KNBC ‘Checkpoint’ Show Will Adopt Magazine Format

Religious television, once characterized primarily by preachers holding forth at Sunday services, talk show formats or dramas with a moral, is also joining the general trend toward “magazine-format” programs--although only early risers might be aware of it.

KNBC is launching “Checkpoint” at 7:30 a.m. Sunday as a replacement for its long-running “Odyssey,” which featured interviews. The faster-paced new show has five segments, including a discussion by opposing sides on a social-moral issue, moderated by Keith Berwick, USC professor of management communication.

Ex-newswoman Janine Tartaglia, a part-time minister at Pasadena First Nazarene Church, will do human interest interviews. The other segments will feature music, commentary and visits to Southern California religious institutions. “We’re looking for a broader base--issues that transcend denominations,” said “Checkpoint” producer Beth MacKenzie, who also produced Odyssey.

MacKenzie said the 7:30 a.m. time spot may catch a number of churchgoers before they leave their homes. She said it was nevertheless a better time than comparable Sunday morning public service shows: KABC-TV’s “Personal Dimensions” at 5:30 a.m. and KCBS’ “Today’s Religion,” listed recently at 6:30 a.m.

At the national level, two denominationally sponsored programs have adopted the magazine format--like “Checkpoint .”

“Christian Lifestyle Magazine,” produced by Seventh-day Adventists in Newbury Park, is more than a year old, although it only recently broke into the Los Angeles commercial station market by buying time on KTTV (7 a.m., Sunday). “We’d rather the time be 10 or 10:30 a.m.,” said a spokesman for the Adventists’ Faith for Today television productions.

The show, which replaced an inspirational dramatic series called “Westbrook Hospital,” presents people and their upbeat stories of achievement or overcoming obstacles. “Only one in six or seven stories involve Adventists,” said Joe L. Wheeler, development director for Faith for Today.

The program has a mixture of free public service time and paid time on commercial stations. Several cable networks carry the program.

The United Methodist Church’s first national entry into religious television, “Catch the Spirit,” includes commentary on the weekly show by Ken Briggs, former religion editor of The New York Times and a Methodist minister. It began in January on four cable networks and will be added by the Catholic Telecommunications Network on Tuesday.

The large Christian Broadcasting Network recently agreed to give the program a better time slot on Sunday mornings, from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. But that is Eastern Standard Time--meaning that West Coast viewers would see it at 5:30 a.m.

Among upcoming conferences in Southern California:

- A symposium by the Union for Traditional Conservative Judaism on Sunday afternoon at Hollywood Temple Beth El. Though the move toward ordination of women rabbis by the Conservative wing of Judaism sparked the group’s formation in 1983, it is not a “breakaway” body aiming to lead a split from Conservative Judaism, said Rabbi Wayne Allen of Lakewood’s Beth Zion-Sinai. Allen said the group, now 2,500 families strong in North America, aims to speak on questions of Jewish law both to Conservative Judaism and progressive, or “modern,” Orthodox Judaism. Speakers at the symposium include Dennis Prager, host of KABC radio’s “Religion on the Line.”

- A four-day Congress on Biblical Exposition, which begins Monday evening at the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim. More than 3,000 ministers, teachers and lay leaders have registered. Speakers include Chuck Colson, former special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate period and now president of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Fullerton pastor Charles Swindoll, whose books dominate the best-seller lists in Christian bookstores.

- The first-ever “Computer Applications for Ministry” conference sponsored by ecumenical Christian denominations is expected to have between 200 and 300 ministers and church leaders for workshops Thursday through Saturday at the Hyatt Airport Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, according to Max Perrow, director of Ecumedia in Los Angeles.

- The Jesus Seminar, a controversial scholarly project critically examining all the sayings attributed to Jesus, will begin a three-day meeting on the University of Redlands on Friday. The ongoing seminar, started last year by New Testament scholar Robert Funk of Bonner, Mont., has grown to include more than 100 biblical scholars of Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. Thirty-three parables, which are widely considered to be reliably authentic teachings of the historical Jesus, will be voted upon by the group next weekend.