Scientology and Sex

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole M. Cusack
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
The Body ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Unification Church ◽  
New Religions ◽  
The Family ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
The Church

While the control and discipline of the body and human behavior is a perennial concern in all social orders, it is particularly acute within religions, both old and new. Religions typically regulate dress, social interaction, diet, and especially norms concerning sex, reproduction, and the family. To date, research on the Church of Scientology, founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, has neglected the topic of sex. In this article, I remedy this lacuna by examining three areas linked by the theme of “attempted abortion.” First, I explore Hubbard’s biography in terms of sexual and familial experiences; second, I expound on his writings about sex and the doctrinal position of the Church of Scientology; and third, I examine recent allegations affecting the Sea Org due to defectors’ claims that pregnant women were forced to have abortions. Additionally, I adduce some comparative material from the biography of Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, who manifested a similar disconnect between his personal life and his conservative teachings on sex. In the Church of Scientology, sexual orientation and activity are prime sites of control experienced by all its members, but in particular among the elite corps of the Sea Org.

scholarly journals Theology disrupted: Doing theology with children in African contexts

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elijah Mahlangu
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Family ◽  
New Development ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
African Context ◽  
The Church

The thrust of this article is an attempt to respond to the question whether we can read and interpret the bible in Africa from the child theology vantage point. The author’s answer is in the affirmative in two ways: Firstly, it is that the majority of children in Africa are facing abuses of unprecedented proportions. Historically and traditionally, African scholars always read and interpreted the bible with African lenses. The African bible critic and exegete should be part of the church, the body of Christ which ought to be a lotus of healing. Theologising in the context of the crisis of the ‘child’ in Africa is fairly a new development and needs to be aggressively pursued. The second aspect of this author’s response is that when Christianity entered the Graeco-Roman as well the Jewish milieu, it used the family symbolism such as father, brothers, love, house of God, children of God, and so on. The New Testament authors therefore used family as reality and metaphor to proclaim the gospel. The African theologian, critic and exegete, is therefore in this article challenged to make a significant contribution using the African context in that, ‘… the African concept of child, family and community appears to be closer to ecclesiology than the Western concepts’.

scholarly journals Psychoemotional impact of moral-religious education in the family, school and Church

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-163
Author(s):  
Aurelia Cojocaru ◽  
◽  
Rodion Brasoveanu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Psychological Structure ◽  
The Church

The human person is not a static being, he must be understood as a dynamic being, in constant development. Its continuous evolution concerns both the psychological structure (intelligence, character, emotion) and biological infrastructure (or body) and the social superstructure (or society). From an objective angle, the being is as far as the body is seen. From the point of view of the soul, however, the being never stops at the frontier of the body. It is not only us, but also the family in which we were born, the marriage we have established, the profession we have, the class and the nation we belong to, etc. The present paper aims at the development of the personality from the perspective of the family, the school and the Church, as fundamental factors of education. The importance of such a topic lies in the practical approach by researching the current phenomenon of education in terms of the factors mentioned. The interest for this topic was born from the interdisciplinary psychological and theological approach. The two fields of research have in common the issue of the human being, one emphasizing its social role, the other emphasizing its spiritual dimension.

scholarly journals Family Values in Doctrine and Practice of Synthetic Neo-Religions

2018 ◽  
pp. 130-143
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Volodymyrovych Yuvsechko
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
Complex Analysis ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Economic Point ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Marital Relations ◽  
Baha'i Faith ◽  
Unification Church ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Church

The article analyzes the beliefs and practical activities of synthetic neo-religions on issues of family, marriage, marital life, children’s education, attitude to parents, etc. In particular, the position of Baha'i Faith, Unification Church and Church of Scientology is considered. The peculiarity of this research is the complex analysis of the doctrine and practice of these neo-religious movements and finding of common aspects in their views on family values, both among themselves and with traditional religions. It emphasizes their syncretism  and refute the available warning in society about the destructive influence of neo-religions’ beliefs on established family values. In the teaching of the Unification Church, the issue of the family, marital relations, holiness and purity of marital ties, the inadmissibility of premarital and extra-marital relations occupy one of the central places. In the doctrine of the Baha'i Faith, the vital importance is given to the institution of the family. It emphasizes the sanctity of marriage, the equality of men and women in their rights, privileges, upbringing and social status. The Baha'i recognize the principle of equal rights, opportunities and privileges for men and women, the requirement of monogamy and marital fidelity. In the teaching of the Church of Scientology, the family is regarded as an important bricks of society: the biological model of family relationships and the development of an organism is that ensures the continuation of human existence. Marriage is the basis of a family. The family is the closest union in a society, which provides itself for the continuation of own existence and own protection. The family is also necessary for the society by an economic point of view. According to Scientologists, the whole culture will perish if its foundation - the family - will cease to exist. Thus, in their opinion, there is no doubt that the one who destroys the marriage union also destroys civilization. It is emphasized that despite the claims of these religious organizations to the exclusivity and authority of their own religious sources, their positions on family values ​​are quite similar to each other. Also they often overlap with the principles of Christianity and other world religions. The author draws attention to the lack of awareness of the general public with the basics of dogma of the Baha'i Faith, the Unification Church and the Church of Scientology. As a result, there is a fear in society about the spread of doctrines of synthetic neo-religions, despite the fact that their positions on family values ​​do not contradict the generally accepted norms of social morality and mostly accord with them.

Family Matters

1979 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Featherstone
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The Church ◽  
Current Emphasis

More than thirty years ago, the Editorial Board committed itself to publishing articles concerned with "the clarification of, and the discovery of solutions to, the problems of education," seeking to give broader scope to the transmission of culture that goes on "less formally but inexorably—in the home, the church, the office and factory, through newspapers, movies, and the radio, and in ordinary social interaction."Over the years, our attention has shifted from one facet of this process to another; recently the family has become a major focus for educators, policy makers,and researchers. Joseph Featherstone's article provides a much-needed perspective on why the family is now at the center of many political and policy debates. He reminds us that this current emphasis is the result of both a long tradition of romanticizing the virtues of the family and the particular constellation of events we now refer to as "the sixties." While the family is emerging as a symbol in the effort to frame a more communal view of social policy, Featherstone warns of the danger inherent in seeking private solutions to problems that are collective in nature.

Marriage and Social Control

1914 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-338
Author(s):  
Anna Garlin Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Common Error ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Church

The Nineteenth Century was ushered in with trumpet-calls to self-assertion and social freedom. A vague but long-cherished hope of the elect of humanity that the masses, each and all, might yet become persons, crystallized during the eighteenth century into a popular assertion of “equality of rights” in the body politic as “the first of rights” and essential to the process of universal individuation. Thus was born the democratic State. The Church in Christian civilization had long before recognized the independent personality of all, even of slaves and of women, in its spiritual Magna Charta, which secured to every human being the right to own his own soul and laid upon each the burden of saving it. The Protestant Reformation added to this the duty of understanding “the plan of salvation,” and hence reinforced, and in many instances initiated, the demand of the State for an intelligent electorate. Thus Church and State worked together to call into being the free, tax-supported school, and to make compulsory some minimum of formal education. The democratic State and the democratic school have worked together to create slowly legalized freedom of association for manual laborers. Labor reform organizations, springing up at once as soon as legal restrictions upon such associations were removed, have initiated the collective struggle for common industrial betterment. Of the five basic institutions of society, therefore—the family, the Church, the State, the school, and the industrial order—four are already well on their way toward thorough-going democratization. It is necessary to remind ourselves of these familiar facts in order to escape the common error of treating some one institution of society as a detached social structure, the problems concerning which are to be solved independently of other human relationship. The first, the most vital, the most intimate, and the most universal of social institutions, that of marriage and the family, has longest resisted re-adjustment to the new ethics involved in the now accepted principle of equality of human rights.

Swagger, sway, and sexuality: How the body conveys sexual orientation

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerri L. Johnson ◽  
Simone Gill-Alvarez ◽  
Victoria Reichman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
The Body

Men, The Family, and The Church

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean B. LEE
Keyword(s):  
The Family ◽  
The Church

Three new species, two new genera, and new family Biphragmosagittidae (Сhaetognatha) from Southwest Pacific Ocean

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-173
Author(s):  
A.P. Kassatkina
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Type Species ◽  
Morphological Characters ◽  
The Body ◽  
New Order ◽  
New Genera ◽  
New Family ◽  
The Family ◽  
Three New Species

Resuming published and own data, a revision of classification of Chaetognatha is presented. The family Sagittidae Claus & Grobben, 1905 is given a rank of subclass, Sagittiones, characterised, in particular, by the presence of two pairs of sac-like gelatinous structures or two pairs of fins. Besides the order Aphragmophora Tokioka, 1965, it contains the new order Biphragmosagittiformes ord. nov., which is a unique group of Chaetognatha with an unusual combination of morphological characters: the transverse muscles present in both the trunk and the tail sections of the body; the seminal vesicles simple, without internal complex compartments; the presence of two pairs of lateral fins. The only family assigned to the new order, Biphragmosagittidae fam. nov., contains two genera. Diagnoses of the two new genera, Biphragmosagitta gen. nov. (type species B. tarasovi sp. nov. and B. angusticephala sp. nov.) and Biphragmofastigata gen. nov. (type species B. fastigata sp. nov.), detailed descriptions and pictures of the three new species are presented.

‘The healthe of my soule’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Clark
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Family ◽  
Kinship Relations ◽  
Royal Supremacy ◽  
The Church

Throughout the sixteenth century and beyond, the Howards are usually described as religiously ‘conservative’, resisting the reformist impulse of the Reformation while conforming to the royal supremacy over the Church. The women of the family have played little part in this characterization, yet they too lived through the earliest stages of the Reformation. This chapter shows that what we see is not a family following the lead of its patriarch in religious matters at this early stage of the Reformation, but that this did not stop them maintaining strong kinship relations across the shifting religious spectrum.

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