BIOGRAPHY
Dean M. Kelley (1926–1997) was a legal scholar, an executive for religious liberty with the National Council of Churches (NCC) of the USA, and a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He received his undergraduate degree from Denver University (1946) and his master’s in theology from the Iliff School of Theology (1949), and served as a minister for the United Methodist Church. His published works included Why Conservative Churches are Growing (1972); Why Churches Should Not Pay Taxes (1977); and Government Intervention in Religious Affairs (edited, 1982).
Expertise
Is Scientology a Religion?
In this report from 1996, legal scholar and Methodist minister Dean M. Kelley addresses the question of “whether Scientology is a religion in a legal sense,” including according to criteria then acknowledged by the Internal Revenue Service in the United States. His findings were based on interviews conducted with twenty-one Scientologists at Churches in Sacramento, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Washington, DC; and Clearwater, Florida. “The purpose of the interviews was not to determine...