It claims that about 15000 people regularly attend its 10 churches in

It claims that about 15,000 people regularly attend its 10 churches in Britain. I have worked in this field for 20 years and the concerns I had two decades ago I still have today."In Britain, the church's status is as a charity registered in South Australia. Its public affairs director here, Graeme Smith, said: "We would like to be recognised by the Charities Commission as a proper religion."In the past their definitions have been based on Judaeo-Christian religions which have a personal god. Ian Howarth of the Cult Information Centre said: "Scientology is a group about which I am deeply concerned. However, the German government has placed the organisation under security-service surveillance, saying it is not a religion but a business.The rapper Doug E Fresh and the actor Jason Beghe, who starred in the films GI Jane and Thelma and Louise, are among the Scientologists being used to promote a month-long What is Scientology? exhibition which opened this weekend at Selfridge Hotel in central London.The development is regarded by some as worrying.

A spokeswoman for Channel 4 said there was no reason for it not to carry the ad and that it was discussing the possibility with the church.The Independent Television Commission, which regulates television advertising, said the advertisements would be monitored closely to ensure they did not denigrate other faiths.Scientology, founded by the late L Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, and once described by a High Court judge as "corrupt, sinister and dangerous", is generally regarded with suspicion by the British authorities and is officially banned in jails by the Prison Service.But the church, which has been in the UK for 45 years, is lobbying hard with the Charities Commission for status as a religious charity, one of the key recognition points in Britain for new or alternative religions.France, Italy and Venezuela are among countries which have recently recognised Scientology, whose adherents include the film stars John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Scientologists are swamping the media with advertisements, including 240 messages daily on the electronic screen in Piccadilly Circus, London, five television commercials a day on Sky News, and posters throughout the London Underground network. A spokesman for the church said that the campaign would initially be restricted to Sky but ads might also be considered for Channel 4 and ITV. THE CHURCH of Scientology is mounting Britain's first national television advertising campaign promoting a religion. Hollywood actors and one of the US's best-known rap artists have arrived in London this weekend as part of a drive to establish the church, often described as a cult, as a recognised religion in the UK. Radical Orthodoxy is attracting growing numbers of PhD students who want to study their subject within a theological perspective.But the slow nature of change within the Church means it could be a long time, if it happens at all, before the combative stance of the new theologians takes hold.. are the fundamentalists," he said.Modern-day evangelists are criticised for turning Christian belief into a commodity, a leisure pursuit; and, while the radically orthodox recognise the increasing interest in mysticism, they see it as fractured."The resurrection scene at the end of Titanic is typical of a more general search for meaning," said Mr Ward.Although church-going is at an all-time low, interest in theology is increasing, notably among students from non-religious backgrounds.

They want to cultivate a professional ethos in which people have a greater sense of the worth of what they do, because it is part of a bigger reality.According to John Milbank, professor of philosophical theology at the University of Virginia, despite what Marx said, the real opium of the people is atheism."Increasingly, the only people who are at all politically radical ... They believe in miracles and angels and insist that unless the created order is the work of God, it is valueless and chaotic.Their aim is to end the divides between faith and reason, body and soul, secular and sacred, and they warn that society's hankering for instant gratification is ultimately self-destructive and nihilistic.The radically orthodox are keen to free eroticism from its associations with guilt and suspicion, as long as love for other people becomes an affirmation of a broader existence encompassing God and the beyond.One of the movement's key figures, Graham Ward, professor of theology and ethics at Manchester University, is critical of the way sex has become "just another commodity".The radically orthodox believe that the creation of an underclass is the inevitable result of a free-market economy. Parents now use school league tables to make decisions about where the best schools are. In the same way, older people and their relatives are beginning to use performance indicators to make judgements about where best to live in retirement.. A NEW BREED of radical theologians is taking academia by storm with its forthright views on sex, politics and society. Originating in Cambridge, the Radical Orthodoxy movement has rapidly taken hold in universities across Britain and the US and, although firmly rooted in a Christian socialist tradition, has elicited strong interest from Jews and Muslims. Its proponents seek to reposition theology centre stage to make sense of an increasingly complicated world.