"Eileen Barker, Professor Emerita of Sociology at the London School of Economics, and arguably the world’s most senior scholar of new religious movements, explained to the audience [at the conference session New Religious Movements and Contemporary Threats to Religious Freedom] that there is a difference between the role of a sociologist of religion and the role of an advocate. To stress that you look at a religion with the neutral gaze of the social scientist is “the best way you can be an advocate,” Barker said. This does not mean, she added, that sociologists cannot have strong feelings for religious liberty, and they can help protecting it by debunking misinformation about religious minorities."