The Rev. James Lawson is one of...

The Rev. James Lawson is one of dozens of clergy, religious workers and other protesters arrested for blocking the entrance to the Los Angeles Federal Building in weekly non-violent protests over U.S. military aid to El Salvador. On Wednesday, for instance, Lawson was arrested along with 62 others, including actors Martin Sheen and Ed Asner, in the protest prompted by the killings and persecution during the civil war in El Salvador.

Yet Lawson, pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, brings distinctive credentials for church-related civil disobedience.

Last Sunday, Lawson was in Memphis to receive the National Conference of Christian and Jews’ second annual Human Rights Award. The citation recalled Lawson’s roles as activist and strategist in the early civil rights movement led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 when he was there to lend support to that city’s sanitation workers’ strike, a protest led by Lawson, then a Memphis pastor.

Lawson, who has pastored the 2,700-member Holman church since 1974, has been president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for the last eight years.

Although he has been involved locally in social issues and participated in anti-aparthied protests, Lawson had not been arrested in Southern California for nonviolent protests until the current furor by American church leaders over continued U.S. aid to El Salvador.

“I think we need to try to arouse the consciousness of this country that our tax dollars are persecuting church workers in Central America, that American public policy is engaged in killing of sisters and brothers of our faith,” he said in an interview.

The U.S.-backed government in Central America has claimed that rebel forces are receiving aid and comfort from churches and religious relief agencies.

“Irrespective of what the rebel group may represent . . . Catholic parishes, Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopal lay workers and others trying to organize themselves for their own well-being are the primary targets--apparently of the death squads and the military,” Lawson said.

His fourth arrest on Wednesday was the most painful, Lawson said. At each demonstration, police have booked the protesters and given them citations to either appear in court or pay a fine. “I was in handcuffs this time from 9 a.m. to nearly 3 p.m. It was very painful . . . (but) it was a good experience,” Lawson said.

Lawson said organizers, including Jesuit Father Gregory Boyle, plan to continue the protests, except for Dec. 27, each Wednesday morning into January. “Our numbers are increasing,” said Boyle, who said he hoped “that 1,000 people (will come) to shut this building down.”

PEOPLE

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The Rev. Clifton King, 65, pastor of the Encino Community Church for the last 12 years and an unconventional minister who made visitations on a motorcycle, will retire from the ministry by year’s end to take a position with a management training company, said a spokeswoman for the 350-family, independent congregation. The Rev. Edward Keebler, most recently an Army chaplain, will succeed King.

MAILINGS

Don’t get too excited if you receive a letter from the “American Christian Leadership Council” in Atlanta that begins: “Congratulations! You have been nominated to be honored in the 1989 edition of Who’s Who in American Christian Leadership.” Such a letter was addressed not long ago to “L. A. Times,” and it began, “Good Morning L: Congratulations! You have been nominated to be honored in. . . .”