Blog: Deconstructing Scientology: Chapter 6 - 2016-09-08

Deconstructing Scientology: Chapter 6 September 8, 2016, Chris Shelton, Critical Thinker at Large

---

Hello everyone. In this video we are continuing in my ongoing series of deconstructing chapter-by-chapter the book Scientology, an academic compendium of essays edited by James R. Lewis, all focusing on different aspects of Scientology.

This week we are back to James R. Lewis as author. You may recall the first video in this series where I basically took apart his introduction to this book. Lewis has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Wales in the UK and leans heavily in the direction of apologetics for destructive cults, meaning he publishes papers sympathetic to their cause and giving them justification for their activities by validating their religious status.

As you can imagine, as a former Scientologist turned critic, I have a biased but very intellectually justified view that Lewis has no idea what he is talking about, but I want to give his work a fair shake and so I am going over these academic papers with a fine-tooth comb and seeing what rational and/or logical arguments they have to make.