Karen#1
Well-known member
We were fortunate to be able to attend a memorial service in Clearwater, Florida yesterday for Mike Rinder, the former Scientology executive who had become one of the controversial organization’s most important defectors and whistle-blowers.
He was Leah Remini’s co-star on the A&E series Scientology and the Aftermath (2016-2019), and the author of A Billion Years: My Escape From A Life In The Highest Ranks Of Scientology (2022), and in May 2023 Mike learned he had stage four esophageal cancer. He died on January 5 of this year.
For so many people, it has been difficult to come to grips with losing such a singular person in our lives. That was certainly clear in the moving stories told about Mike at the remembrance.
The private gathering included family members, close friends, and a who’s who of former Scientology figures, some of whom had not seen each other in decades.
We asked for and got permission to publish the powerful address by Mike’s friend, Pastor Willy Rice, who did a superlative job, we believe, capturing what made Mike’s life such a meaningful one, and one that touched so many of us.
Here’s what he said.
At some point in your life a moment will come when the hardest thing you will do is tell the truth. First to yourself and then to others.
When Mike Rinder stepped off the train in Leicester Square Tube station that June day in London in 2007, he wrote that he didn't have a plan and didn't know where to go, but Mike Rinder was through living a lie.
The way to happiness had become a bridge to nowhere, at least nowhere he wanted to be.
His journey would take him remarkable places and create a new and better life. His paths touched, I suppose, everyone in this room.
We are here because all of us in some ways are indebted to the man who became for many of us an admired friend and tireless advocate.
It was once said the truth shall set you free and, in a sense, Mike Rinder was a living example of that.
I met Mike years after his heroic decision. In some ways, Leah, I have you to thank for that.
The Aftermath did something that went beyond all the books, exposes, and documentaries that had been written and produced over the years.
We are all indebted to those truthtellers, but in the Aftermath series Leah and Mike, and their extraordinary team, did something beyond anything that had quite been done before.
They told the stories. And there is something about a story that grabs our hearts like nothing else can.
That show wouldn't have been that show without the real people who shared their tears and their heartbreak, and it wouldn't have been that show without Leah Remini and Mike Rinder.
It was after a few episodes that Mike and I connected. I pastor the oldest church in Clearwater, and he knew who we were, and I knew something of his story. In a sense, we were like people from different worlds, and yet — and so many of you know how this feels — Mike had a way of drawing you in.
He was smart, engaging, funny, articulate, and kind. We became unlikely friends, who shared many different opinions and yet a mutual respect. He was always far kinder to me than I deserve, and I found a man I could trust to be honest. I always looked forward to our conversations together.
I saw in Mike Rinder a man of extraordinary courage. It takes courage to do what Mike did. To say you were wrong. To chart a new course against a future that looks uncertain and foreboding. He had the courage to change. To take a risk. To endure loss. To believe in a future that could be.
He was also a man of compassion. It was not enough for him to free himself. In time, Mike would make the choice to tell the truth not just for himself, but to help others.
You and I, we saw the tears, we heard the righteous indignation, the moral outrage.
Mike spoke up, long after such an act had any personal benefit. He spoke up to help others. He spoke up to help others get free... and they did.
Thomas Carlyle once wrote, "No lie lasts forever." This line, often quoted by Martin Luther King, echoes a hope that over time, the simple power of the truth will triumph.
I am a Christian and I know there are many different views and faiths in this room and it's understandable why some of you would view any religious orientation with a suspicious eye.
I understood that whenever Mike and I would broach such topics, he had a healthy skepticism, but not a cynicism. He accepted my faith for what it was and even said he admired it.
And so, I think he would have granted me the forbearance to say that it was Jesus who uttered the words, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." And it was Jesus who knew a thing or two about taking on religious bullies and hierarchies. He knew something about the high cost of telling the truth.
Today I stand for Mike Rinder. A man who told the truth. A man whose life will be remembered for his courage and compassion.
And when the final tale is told and the lies that have harmed so many fall like a house of cards, it will be the voice of Mike Rinder (and so many like him) that will be remembered.
While all that Mike Rinder may have worked for and dreamed of hasn't yet come to pass, it surely will. No lie lasts forever, and the truth will indeed set you free.
Christie, Shane, and Jack, know that everyone here grieves with you. You have suffered a great loss, but you have also been forever changed by a great love.
Shane and Jack, your father did what every good father dreams of. He sacrificed, perhaps more than you even know, to make sure you could walk a better path and live a freer life.
You have, I believe, another Father like that as well and it is my prayer that the God of all comfort will fill you with strength and hope even as you grieve your great loss.
God writes the best stories and, in the end, the truth will prevail.
No lie lives forever and the truth does indeed set you free.
I'm grateful for Mike Rinder and may his courageous life inspire us all.
— Pastor Willy Rice
Mike Rinder remembered at Clearwater memorial by family and friends
We were fortunate to be able to attend a memorial service in Clearwater, Florida yesterday for Mike Rinder, the former Scientology executive who had become one of the controversial organization’s most important defectors and whistle-blowers.
tonyortega.substack.com
