Plan for Cross Shakes Columbia to Its Core Values
The founders of Columbia were convinced that religion, like everything else in the planned community envisioned as a suburban utopia, should be harmonious and inclusive. So instead of a welter of churches all vying for space within the model township, the founders opted for interfaith centers.
Now, one congregation’s plan to place a 16-foot cross on a new building at the town’s oldest interfaith center in Wilde Lake Village has stirred an anxious response. Some guardians of local tradition see the cross as a challenge to the core values of Columbia . . .