Ocean Grove, New Jersey, plans to cut the ribbon Saturday to its formerly destroyed oceanfront pier rebuilt in the shape of a cross, one town leader says.
The Jersey Shore town known for its roots in Christian faith redesigned and reconstructed the dock following its destruction from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which owns the land on which the pier sits, apparently did not intend to build the structure in the shape of a cross; rather, it formed organically after designers added “more ends” to the previous pier to build the “best pier” possible,” the association’s president, Michael Badger, told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Badger said he believes the unintentional design is fitting for the organization’s Christian mission.
“We’re always going to be welcoming and seeking for people to be engaged by the gospel – and that’s what we have to offer,” he told the network. (RELATED: Church Of England Toys With Idea Of They/Them God)
The 500-foot long pier is wholly owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association and cost $1.3 million to construct. Though privately funded, the pier will be open to anyone. “Privately owned, publicly accessible,” Badger told the Asbury Park Press (APP).
Ocean Grove’s old pier was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
It’s new—and controversial—cross-shaped pier finally opens to the public this weekend. https://t.co/89jTxqpVMU
— Asbury Park Press (@AsburyParkPress) April 12, 2023
The pier’s design, with its nod to Christianity, has reportedly drawn criticism from locals.
“The (Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association) is ushering in radical Christian nationalism,” Ocean Grove native and lawyer Shane Martin told a Neptune Township Committee meeting in the fall of 2022, APP reported in November.
“There are some people who feel that, in this day and age, Christians should take the crosses and move them inside their buildings and close the doors,” Badger said in response to the criticism. “And that’s not a sentiment that we agree [with].”
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association allegedly refused to allow a lesbian couple to marry on the pier in 2007, arguing the civil union would infringe on Christian dogma against homosexual marriage, according to the Patch. Weddings were later been banned altogether on the pier’s pavilion, the outlet reported.
