Monday, August 8, 2011

St. Peter's by the Sea Mosaic

This lovely mosaic decorates a presbyterian church in Palos Verdes, St. Peter's by the Sea.  The church is part of the Presbytery of the Pacific, which apparently covers Hawaii and Los Angeles County.

I count the windows and their stained glass as part of the mosaic--click on the picture for a larger view and I'm sure you'll agree. The design is continued on the doors, pictured at the bottom of this post.

The website has none of the church's history, so I went into Proquest. The Los Angeles Times reported a bit of controversy in 1996 involving the church's pastor, Rev. James D. Brown. He'd just served a term as a top management official in the church and expected to be re-elected, but apparently he was scapegoated in the controversy over appointing gay pastors. Not that he was gay, or that he even held a contrary opinion on the issue. If I'm reading the Times story right, people were just mad and voted him out.

Since I know very little about the politics of the Presbyterian church, I can't add much. The first mention of this lovely church in the Times is 1979.

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