WI: L. Ron Hubbard Forms a Megachurch

Delta Force

Banned
Could L. Ron Hubbard have formed his own megachurch in the 1950s based on Protestant Christianity instead of forming Scientology? Would there have been any major impediments for him doing that? Could it have brought him greater wealth and power, perhaps even leading to him becoming influential enough that he could influence government legitimately instead of through infiltration?
 
It's been a long time since I've read Bare Faced Messiah, the go-to Hubbard bio, but I don't recall that his family background was particularly Christian, in any active way.

Of course, he could turn to Christianity in later life(classic conversion story), but then you're sort of into the realm of "If Hubbard was Christian, he wouldn't be Hubbard". Dianetics grew largely out of his science-fiction interests, which developed in his teenaged years, so I really think you'd need to put him on a different life trajectroy to have him as an evangelical Christian by the late 1940s.
 
It's been a long time since I've read Bare Faced Messiah, the go-to Hubbard bio, but I don't recall that his family background was particularly Christian, in any active way.

Of course, he could turn to Christianity in later life(classic conversion story), but then you're sort of into the realm of "If Hubbard was Christian, he wouldn't be Hubbard". Dianetics grew largely out of his science-fiction interests, which developed in his teenaged years, so I really think you'd need to put him on a different life trajectroy to have him as an evangelical Christian by the late 1940s.

He wouldn't be the Hubbard we know, but he'd still have the same negative personality. He'd be great as a greedy megachurch pastor. He could fit in well with some of the 60s outreach movements to hippies like the Jesus freaks and such. But LRH would have to have a conversion experience and leave science fiction behind, or at least try and write evangelical science fiction. Not sure what the market for those stories would be back then, since it would probably bash you over the head with Christian themes far more than CS Lewis's SF ever did and thus not be mainstream SF. Plus apparently by the 50s/60s, his fiction was pretty poorly regarded--to quote my father, who read lots of pulp science fiction back then, "they just weren't that good." But then again, maybe it could work like early Christian rock did, although I can't imagine leading a megachurch and finding time to write fiction on the side. But he could always inspire others to follow in his footsteps and make "Christian science fiction" (probably Christian fantasy too) into a very important part of the Christian fiction market.

However he'd almost certainly get nailed by a scandal before his death, guaranteed, because this is L. Ron Hubbard we're talking about in the end.
 
He wouldn't be the Hubbard we know, but he'd still have the same negative personality. He'd be great as a greedy megachurch pastor. He could fit in well with some of the 60s outreach movements to hippies like the Jesus freaks and such. But LRH would have to have a conversion experience and leave science fiction behind, or at least try and write evangelical science fiction. Not sure what the market for those stories would be back then, since it would probably bash you over the head with Christian themes far more than CS Lewis's SF ever did and thus not be mainstream SF. Plus apparently by the 50s/60s, his fiction was pretty poorly regarded--to quote my father, who read lots of pulp science fiction back then, "they just weren't that good." But then again, maybe it could work like early Christian rock did, although I can't imagine leading a megachurch and finding time to write fiction on the side. But he could always inspire others to follow in his footsteps and make "Christian science fiction" (probably Christian fantasy too) into a very important part of the Christian fiction market.

Yeah, I should have stated that I agree Hubbard would have been more than suited to the job of megachurch pastor, had his life gone down that path.

But I still think it's hard to get him off the sci-fi path. From what I read, he was an incurable bullsh*tter, with a heavy emphasis on telling stories about his alleged past lives on other planets. He wasn't just writing science-fiction, he actually wanted people to believe he had lived it. Space aliens are gonna seem pretty heterodox to most evangelical Christians, and reincarnation, simply out of the question.

re: the hippie outreach thing, Dianetics had been around for about fifteen years before the 60s counterculture got in full swing, so if it follows the same history in the ATL, Hubbard is going to be in his mid-fifties by the Summer Of Love, and pushing 60 by the time the Jesus Freaks really get going. So I'm not sure how much influence all that is gonna have on his Christian church, which would have been well established and defined many years beforehand.

In OTL, is Scientology really considered to be a 60s thing, culturally speaking? Like I say, it predates the counterculture by over a decade, and it's general image is actually pretty square(Hubbard was a suit-and-tie guy who bragged about his war record, and they had those quasi-military messengers). The only real counterculture figure I can think of who was involved in the COS was William S. Burroughs, and he was more of a beatnik than a hippie, and didn't bring in a huge following to the church.
 
As others have said, from what I know Hubbard was very immersed in sci fi and esoteric pseudo-scientific beliefs for quite a while before he started really putting together scientology. You'd probably need a very early POD to push him down the televangelist route.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
Hubbard would not fit in with the burgeoning Evangelical movement and its emphasis on the Bible being the ultimate authority. If he went down the Christian path, I am guessing he would be more likely to associate with the Jehovah's Witnesses or a fundamentalist strain of the LDS church. He would need an environment secluded from mainstream Christian society so that he could establish the norms and doctrine he wanted rather than any kind of Biblically focused group.
 
Hubbard would not fit in with the burgeoning Evangelical movement and its emphasis on the Bible being the ultimate authority. If he went down the Christian path, I am guessing he would be more likely to associate with the Jehovah's Witnesses or a fundamentalist strain of the LDS church. He would need an environment secluded from mainstream Christian society so that he could establish the norms and doctrine he wanted rather than any kind of Biblically focused group.

Was Kolob and the other science fiction-esque elements of the LDS church known in the mainstream back then? I can't help but think most Mormons might have suspicion toward someone like LRH who would be constantly obsessed with Kolob, Mormon cosmology, etc. but basically none of the rest of LDS doctrine.
 
Here's an idea.

Hubbard converts to evangelical Xtianity in early adulthood, after hooking up with missionaries during his travels in China. He subsequently gets a gig writing ostensibly non-fiction potboiler missionary stories for church magazines, featuring buxom blonde mission girls rescued from cannibals by strapping preacher men and their minstrely native convert sidekicks; horrific demons terrorizing helpless population of non-converted natives, and related themes.

Hubbard parlays this into a mini-career speaking about missions at various churches, though after a while it becomes apparent that he can't distinguish fact from fantasy, and is talking about the events in his stories as if they actually happened to him. The church deprives him of all lecturing and teaching priviliges, and he leaves in a huff to found his own "non-denominational" outfit, using his adventure stories as a lure to potential converts and recruits. And it goes from there.

If Hubbard still manages to meet up with Jack Parsons in this time-line, he can add "Battling California Satanists" to his resume. In real life, the COS made the revisionist claim that Hubbard had broken up Parson's cult, whereas in fact, he was a willing, if somewhat casual, participant in the sex rituals.
 
It's been a long time since I've read Bare Faced Messiah, the go-to Hubbard bio, but I don't recall that his family background was particularly Christian, in any active way.

Of course, he could turn to Christianity in later life(classic conversion story), but then you're sort of into the realm of "If Hubbard was Christian, he wouldn't be Hubbard". Dianetics grew largely out of his science-fiction interests, which developed in his teenaged years, so I really think you'd need to put him on a different life trajectroy to have him as an evangelical Christian by the late 1940s.

I don't think you need to be a believing, practicing christian to found a megachurch. If anything, it might be an impediment

It's true though that dianetic/scientology grew out of his science-fiction writing but to be honest, he could use his lack of previous religiosity as testimony to THE POWER OF CHRIST WHO SAVETH ME !!! and all that.
 
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