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Faith for a Fee
Imagine if whenever any Catholic walked up to receive the sacrament, they had to place precisely $75 into the priest's hand before they could take part in this important religious ceremony. Imagine if a Muslim had to hand over $1,000 before they could enter Kaaba, the final destination of their pilgrimage to Mecca. Imagine if a young Jewish boy had to pay $100,000 before he could prepare for his Bar Mitzvah, and even after learning it, he'd never be allowed to speak it.
Charging for religious enlightenment has never been something this world has ever come to grips with. The modern day aphorism, "the best things in life are free," has always been a part of our natural human approach to spiritual matters. Yes, we may donate to churches, we may pay tithes to support the earthly efforts of our religious organizations. But at its heart, the core doctrines that we believe lead to spiritual and divine enlightenment have always been freely available to everyone. If you couldn't afford to pay tithing it wouldn't preclude you from hearing the word of God. Indeed, associating such an earthly thing as money to holy matters has even become a part of many religious doctrines. For example, in the Bible it is very clear that Christ throws money-changers out of a holy temple. It's natural to all of us that putting a price on the nourishment of our souls is the antithesis of what it means to be spiritually enlightened.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Church of Scientology. Every service, every word of doctrine, is charged to a credit card. Everything has its price, everything costs money. The only part of the Church of Scientology that's free is the personality test they use to get you in the door.
Many Scientologists defend the church's practice of charging for services by saying that you wouldn't hesitate to pay someone for doing you a service. You pay for psychiatric therapists, why not pay for auditing? While that may make sense to come, it's unfortunately not that simple, because auditing isn't the only thing within Scientology with a price tag.
In order to learn the doctrine itself - the very thing that leads you to enlightenment - you must pay ever rising prices for Scientology courses. The cost of learning the entirety of the doctrine is well above $350,000. What every other religion gives freely and openly, Scientology charges for it, both in money and in time. There isn't just one course that you pay for that teaches you the precepts and theologies of Scientology. Instead, you are fed only a minute amount of information each time, then urged to pay for the next course to learn more. You buy more courses, more books, more auditing, spending years of your life in the pursuit of the information that forms the core of Scientology's doctrine. And once you do know, once you have spent decades of your life and the entirety of your savings, everything you've learned has to remain a closely guaraded secret. What you've discovered, all this doctrine that has been delivered along with promises of happiness and peace, you cannot discuss it with anyone. Not even those closest to you.
Auditing isn't the ony thing people pay for. The doctrine isn't the only thing people pay for. It's everything. Every single aspect of this faith has a price tag, and those prices keep rising.
My own personal objection to this policy of charging for faith is multifaceted. On a theological level, I strongly object to the idea that only those with large bank accounts are allowed access to the most important and divine information. If you can't afford it, your only hope for salvation is to spend years in low-paying menial labor for the church. The things that God demands from his followers in all other faiths may seem difficult to all of us; righteousness is never really easy. But in my own opinion, I cannot believe that God would see us all go into debt so we could pay for His word. What use does heaven have for cash?
But that is a purely theological argument, one I just wanted to get off my chest. The most important issue here doesn't have to do with faith, it has to do with law. When faith is being sold, I do not see the legal framework that supports this organization in receiving the same tax-exemption status as every other faith who freely gives of their information. When Scientology doesn't follow the same codes of conduct of other churches, I do not believe they should be worthy of the same lenient tax exemptions. They are making money off the faith of their followers; to me, that sounds more like business than religion.
For more information on Scientology's tax exemption, click here.
I put it to you, what do you say about the fees associated with religious doctrines and services? Does that sound right to you? Does that sit well with your conscience?
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