As a part of a metaphysical campaign...

As a part of a metaphysical campaign to collect a million or more promised “thoughts, prayers and meditations” about peace, a Los Angeles ceremony this week brought together a diverse sampling of religious figures.

More than 350,000 minutes have been pledged in the Los Angeles area, according to a spokesman for the “Million Minutes of Peace International Appeal” based in London. The goal is to have 1 million minutes pledged by Oct. 16 in support of the 1986 United Nations International Year of Peace.

At Founder’s Church of Religious Science, white helium balloons with prayers attached and hundreds of white birds were released as symbols of peace. Prior to that, longtime Founder’s Church Pastor William H. D. Hornaday was joined in a noontime ceremony by Rabbi Leonard Beerman of Leo Baeck Temple, Msgr. John V. Sheridan of Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church, Sri Singh Sahid Yogi Bhajan of Sikh Dharma, and representatives of two dozen religious groups. Actor Kabir Bedi was master of ceremonies.

The idea, said Joan N. Derry, coordinator of the regional “minutes” committee, is to spend one to 30 minutes per day or week thinking about peace before Oct. 16. Besides the personal benefit of “restoring the soul, reviving hope (and) bringing peace of mind,” Derry said, “with these powers you are able to give peace to others, and through them to spread that energy across the planet.”

DATES

The nationwide Bible Baptist Fellowship, a fast-growing, fundamentalist association that has grown from 1,750 churches in 1970 to more than 3,300 today, will hold its annual meeting Monday through Thursday at Bellflower’s Calvary Baptist Church, said to have the largest facility of any independent Baptist church west of the Rockies. The Rev. Jerry Falwell is affiliated with the fellowship but will not be present.

Lutherans will hear Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles at a worship service Friday evening at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Lakewood. The afternoon opening of the two-day, Lutheran “Vision for Mission” conference features a panel of bishops from three merging denominations--Bishops Nelson Trout, American Lutheran Church; Stanley Olson, Lutheran Church in America, and Walter Grumm, Assn. of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

Martin E. Marty, a dark horse possibility for presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is giving a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Whittier College Memorial Chapel. His topic will be “The Conflict Over Religion and Values Today”--the kind of historical and contemporary religious analysis that has made the University of Chicago Divinity School scholar preeminent in his field.

Author Malcolm Boyd’s autobiographical “Gay Priest: An Inner Journey” will be blessed during the second service Sunday morning at St. Augustine-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica. Boyd is on the parish staff. Saying there “have been enough book burnings” in history, Rector Fred Fenton says in a prayer written to cover other books and authors as well, “Let’s have more book blessings.”

PEOPLE

After 61 years as pastor of the Second Missionary Baptist Church of Riverside, the Rev. William Thomas has retired. The congregation relocated five times since Thomas came to Riverside in 1925 from Mississippi, but has been at its present 9th Street site since 1965.

A Southern California couple has been named to lead the Roman Catholic-run Worldwide Marriage Encounter. John and Barbara Bertrand of Running Springs, in the San Bernardino diocese, were recently elected, along with Father Patrick Grace of the San Diego diocese, to act as national coordinators for the movement.

MEDIA

Aggressive-sounding titles are on recent books by two Southern California evangelicals: “Combat Faith” (Bantam, $7.95), by author Hal Lindsey (“Late Great Planet Earth”), pastor of the Palos Verdes Community Church, and “Power Evangelism” (Harper, $13.95), by John Wimber with Kevin Springer. Wimber is founder-pastor of the 135-congregation Vineyard Christian Fellowship and the former co-teacher of a course on healing at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Father Michael Manning of Riverside, host of a Catholic talk show, will appear on a Los Angeles VHF channel for the first time when his program starts on KHJ-Channel 9 at 7 a.m. Sunday. Manning was one of the first Catholic evangelists to buy commercial TV time when he began his program in 1979. Backed by an anonymous donation of $15,000, Manning said he hopes that audiences will support the $4,000-a-week cost on Channel 9.