Frank Flinn is an adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He has served as a forensic expert on the legal definition of religion, religious organizations, religious finances and various religious controversies, and he has testified concerning Scientology and many other New Religious Movements. Flinn wrote “Scientology: The Marks of Religion,” which examines the […]

Mai-Anh Le Tran, who emigrated at age 10 from Vietnam to the United States, is assistant professor of religious education and Asian-American cultures at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, Calif.

Oliver Wang is an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Long Beach, and writes about Asian-American cinema and about music, youth culture, popular culture and politics.

Min Zhou is a professor of sociology and Asian-American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and she studies Asian immigration to the United States. Her books include, as co-editor, Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader and, as co-author, Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States and Straddling Two Social Worlds: The Experience of […]

John Duignan is co-author of The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology (2008). He says he is a former high-ranking member of the church. Amazon’s United Kingdom branch stopped selling Duignan’s book after receiving a claim that it libeled a church member; the publisher, Merlin Publishing, has denied that.

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a psychology professor emeritus at the University of Haifa in Israel. His areas of expertise include the psychology of religion. He wrote an article titled “Scientology: Religion or racket?” that was published in September 2003 by the Marburg Journal of Religion.

Read a May 1991 Time magazine cover story about Scientology. The church took great exception to the article, which went on to receive the Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism, the Worth Bingham Prize and the Conscience in Media Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Article requires log-in and payment to access.

Read an ABC transcript of a 1992 interview between Ted Koppel and David Miscavige. The interview was said to be the first ever granted by the Scientology leader.

Read a Nov. 1, 2007, CNN story about two Christian pastors embracing elements of Scientology for their congregations.