From a Blogfinger post. Welcome to Ocean Grove–why mention God? Who gets to greet strangers to our town? What would a stranger understand after reading this?
This sign greets visitors to our town. The name of the OGCMA was recently added. Why? Neptune’s historic district should be the welcomer. OGCMA is a faction in this town, not an official entity. Blogfinger photo.
I was attempting to visit the Camp Meeting website Oceangrove.org, but instead, Google took me to an expanded information page which included some common questions about the subject.
This is what I saw:
“What religion is Ocean Grove?”
Methodist
“Since its founding in 1869, all real estate in Ocean Grove has been owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a nonprofit religious organization formed by Methodist ministers to establish a “christian (sic) seaside resort” for members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.”
But this note is all wrong:
a. “All real estate” in Ocean Grove is not owned by the OGCMA. The land is, but most of the buildings in town are owned by private citizens.
b. Ocean Grove is not officially a “Christian seaside resort.” This terminology has been used by the CMA President Michael Badger in news interviews and in other ways such as signage, and such misleading representation has been criticized by Blogfinger many times in an effort to promote accurate public information about the town of Ocean Grove.
Such a descriptor may be accurate to describe the CMA programs in town, but not to describe the town itself.
The CMA can publicize itself any way it wants on its property, but it should not misrepresent this town as being officially a “Christian resort.” It may accurately describe itself as a religious organization, but it is within the town of Ocean Grove and is not synonymous with it. The largest faction in the Grove are the citizens—residents, owners and renters, not the Camp Meeting.
Actually, Ocean Grove has never been an official town, except for one year in 1925. It has always been part of a municipality such as Neptune Township or Ocean Township.
c. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association may adhere to the religious tenets of the “Methodist Episcopal Church,” but it does not represent itself as a church or identify a particular church on its web site, nor is this town only for “members” of that church.
And there is a statement written by the CMA on the Google page, not on the CMA website. It says:
“Ocean Grove is a seaside community where all generations can know and grow in Jesus. The mission of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, rooted in its Methodist Heritage, is to provide opportunities for spiritual birth, growth, and renewal through worship, educational, cultural, and recreational programs for persons of all ages in a Christian seaside setting. You are invited to visit and experience “the smiles of perpetual summer” at Ocean Grove New Jersey!”
That statement is true, but misleading. Ocean Grove is primarily a secular seaside community with a secular governance, and that governance lives in Neptune (the municipality not the planet.)
A stranger reading the paragraph above might be mislead, considering Ocean Grove to be a sort of theocracy.
We have previously requested that the CMA be more specific in how they describe our town to outsiders.
Here is a BF link below to a previous Blogfinger post (10/21) on this subject:
Thanks David: Ocean Grove came into being when the New Jersey Legislature granted the CMA a charter which permitted governance: establishment of institutions such as a court and a police department, and the authority to write ordinances. No church vs state issues surfaced at that time.
And OG was, at its founding, in reality, a theocracy, but the State of New Jersey never formally approved the establishment of an actual theocratic form of government in town. America was a democracy then, and so, technically, was Ocean Grove.
From the start, the charter insisted that OG would be part of Ocean Township. Grovers paid taxes to Ocean Township and later to Neptune Township. Those municipalities were and are democracies, and, as we know, OG’s theocratic style of governance was found to be unconstitutional in 1980.
Ocean Grove real estate is a ground lease situation. Improvements to the property revert to the landowner at the end of the lease unless it is renewed. My 1956 co-op building in NYC was fortunate in that the lease allowed us to purchase the ground for a fixed sum. This had become much reduced with inflation and we made the purchase a few years ago.
Early OG was a theocracy. The Association issued various ordinances and had its own “police justice” that could sentence violators. Persons seeking lots were screened and had to present recommendations from their churches. In the Association lot books, one can find instances where sales were “not approved” after being recorded. As time went on, regulations were relaxed and Catholics and others were allowed to buy. In the course of transcribing these books, I noted a shift in names from English and German to Italian as time went on.