Cassadaga Journal: Progress and Religion Clash in Florida County

CASSADAGA, Fla., June 8 — This quiet village, secluded despite its proximity to Interstate 4 between Daytona Beach and Orlando, is a place that people seem led to — at times, in a cosmic sense.

In 1875, George P. Colby, a medium from New York, arrived here, guided, he said, by an Indian spirit called Seneca. He bought land that would later become a settlement for Spiritualists like himself.

Late last year, the Rev. John A. Ferro said that he and his 25-member congregation in nearby Lake Helen felt "the Lord was drawing us to Cassadaga."

"We continually prayed and decided to move forward," Mr. Ferro said.

In March, they bought a parcel to build a church within a mile of the settlement, the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp.
The purchase of land might have been interesting only locally had not the Volusia County Council voted, 4 to 3, to deny Mr. Ferro's Dunamis Community and Outreach Ministries an exception to zoning rules to build a 130-seat church on the site. The council's decision upheld a vote by a county development board.

Last week, Mr. Ferro sued the county in federal court, asserting that the church's constitutional rights and a new federal religious land use law had been violated.
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Mr. Ferro, 48, is represented by Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit legal organization in Orlando, whose president and general counsel, Mathew D. Staver, said the county council had effectively created "a religion-free zone" in Cassadaga, except for the Spiritualists. Mr. Staver said that was religious discrimination.

But others say opposition to development is the issue. The council's vice chairwoman, Ann McFall, who voted with the majority, declined to discuss the matter, citing the lawsuit. But she had been quoted in local news reports as saying religion played no role in the decision.

Many of those who spoke against the proposed building at public hearings were Cassadaga Spiritualists who said the issue was land use.
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Mr. Zanghi, 52, a native of Buffalo who moved here a decade ago, seemed happier showing a visitor around the settlement, long a tourist attraction, than discussing the dispute, insisting that the Spiritualists were not a party to the lawsuit.

Asked what made the camp Mr. Colby founded so attractive to people like himself, he said, "It's special because there are Spiritualists here, and there are Spiritualists here because it's special."

Spiritualism in the United States is a 150-year-old religious movement with nine principles, among them that it is possible for the living to communicate with the dead and that the Golden Rule is the highest moral standard.
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