In late 2005, Answers in Genesis in the United States, with its sister organization in the United Kingdom withdrew from the group of sister AiG organizations. As they had been sharing the one web-site, run by the American ministry, this effectively forced the remaining organizations in Australia (the parent organization), New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa to rebrand, as Creation Ministries International (CMI).
Answers in Genesis in America stopped distributing Creation magazine and the peer-reviewed Journal of Creation (both published by the Australian ministries), switching subscribers to the new Answers magazine published by the American ministry. CMI claims that this was unethical, unlawful, and harmed their ministry. After failing to obtain a satisfactory resolution on the dispute, CMI began legal proceedings against AiG (U.S.) in May 2007.[1] In August 2007 the two parties met in Hawaii in an attempt to resolve the dispute, and reached verbal agreement on a settlement. However, in putting the agreement in writing, CMI claims that AiG subsequently effectively rewrote it, reneging on the verbal agreement. CMI had intimated that they will resume the legal proceedings, but the dispute is now settled, as of April 2009[2]
While Answers in Genesis has chosen to not discuss the lawsuit on their website, they do offer a perspective into the decision to create separate organizations and state that while there were philosophical differences in how the organizations were to be run, that both organizations continue to have the same belief in Creationism and the parting was due to how to best present that message. AiG also discusses the discontinuation of Creation magazine in favor of Answers.[3]
As is common in disputes where no resolution has been found, the presentations of CMI and AiG in describing what occurred have a different emphasis on events.