IV. IS SCIENTOLOGY A RELIGION?(...)

While Western Protestant Christianity may have especially emphasized belief as central to religion, other strands of religious life, Christian and non-Christian, put more emphasis on practice. In Buddhism, for example, the issue is practice: the practice of the Eight-Fold Path as the Way to overcome suffering. In Hinduism one encounters a whole Way to the Ultimate where the whole life is one of practice (rajyoga) or work (karmayoga). But practice is not just meditation or contemplation or action, it is also prayer, ethical behaviour, familial relations, and a host of other practices. In all religious traditions, though in varying degrees, there is a whole life that is to be lived in conformity to the ideal of the religion and that is a life exemplified in practice. Thus, practice in conformity to the ideals and the ethical guidelines of a given religious way was seen as a further dimension to the understanding of what religion is. Moreover, the practice we observe in religious communities and traditions is often ritual practice.

Thus, the modern study of religion was led to acknowledge a further dimension of religious life, namely, the ritual dimension. Rites and rituals are structured acts of the religious community to facilitate communion with the Ultimate dimensions of life. In some of the Chinese traditions, rites were considered essential to maintain the order of the cosmos and were elaborate events spreading over several days. Some religious traditions downplay the role of ritual, e.g., Quaker Christians, but even here they would consider the "gathering in silence" to be essential to their community. Though the ritual dimension varies greatly from tradition to tradition--and even within a given tradition as is witnessed in the ritual splendor of Orthodox Christianity and the ritual simplicity of the Mennonite meeting house--it is a dimension present to the religious life of humankind.