\n<\/p>\n
Mike Rinder, a former spokesman for the Church of Scientology who became one of its fiercest critics and who gained prominence as a host of the Emmy Award-winning television series \u201cLeah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,\u201d died on Sunday in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 69.<\/p>\n
His death, at a hospice center, was confirmed by his wife, Christie Collbran Rinder, who said the cause was esophageal cancer that had metastasized.<\/p>\n
Mr. Rinder was raised in the Church of Scientology and rose to become an international spokesman, the head of its Office of Special Affairs and a member of the board of directors of Church of Scientology International from 1983 until 2007, according to his 2022 memoir, \u201cA Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after Mr. Rinder graduated from high school in 1973, he joined the Sea Organization, or Sea Org<\/a>, an elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, and met the church\u2019s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He remained at the Sea Org until 2007, he wrote in his blog<\/a>, when he \u201cfinally decided there was no way I could change the culture of violence and abuse that had become endemic under the \u2018leadership\u2019 of David Miscavige,\u201d Mr. Hubbard\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n After leaving, Mr. Rinder spoke out about the abuses he said he had witnessed. The church responded by denying accusations of abuse and by attacking Mr. Rinder\u2019s credibility, saying he had been expelled for malfeasance and had become a \u201cprofessional anti-Scientologist\u201d who \u201cspews religious hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Rinder said he felt a duty to speak out because of the decades he had spent as a high-ranking church aide and one of its chief defenders in the news media.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want people to continue to be hurt and tricked and lied to,\u201d Mr. Rinder told The St. Petersburg Times in 2009, when he served as a crucial source for a three-part series<\/a> on Scientology. \u201cI was unsuccessful in changing anything through my own lack of courage when I was inside the church. But I believe these abuses need to end.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Rinder was perhaps best known as a host, with the actress Leah Remini, of the documentary series \u201cLeah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,\u201d which ran for three seasons on A&E starting in 2016. The series, based on the accounts of former church members who said their lives had been harmed by Scientology, won Emmy Awards in 2017 and 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Remini, who left the church in 2013, has also been an outspoken critic of Scientology. Her 2015 book, \u201cTroublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology,\u201d helped inspire the series.<\/p>\n Mr. Rinder was also featured in the 2015 HBO documentary film \u201cGoing Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,\u201d based on a 2013 nonfiction book of the same name by the journalist Lawrence Wright.<\/p>\n