Apologia Report (July 9) an evangelical newsletter on cults and apologetics, notes that the late psychic Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) has lost nearly 80,000 members in the past 10 years and $4.5 million in the past two.”
Citing a report in the Virginia Pilot newspaper, the newsletter adds that the organization also faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by former leaders who were accused of trying to transform the ecumenical organization into a bastion of conservative Christianity. Most of the controversy started when Gerald L. Martin and Michael L. Dempsey were named the executive directors in 1999. Former staff and leaders say they were wrongfully terminated during the transition in part, “because of their religious beliefs.”
Martin and Dempsey are being charged by critics and former leaders of trying to turn A.R.E. into a fundamentalist Christian organization. What turned many members against Dempsey and Martin began with their proposal for a new mission statement, calling for the group to be Christ-centered” and including frequent references to God, Jesus and Christ.”
(apologia-report@apologia.org)
