Fullerton Pastor Charles R. Swindoll has been...

Fullerton Pastor Charles R. Swindoll has been named 1988 Clergyman of the Year by Religious Heritage of America, which will hold its annual awards banquet this year at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

Besides Swindoll, an Evangelical Free Church minister and a best-selling author among evangelical readers, the national organization will honor Beverly LaHaye, founder-president of Concerned Women for America, as Churchwoman of the Year and ex-astronaut James B. Irwin, who has financed expeditions to find alleged evidence of Noah’s Ark in eastern Turkey, as Churchman of the Year.

The Rev. Raymond E. Beckering, a staff minister at the Crystal Cathedral, will receive the organization’s gold medal to recognize 50 or more years in the ministry.

The awards dinner will be held Oct. 10 after a series of talks on community ethics by of the awardees. Retiring chairman W. Clement Stone will be honored the day before.

Past clergymen of the year include Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, evangelists Billy Graham and Leighton Ford, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos, the Revs. Norman Vincent Peale and Jerry Falwell, and the host pastor, Robert H. Schuller, a 1977 winner.

Swindoll was the subject of recently published reports about his large mountain home, which he said was not built with ministry funds but from book royalties. Religious News Service said that two editors of Moody Monthly magazine this month were dismissed after officers of the controlling Moody Bible Institute, of which Swindoll is a leading supporter, objected to a story titled “Swindoll’s ‘Hideaway’ Irks Some Christians.” The story was based on an account by the Evangelical Press News Service. Institute officials said the editors should have contacted Swindoll to get his side of the story.

HOLIDAYS

The Jewish High Holy Days conclude with Yom Kippur services at synagogues Tuesday evening and during the day Wednesday. Observant Jews do not work on this most solemn Day of Atonement, just as devout Orthodox and Conservative synagogue members and many Reform Jews normally observe the first two days of the reflective period, last Monday and Tuesday, as non-working days. Southern California File last week inadvertently referred to Rosh Hashanah services as occurring only on the first day, Monday.

Jewish families also traditionally visit the graves of their families and friends between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rabbis will officiate at special memorial services Sunday morning at Jewish cemeteries, including 10 a.m. rites at Mount Sinai Memorial Park near Burbank and Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills.

CONFERENCE

The spiritual allegiances of Latinos, predominantly oriented to Catholicism, are at stake in the changing religious landscape of Southern California. While the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese continues to seek ways to revitalize Latino ties to parish life and evangelical Protestant bodies expand their growing number of ethnic churches, the United Methodist Church is beginning a Latino mission under a newly appointed superintendent, the Rev. Leo D. Nieto. Bishop Jack M. Tuell will preach at a bilingual service 3:45 p.m. Sunday at Wilshire United Methodist Church inaugurating the plan to develop new congregations and a clergy-lay training center.

MEDIA

New books: “Why a Christian Leader May Fall” (Crossway Books) by psychologist Clyde Narramore of Rosemead, who deals with the temptations faced by evangelical leaders in light of the recent scandals, and a Russian-language version of “Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism,” by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin. The Studio City-based Southern California Council for Soviet Jews published the translation for the large Russian immigrant community in Los Angeles and for export to the Soviet Union. “Soviet Jews simply do not believe that an intelligent, well-educated person could be religious,” said Si Frumkin, Council chairman.