Scientology gets smacked by the mayor of Clearwater, Florida.
Those people who are Scientologists who live in Clearwater care about our city as much as you and I do. What we’ve seen in the Leah Remini story is one, the Church of Scientology has a terrible PR department. They are just awful. And they also need to understand that … churches support families. They shouldn’t divide families. … The Church of Scientology ought to think twice about its policy on families.
Just so’s you know, in case you didn’t watch Remini’s documentary, the Scientologists teach exactly the same thing that Albert Mohler and tens of thousands of Southern Baptists pastors teach: The church comes first, and your family can have the leftovers.
The third theological fact about the family is the continued affirmation of the family within the redeemed people of God – the church. As the Gospels make clear, loyalty to Christ exceeds that of any family commitment, even as the church becomes the family of faith, embracing within its life all who come to faith in Christ and into the life of the church. And yet, Christians are explicitly instructed to honor marriage, to raise their children in the faith, and to order their family according to the Scriptures.
In a closely related vein, SBC Voices reminds the Pious that the world divides between them and us:
Not every athlete or actor who thanks God after a winning performance is “one of us.” Look at the gospels — the clearest confessions of Christ came from demons. I’m not trying to make too much of that other than to say that someone who stands up and says, “I want to thank my Savior Jesus Christ” or who sings a song about God is not necessarily a blood-bought, born-again, saved, sanctified, heaven-bound spiritual sibling. We need to be careful.
Now: Imagine this attitude made public policy.