MEDIA WATCH | GLOBALINEQUALITY

Anti-Scientology Reference in Blog About Christmas

After receiving the below letter, the author removed all anti-Scientology content from the offending article.

January 6, 2022

Branko Milanovic
Visiting Presidential Professor
City University of New York
bmilanovic@gc.cuny.edu

Dear Dr. Milanovic,

I write regarding your blog posting of January 6, 2022, “How I Did Not Celebrate Christmas.”

After reflecting on how you viewed Christmas as “weird,” “outlandish” and “unenlightened,” you state this is perhaps how “most people in the United States today” view members of the Scientology religion.

Replace “Scientologists” with “Muslims” or “Jews” in your sentence and you will rightly cringe.

As a new religion, like all religions before it, Scientology has been subject to misinformation and bigotry. In the face of these, it has nevertheless flourished into the global religion it is today, recognized by governments the world over, and with a
membership millions strong. There are over 11,000 Scientology Churches, Missions and affiliated groups across 167 nations. Scientologists come from every profession and every walk of life—they are documentarians, business owners, fashion designers, environmentalists, aerobatics pilots, sound designers, VFX producers, robotics engineers, composers.

As you will see you for yourself, they are the furthest thing you could find from “weird,” “outlandish” and “unenlightened.” No one who knows or works with a Scientologist would agree with your characterization. It is merely what anti-Scientologists would have you believe, in the same way anti-Semites have spoken throughout history about “greedy,” “disloyal” and “power-hungry” Jews.

As an academic, you know that the only responsible thing to do if you intend to contribute any valuable perspective on a subject, is to learn about it first. Should you intend to publish further commentary on Scientology, I ask that you do this—learn about it first—at www.scientology.org or www.scientology.tv.

In the meantime, we would appreciate your removing this derogatory and offensive reference from your article.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Bari Berger

National STAND Director