further, there are too many dissimilarities not only in the philosophical systems of Eastern religions and Scientology, but also in their approaches. In the Eastern religions, for instance, philosophies and practices are in fact secondary, the presence of living master is all-important, since he is the embodiment of truth and enlightenment. In scientology, however, nobody even claims for the superior wisdom or truth manifested in Hubbards life. What we can gather about Hubbards life from here and there points to a rather ordinary mind full of normal human impulses like greed and anger in action (Robinson). Nor do we see any instances of wisdom and nobility in the lives of individual members of Scientology. Despite Scientologys claim that it has produced tens of thousands of Clears  virtually a new race of humans  who have achieved a superhuman level of mental functioning, we do not see much that is tangible or testable in the real world (Bainbridge, Stark, 128). 

According to Scientology, after reaching the Clear state, individuals are free to live creative lives. But we do not see any marked creative outpouring from the Scientology community. Another question arises in this context if living a creative life is the goal, there are any number of people leading highly creative lifestyles while their minds are presumably fully encumbered by engrams. On the other hand, a Scientologist even after reaching the highest level of maturity may not be able to show a fraction of the creativity of so many persons who have nothing to do with Scientology. When we look at Scientology from this perspective, it has nothing much to show for itself in terms of fruits it has yielded. From time to time there have been statements made by people suffering from complex emotional problems, especially celebrities, that they went through some dramatic life-changing experiences during the initial stages of the audit and training process. Besides such rare personal claims, Scientology did not show any magic.  Therefore there is no practical benchmark for the veracity and authenticity of the religion that Scientology purports to be, whereas in the Eastern religions the living experience is everything. And if we look at Lutheranism, the creed is based on a notion that cannot be tested in any way, since it is entirely focused on the afterlife. Scientology can be subjected to test by its own criteria and it fails, whereas Lutheran doctrine does not have any criteria which can be subjected to test in the first place.

Lutheranism and Scientology, despite so many differences between them, seem to share something in common. Though Lutheranism has been around for several hundred years now and is one of the major Christian denominations, it is a very peculiar religion. Lutheranism claims to have a complete scriptural basis, but nowhere is it written in the scriptures that man cannot or need not put any kind of effort to ensure his salvation since the possibility of salvation for each individual is predestined. The concept of predestination takes out the entire meaning and purpose of human life, making human beings hollow. Apparently, if everything was predestined we are simply puppets playing out a tedious cosmic drama. Christian religion is fundamentally based on the notion of free will and choice. Therefore it is rather strange that so many well-meaning Christians followed and still follow this cult religion which goes against a most fundamental Christian ethic.

It is no less strange that so many otherwise intelligent people in deep search of spirituality and meaning of life choose to follow Scientology, with all its pseudo-psychology, pseudo-science and pseudo-mysticism. Scientology appears like psychology, but it is not, it appears like mysticism but it is not, it appears like a technology-based process, but it is not it also appears very pseudo, and this it is. It is a mystery why millions of adherents of Scientology cannot see through the shallowness of their creed. Scientology keeps enlisting tens of thousands of new members every year even when its whole sham has been exposed by the media. Since its inception Scientology has only been a money-making racket. As Passas and Castillo conclude in their paper (103), the Church of Scientology is a successful commercial enterprise which, seeking to achieve its goals, occasionally adopts illicit means.  Beit-Hallahmi, after a thorough investigation into the matter, supports this view The assertion that Scientology is a misunderstood religion seems less tenable than the competing assertion, that it is a front for a variety of profit-making schemes, most of which are totally fraudulent.

Tertullian, the Christianized Roman philosopher of 4th century C.E., declared Credo quia absurdum est, meaning, I believe (in the Christian doctrine) because it is absurd. In general, every religion and creed contains some degree of absurdness and it is a test of faith for its followers to adhere to it despite its seeming meaninglessness. It would appear as if both Lutheranism and Scientology test the faith of their adherents very severely, and only those people whose faith is very strong can consistently stick to such highly non-rational religions.   

(Note All opinions expressed in the 3rd section of this essay, unless they are explicitly cited, are my own.)