Los Angeles-area representatives of six Protestant denominations...

Los Angeles-area representatives of six Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church have been meeting monthly to see if they can help some of the estimated 100,000 American Indians in the region with physical and spiritual needs.

A total of 83 church leaders and Indian community leaders met Tuesday for Gathering Table I, a consultation aimed at furthering those goals. The meeting ended before any definitive questions were answered, but one of the organizers, Roxanne Burgess, said the meeting may have helped to “educate” church leaders to the problems.

Whether the denominations eventually develop a full-fledged, ecumenical ministry to serve American Indians--one of several possibilities--will depend on whether Indian community leaders want outside help, Burgess said in an interview.

Burgess, a Hupa (Northern California) Indian, is conducting an 18-month survey of American Indian needs for the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The Rev. Paul Schultz, a Lutheran minister who heads an Indian ministry program in the San Francisco Bay Area, said that about 60% of urban Indians there are unaffiliated with either Christian or traditional religious bodies. If an ecumenical ministry is begun in Los Angeles, Schultz advised those at the meeting to devote 50% of their effort to people suffering from alcoholism and drug dependency, both major problems among urban Indians.

The consultation Tuesday included a worship service that combined traditional Indian religious symbols and Christian beliefs. Indeed, the ongoing group, which also includes representatives of the conservative Church of the Nazarene, requires churches interested in developing an ecumenical ministry to respect tribal spiritual traditions.

The host church was the Native American United Methodist Church of Norwalk, one of the few Indian congregations in a mainline denomination in the region. The pastor, the Rev. Marvin Abrams, who has Seneca roots, also chairs his denomination’s Native American International Caucus.

Describing his 92-member church as a “nomadic” one that once worshiped in a downtown facility, Abrams said his congregation has met jointly for four years with the First United Methodist Church of Norwalk for Sunday services. But Abrams said his congregation may conduct separate services soon in the fellowship hall in order to satisfy the congregants’ desire for their own identity.

The consultation Tuesday was funded by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Interim Bishop Oliver Garver Jr. said he was encouraged by the Gathering Table results. The diocese recently appointed the Rev. Gary Turner, whose mother was half-Indian, to lead an Indian ministry for the Episcopal Church.

CONVENTIONS

About 7,000 people, mostly evangelical Christians, are expected to attend the annual Greater Los Angeles Sunday School Assn. convention Thursday through Saturday at the Pasadena Convention Center. On the last day of the GLASS convention, author Carolyn Koons will speak at a luncheon and the Rev. John M. Perkins, founder of the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development, will address the closing afternoon rally.

DATES

Fuller Theological Seminary is marking 40 years of existence by examining the evangelical movement at an all-day conference Tuesday at nearby Pasadena Presbyterian Church. Theologian Carl F. H. Henry is the lead-off speaker at 9 a.m., and will be part of the closing panel that night at the Pasadena Hilton.

A weekend conference on anti-Semitism and racism, sponsored by Holman United Methodist Church and Leo Baeck Temple, will begin Friday night at the temple with a talk by Barbara Thompson, general secretary of the Methodists’ General Commission on Religion and Race. The bulk of the program, featuring workshops on education, politics, television and employment, will be at UCLA’s Rolfe Hall next Saturday.

The 39th annual Ministers’ Convocation at the School of Theology at Claremont Monday and Tuesday has three main speakers: The Rev. Otis Moss Jr. of Cleveland, a leading black preacher; biblical scholar James Sanders, president of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center for Preservation and Research at Claremont, and theologian Marjorie Suchocki, academic dean at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.

Rabbi Elijahu Essas of Jerusalem, a Russian-born mathematician and “refusenik” who finally received an exit visa last year, will speak on Soviet Jewry and Judaism at 8 p.m. Monday at Yeshiva University in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, in one of his first appearances since returning from the monthlong Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, will speak at Sabbath services at 8 p.m. Friday at Temple Israel of Hollywood.

How the Gospel of Luke used “literary tools to create a particular religious view” of Jesus’ birth will be described in a lecture at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Occidental College’s Morrison Lounge by Robert C. Tannehill, who teaches at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio.

A coalition of ministers, religious scholars and attorneys who met for a religious liberty consultation in Los Angeles early this week have announced a “Congress on Religious Liberty” to be held Jan. 14 and 15 at Fuller Theological Seminary. The group’s immediate concern is to seek legislation in the California Legislature that would “nullify clergy deference to psychiatry in dealing with the suicide-prone.” The coalition has worried about the implications of a recent state Court of Appeal ruling that said pastors counseling “suicidal individuals” could be sued for not referring them to mental health professionals.

ACTION

World Vision International, headquartered in Monrovia, receives an average of 12,000 pieces of mail daily, including about $360,000 in donations for its relief and evangelistic work. The Oct. 1 earthquake damaged the building that housed the computerized equipment and the 103 people who handle the mail. After a delay of nine days, however, World Vision was handling the mail and money in an old restaurant nearby that the organization had bought for future expansion. “We are all caught up at this point and there was no problem in funding work overseas,” said Jerry Sweers, vice president for administration. The organization hopes to make structural repairs to the damaged building in about a month.