Lewis Leland Ashmore (October 18, 1931 – March 24, 2008) [1] was a 20th-century American religious leader and a member of the board of directors and the founding vice president of the Universal Life Church founded by Kirby J. Hensley.
A board of directors is a group of people who jointly supervise the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit business, nonprofit organization, or a government agency. Such a board's powers, duties, and responsibilities are determined by government regulations and the organization's own constitution and bylaws. These authorities may specify the number of members of the board, how they are to be chosen, and how often they are to meet.
The Universal Life Church (ULC) is a non-denominational religious organization founded by Kirby J. Hensley under the doctrine: "Do that which is right". The Universal Life Church advocates for religious freedom, offering legal ordination to become a minister free of charge to anyone who wishes to join. The ULC has ordained ministers from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs, including Christians, atheists, Wiccans and pagans, and people of many other faiths. The ULC's popularity stems in part from a rising interest in having friends or loved ones host weddings, a trend which has attracted a range of celebrities to become ordained including Adele, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellen, Conan O’Brien and Steven Tyler, among others. Some jurisdictions do not recognize marriages solemnized by ULC ministers.
Kirby James Hensley was the president and founder of the Universal Life Church (ULC.)
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When Ashmore helped his friend Kirby J. Hensley to found the Universal Life Church in Modesto, California (1959-1962), they were both freelance southern ministers who had migrated to California. [2] A Mississippi native, he ran a church in Tehachapi, California. While a member of the church he wrote the book The Modesto Messiah: The Famous Mail-Order Minister and produced a movie of the same title. [3] The movie did not see general release [1] and there are no known publicly available copies in existence.[ citation needed ]
Tehachapi is a city in Kern County, California, in the Tehachapi Mountains, at an elevation of 3,970 feet (1,210 m) between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.
Ashmore was a noted exorcist having performed hundreds of exorcisms since the 1950s. "For decades Rev. Lewis Ashmore cast out devils during tent revivals in the Central Valley. People foamed at the mouth, talked back to him in a strange voice and writhed uncontrollably on the ground." Aged 75, two years before he died, Ashmore concluded that demonic possession could be explained in the 21st century by modern medicine. "Back in Christ’s day, these mental conditions weren’t yet diagnosed,” he said. “All exorcisms can be explained by psychology and science." [4]
In some religions, an exorcist is a person who is believed to be able to cast out the devil or other demons. A priest, a nun, a monk, a healer, a shaman or other specially prepared or instructed person can be an exorcist. An exorcist is a person who performs the ridding of demons or other supernatural beings who are alleged to have possessed a person, or (sometimes) a building or even an object.
