Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [88]
The Christofferson Titchbourne reversal was a pivotal moment for David Miscavige. He not only needed to defend Scientology and establish his leadership, but he also knew the future depended on recasting Scientology as a mainstream church. Just as Hubbard had before him, Miscavige understood the power religion had in the culture and its effectiveness at bringing in cash. The 1980s were not unlike the 1950s in their conservatism and materialism, and churches that embraced those values flourished in this era. With the patronage of Ronald Reagan, and later George H. W. Bush, the Reverend Jerry Falwell became the most prominent religious leader in America, and his group, the Moral Majority, became a national political movement in which faith—fundamentalist Christian faith—was linked with upstanding social, economic, and religious values for the first time in decades.
In a campaign spearheaded by Jeff Hawkins and his marketing group, Scientology now began to promote itself aggressively as a "major religion" —just like "Protestantism, Buddhism, Judaism, Catholicism"—in glossy newspaper supplements. To forge bonds with mainstream Christian groups, the church urged members to attend local Sunday church services, mingle with the congregation, and introduce themselves to the minister and his wife. A key goal was to get local ministers to sign notarized affidavits affirming that Scientology was a "bona fide religion," according to one tip sheet published by the church. To butter them up, the document urged, Scientologists might tell the minister his sermon was "brilliant" and ask if he'd be willing to speak at their church. "He'll have a hard time refusing that one!" it noted.
To further reinforce Scientology's legitimacy, the Religious Freedom Crusade began to sponsor ecumenical conferences in Los Angeles, reaching out to religious leaders of other faiths by impressing upon them that any legal action brought against the Church of Scientology was a threat to all religions. By December 1985, such mainstream organizations as the National Council of Churches and the Coalition for Religious Freedom had voiced support for Scientology and its "right to compete for converts without interference from the courts."
But the cases against Scientology continued. In 1986, a jury in Los Angeles awarded $30 million to the former Scientologist Larry Wollersheim, who'd waged a six-year lawsuit against the church, which he charged had driven him to the point of suicide. In response to the verdict, the Religious Freedom Crusade descended on the Los Angeles County Courthouse much as it had the year before in Portland. This time it was the Reverend Ken Hoden, president of the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles, who spearheaded the campaign, at one point addressing a rally of over a thousand Scientologists; in his speech he compared them to the foot soldiers of the American Revolution. "If you want your rights guaranteed, you have to fight for them," he said. "Larry Wollersheim will never get one thin dime from the Church of Scientology!" "Not one thin dime for Wollersheim" became a refrain for the next twenty-two years, as the church fought consistently against awarding Wollersheim any damages.*
With Miscavige's full assumption of power in 1988, Scientology began to settle many of the lawsuits filed against it, often by offering litigants and their attorneys cash payouts to stop their assault on Scientology. Along with a coalition