Ocean City Weekend

I just got home from a great weekend in Ocean City, New Jersey where I did some teaching on the themes I wrote about in Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction.  As readers of this blog know, I love Jersey shore boardwalk towns, so it was great to spend about 24 hours or so in Ocean City.

It was very hot this weekend, but the weather did not stop us from walking up to the boardwalk late Saturday afternoon to grab an early dinner at Mack and Manco's Pizza.  Mack and Manco's serves- up one of the top three or four pizza-pies I have ever tasted.  (We were there last month with the research associates of the Greenwich Tea Burning Project). 

I spent Saturday night at St. Peter's United Methodist Church discussing Was America Founded.  Ocean City was founded in the late 19th century as a Methodist camp meeting and St. Peter's was the flagship church of this seashore community.  I was invited by Rev. Brian Roberts, the pastor of the church, and George Franz, a member of the congregation and an American historian who taught for nearly forty years at Penn State-Brandywine.  (I had met George earlier this year during a lecture at the Chadds Ford Historical Society).  About forty people came out on a hot Saturday evening at the Jersey shore to learn more about religion and the American founding.  This was a well-educated and thoughtful audience who asked some very insightful questions.

It was also good to see Tim Beirne and his wife Laura.  They drove down from Burlington County to hear the talk and spend some time in Ocean City.  Tim is a former student of mine who now teaches AP US History at the Stony Brook School in Stony Brook, Long Island, New York.  After the lecture Tim, Laura, and my family wandered the Ocean City boardwalk a bit (it was packed) and got some famous Kohr's custard.  I spent some time talking history with Tim.  We discussed the possibility of doing an early American history tour with Stony Brook students and he told me about his experience at a Gilder-Lehrman seminar at Monticello last summer with Peter Onuf and Francis Cogliano. 

Brian Roberts asked me if I would be willing to preach in two services on Sunday morning and I agreed to do it.  Brian has spent the month of July doing a sermon series called "Let Freedom Ring."  He wants his congregation to be appreciative of American history, but he also wants them to realize that there is a fundamental difference between the United States of America and the kingdom of God.  Though preaching is a bit outside of my comfort zone, I thought the sermons went well. (I also ran into the mother of my college roommate.  I had no idea she attends St. Peter's). Brian and I think in very similar ways about how Christians should navigate their memberships in what Augustine called the "City of God" and the "City of Man."  He is doing great work at St. Peter's United Methodist and it was a pleasure to meet his family as well.  His daughter Alison will be coming to Messiah College in the fall so I am sure I will see him again.

The church treated us to a great lunch at the Port-o-Call Hotel. We had some good conversations with a group of church members (including William Becker, the chair of the history department at George Washington University), who met as undergraduates in the 1960s at Muhlenberg College and have remained friends through the years.

My family and I want to thank all the folks at St. Peter's, and especially Brian Roberts, for their hospitality this weekend.  It was a pleasure and blessing to spend time with the great people of St. Peter's United Methodist Church.  We hope to return to this church the next time we are in Ocean City.