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A Cincinnati Baptist Church held a convention on mental and physical health this weekend in Cincinnati. Churches such as this one are increasingly providing conventions such as this to bring in doctors and mental health councilors who can talk with their parishioners and test them or advise them on health issues. In today's economy and many increasingly going without medical benefits, events such as this may be their only way to meet with health professionals at no cost and receive advice and information that could lead them to affordable care.
What started as a simple function to help those who seeking care turned into a strange comic like event involving cultist infiltrators into the convention who were then followed by a mysterious group of masked protesters who came to warn the convention goers against the menace that walked among them.
While the parishioners of the church came into the convention center seeking advice and to learn about important health issues from medical professionals, another group of people came slinking in behind them with a separate agenda. Sporting clipboards with questionnaires and pink flyers railing against psychiatry and the medical industry, Scientologists came in seeking the names and phone numbers of those attending the convention. But you wouldn't hear from them that they were out recruiting for the so called "Church" of Scientology, a non christian cult that is in direct competition with the Baptist Church as well as against many forms of medical treatment and all forms of psychiatric treatment. Revelations of who they really were would come later when those who gave out their information were invited into their "org" building and struck with a high pressure sales pitch that would put them on the path to changing from Baptists to Scientologists.
Convention security caught the soliciting Scientologists and threw them out multiple times before another group showed up, a masked group of protesters known as Anonymous. The Baptists were at first concerned their convention was being targeted. However the Baptist Church representative in charge of the convention came out to speak to the protesters to find out why they were outside wearing masks and learned the real reason they were there... to warn the Baptists that the people with the clipboards and pink flyers were there to try to lure them into the Cult of Scientology. The representative was quite upset to find out they were being targeted and moved quickly to announce over the loudspeaker system to everyone inside to avoid giving personal information to the Scientologists and that they were non Christian cult members trying to poach Baptist membership with fake questionnaires and "personality" tests. The warning given to all, the Anonymous protesters moved back to protesting the Scientology cult building a block away.
This kind of infiltration of medical based conventions by Scientology cult members is nothing new and plays out in many major cities across the US, often unbeknownst to those running the events. Thankfully many citizens are using their power of free speech and anonymity to come out and face down the cultists and to warn those who are running these helpful events that they are being lied to by the cultist recruiters who come in under the guise of providing their own form of "help".
So if you or your church are going to be running one of these conventions, beware of infiltrators bearing clip boards and who are evasive about who they are or simply claim they are there to talk about "Dianetics". Beef up your security and screening and involve law enforcement to remove the Scientology recruiters in case you need to get an injunction to keep them off the premises in the future.