Is Scientology Creating Its Own Version of EWTN?

Last updated on: July 13, 2012 at 7:06 pm by Tony Rossi

Is Scientology Creating Its Own Version of EWTN? 2012-07-13T19:06:12-05:00 Tony Rossi

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Most people know the story of Mother Angelica founding EWTN in 1981 as a global Catholic network which would reach churched and unchurched Catholics with basic catechetics and interesting conversations in the hopes that the programming would nurture viewers’ faith and attract new converts. According to a report in The Telegraph, Scientology will now be doing a similar thing. In light of all the negative publicity Scientology has been getting following the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce, this project would give them a considerable PR opportunity. I invite Katie Holmes to listen to Christopher Closeup podcasts instead:

From “The Telegraph:”
The Church of Scientology, the religion whose followers include actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, plans to start a religious broadcasting centre to promote its teachings over TV, radio and the internet….

The centre, located near the church’s West Coast headquarters in Hollywood, would occupy the nearly five-acre studio property the church bought last year from Los Angeles public TV station KCET for $42 million (£27 million).

The station would elevate the public profile of a religion that has mostly relied on pamphlets and books by its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, to proselytise for new members.

“The church plans to establish a central media hub for our growing world network of churches and to move into the production of religious television and radio broadcasting,” said Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for Church of Scientology International, in an email.

She said there is no timetable for when operations would begin.

Scientology TV could be similar to Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network or the Trinity Broadcast Network. Trinity creates Christian programming at a production centre in Irving, Texas, and airs it on TV stations and cable channels, said Rick Ross, whose non-profit Rick A. Ross Institute in Trenton, New Jersey, maintains an online archive of data on cults and controversial movements.

Hollywood is a major hub for creative talent and some of them are Scientologists,” said Ross. “They’d have a lot of talented folks who could produce shows and stars like Tom Cruise who would appear on them.”

Elayne Rapping, a pop-culture expert and professor of American studies at the University of Buffalo, told Reuters she is not surprised by the church’s move.

“Having their own TV is a good idea since they can spin things their way,” she said. “They are after good PR which they can control to offset the bad publicity surrounding them in other media.”

Read the whole story here.

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