Bishop Jack M. Tuell of Los Angeles...

Bishop Jack M. Tuell of Los Angeles and 17 other United Methodist Church bishops will go to Nicaragua this month on a “mission for peace” in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Joao Clemente Baena Soares, secretary general of the Organization of American States, have agreed to speak at a four-day conference in Managua Jan. 24-27. Before the meeting, the bishops will visit several parts of the country.

The Methodist Council of Bishops has previously declared its strong opposition to the Reagan Administration’s policy of aid to the Nicaraguan contras fighting the Ortega government and has opposed limits on U.S. trade with Nicaragua.

Tuell, who will become president of the bishops’ council next May, said the visit’s focus includes “witnessing the call of Jesus Christ for peace and justice, freedom and self-determination.”

The party of bishops will include two former Southern Californians--Elias Galvan of Phoenix and Melvin Talbert of San Francisco. “We are going there to consult in the cause of peace,” Tuell said.

PEOPLE

Martin E. Marty, a leading analyst of American trends in religion, has three Southland speaking engagements, starting today in Santa Barbara as the main discussant in a forum from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church there. He will lecture at 7:30 p.m. Sunday on “Modern American Religion” at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Laguna Niguel. On Monday at 7:30 p.m., he will talk on “Changing the World, Martin Luther King-style,” at Occidental College’s Alumni Auditorium. Marty is a University of Chicago historian, senior editor of Christian Century magazine, a Lutheran minister and immediate past president of the American Academy of Religion.

The Rev. Faith Conklin, the first woman minister appointed a United Methodist district superintendent in Southern California, will end her 6-year term this year as overseer of 50 churches in the San Diego district. Bishop Jack M. Tuell recently named her replacement, Santa Barbara Pastor George Walters, and two other new district superintendents--the Rev. Robert Smith for Los Angeles and the Rev. Marilynn Huntington for Santa Ana. Conklin, who previously had a Woodland Hills pastorate, will end her term July 1. In announcing the changes, Tuell praised Conklin as an “excellent” administrator, but because of the slow appointive process Conklin said she may not know for months where her next assignment will be.

AFFILIATION

The small Gay Buddhist Group in Los Angeles, now 4 years old, has been adopted as the mission arm to the homosexual community by the Bo Hyun Son (Zen) Temple of South Korea, according to Norman McClelland, Gay Buddhist Group spokesman. “Buddhism has no hang-ups on sexual orientation,” said McClelland, whose group has a mailing list of 125 people. “We received an invitation to become a member of the American Buddhist Congress, but unfortunately we could not afford the $200 membership fee,” he said.

CONFERENCES

Psychological and faith responses to death will be discussed in three events. Religion Prof. Lucy Bregman of Temple University will give three lectures Wednesday through Friday at Fuller Theological Seminary for the 18th annual John G. Finch Symposium on Psychology and Religion. One week later, the Institute for Religion and Wholeness, based at the School of Theology at Claremont, will open a “Growing Through Loss” conference at the campus with a keynote speech Jan. 25 by Phyllis R. Silverman, co-director of child bereavement study at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Institute of Health Professions. A third conference, “Women Ministering in Times of Loss,” will be held Jan. 26 at La Canada Presbyterian Church with author Anne Wilson-Schaef giving the principal talk.

DATES

Contemporary Islamic thought and experimentation in economic matters, including efforts in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia, will be discussed by USC economist Timur Kuran at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the campus’s Hancock Auditorium.