The Rev. Marvin Abrams, a Seneca Indian...

The Rev. Marvin Abrams, a Seneca Indian and a United Methodist pastor, will begin a 200-mile walk Monday from Santa Barbara to San Diego as a way to call attention to his denomination’s newest special offering day--Native American Sunday on April 29.

“I call it a ‘Seventh Generation Walk’ (because) in the Seneca nation we make decisions based upon what they will cause in seven generations to come,” Abrams said. He is pastor of the Native American United Methodist Church in Norwalk.

United Methodist Bishop Jack M. Tuell of Los Angeles said he would join Abrams on parts of his walk. The itinerary, mostly along Pacific Coast Highway, includes stops at Methodist churches at Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Northridge, Santa Monica and California Heights in Long Beach. Abrams will be driven from the coast and back in order to make speaking appearances at the inland churches. “I’ve been walking every day” to get in shape, he said.

Details of the second leg, from Norwalk to San Diego, were not available this week, but Abrams said he would end the jaunt with an evening powwow April 22 at the Norwalk church.

Donations received on Native American Sunday--the last Sunday this month--will support Native American ministries, scholarships for Indian seminarians and six urban ministries that help Indians.

PEOPLE

Father George Stallings, suspended as a Catholic priest last year after he established his independent Imani Temple in Washington, is scheduled to speak at two churches in Los Angeles next week. Stallings will talk Wednesday at Faith United Methodist Church, 1713 W. 108th St., during a 7 p.m. revival, and Thursday at First African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2270 S. Harvard Blvd., at a 7 p.m. service. At the annual conference last month in New Jersey of the National Assn. of Black Seminarians, Stallings said African-Americans must “redefine, reclaim and reconstruct our history as well as our theological foundations.” The Rev. M.A. Robinson-Gaither, pastor of Faith United Methodist, said Stallings “has given fiber” to renewed desire among young black Christians to reassert their perspective on church life. “We might be seeing the ‘60s all over again, but with a different approach,” Robinson-Gaither said.

Father Terrance Fleming, vice chancellor of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese and a key organizer of preparations in 1987 for the Los Angeles visit of Pope John Paul II, was named by Archbishop Roger M. Mahony this week as pastor of St. Vibiana Cathedral, effective next month. The assignment moves Fleming into a position often favorable for subsequent appointment to the Catholic hierarchy. Three former pastors who later became bishops were Alden Bell, William Johnson and John Steinbock. Msgr. Royale Vadakin, appointed as cathedral pastor six years ago by the late Cardinal Timothy Manning, will remain director of the archdiocese’s highly praised ecumenical and interfaith programs. He will receive an honorary doctorate on May 12 from Loyola Marymount University. On May 18, Vadakin will assume new duties as pastor of St. Anastasia parish in Westchester.

“Deacon” Dan Towler, a Los Angeles Rams fullback in the early 1950s, will be honored Thursday at a dinner at the Biltmore in Los Angeles. Towler was minister of the Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church in Pasadena from 1956 to 1966 before becoming a campus minister at Cal State Los Angeles. A member for 26 years of the Los Angeles County Board of Education, Towler also established four years ago the Dan Towler Educational Foundation, a trust that has awarded $10,000 in scholarships to students with demonstrated desires toward community service or church-related vocations.

INTERFAITH

The roots and common features of Judaism, Christianity and Islam will be discussed in five forums on successive Thursdays, starting next week, at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. The first speaker, D. Peter Burrows, an All Saints parishioner who holds a doctorate in rabbinic literature, is scheduled to discuss the 1st-Century Christian struggles to define its differences with Judaism despite many common beliefs. Other speakers are the Rev. Robert H. Iles, a priest-psychotherapist at All Saints Church; Robert Douglas, president of the Zwemer Institute and a former missionary in the Middle East; Dr. Hassam Hathout, director of the outreach program of the Islamic Center of Southern California, and David Julian, cantor at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.

DATES

Looking ahead to Earth Day, April 22, religious philosopher David Ray Griffin, director of the Center for a Post-Modern World in Santa Barbara, will speak on “The Re-enchantment of the World” at 7:30 p.m. Monday at UC Santa Barbara.

Singer Della Reese, who is an ordained minister, will sing her own compositions and traditional Easter hymns Sunday at the 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. services at Redondo Beach Church of Religious Science, 907 Knob Hill Ave.

Author-radio broadcaster Charles Swindoll, senior pastor of Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, will speak at Pepperdine University’s Seaver College commencement at 2 p.m. Friday at the Eddy D. Field Baseball Stadium in Malibu.

Ex-Jesuit John McNeill, author of “The Church and the Homosexual,” will lead a two-day seminar on “Gay Empowerment” starting Friday at Occidental College’s Herrick Interfaith Center.

The 40th annual Mass and Breakfast for the Entertainment Industry next Saturday at the Sheraton Universal will be emceed by comedian Wil Shriner. Religious awards will go to MacDonald Carey, who plays in the daytime serial “Days of Our Lives,” and to Christopher Burke for his work in ABC’s “Life Goes On.” Archbishop Roger M. Mahony will celebrate an outdoor Mass at 9:30 a.m. Proceeds from the ticket sales (at $30 each) will benefit Marian Homes, a center for physically handicapped and developmentally disabled adults.