Mormons to Host King Interfaith Event : Observance: It will be the first time that the ultraconservative denomination has commemorated the slain civil rights leader.

A major interfaith observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday will be held Monday night in a Mormon church in the San Fernando Valley--a first for the ultraconservative, 8-million member denomination, which has been criticized in the past for its anti-black image and self-imposed isolation from mainstream religion.

No Mormon church has ever hosted an event commemorating the occasion of the civil rights leader’s birth, church officials said. The service, to be held at the Mormons’ Van Nuys Stake, or church center, will be the main interdenominational observance of King’s birthday in the San Fernando Valley.

“Mormons have taken part in King celebrations before but we don’t know of any service that has been conducted at one of our chapels,” said Jack Adams of Chatsworth, a regional spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Mormons’ hosting of the event reflects the church’s attempt to “look for ways in the Judeo-Christian community that we can join efforts for the betterment of life and standards,” Adams said.

Before accepting the offer by the Van Nuys Stake to host the King service, the sponsoring Valley Interfaith Council sought the advice of black leaders in the Valley.

“The Mormon Church really had some image problems a while back, but everyone told us it would be a good idea,” said Barry Smedberg, executive director of the interfaith council.

“I told Barry that we need to break down the old feelings between blacks and the Latter-day Saints,” said Bill Huling, a counseling psychologist at Cal State Northridge, who was one of the black leaders Smedberg consulted. “Black people used to dread the Mormon Church, but where the church stands today is a complete turnabout.”

The Rev. William T. Broadus, pastor of the predominantly black Calvary Baptist Church in Pacoima, said that he did not object to meeting in a Mormon church. “Martin Luther King stood for the brotherhood of man. Mormons or anyone else who want to recognize what King did for our society are welcome at any ecumenical event,” Broadus said.

In the 1970s, protesters accused the Mormon Church of fostering racial discrimination through its longtime policy of barring blacks from its priesthood. To most Mormons, those protests reinforced a sense of persecution they have felt throughout their 162-year history.

Other churches have ostracized Mormonism for its 19th-Century practice of polygamy, its secret temple rites and its claim to be the restoration of true Christianity, among other things.

However, in 1978 the Mormon First Presidency announced a “revelation” that the priesthood would be open to all races. The church has since attracted more black members, especially in Latin America and Africa.

The church was slow to join in interreligious ventures--even in the early 1980s when Muslims, Buddhists and other religionists were doing so. Mormonism, periodically attacked as a heretical sect by evangelical churches, has been wary about associating with other religious bodies, often because Mormon Church leaders say they assumed that their participation was unwanted.

“From my experience, things began to change about 1985,” said Keith Atkinson, Los Angeles-based public affairs spokesman for about 800,000 Mormons in California. He recalled a decision then by Mormon leaders to take $11 million in funds raised for Ethiopian famine relief and channel them through Roman Catholic agencies working in that country.

“There was pressure from the bottom as well as from the top to join with people of like minds to have a greater impact,” Atkinson said.

At the national level, Mormons joined anti-pornography committees of religious leaders and have been enthusiastic participants in the multi-faith television cable network, VISN.

They also have been accepted as members in local interfaith groups such as the Interreligious Council of Southern California and the Valley Interfaith Council. In Los Angeles on March 3, the Mormons’ Los Angeles Stake Center will be one of 30 national sites for a teleconference on producing church newsletters sponsored by the United Methodist Church and the Religious Public Relations Council.

Membership in interfaith groups brings the socially conservative Mormons into contact with religious practitioners of a different stripe.

The Mormon Church does not, for example, allow homosexuals who are open about their sexual orientation to belong to the church.

But one of the longtime members of the Valley Interfaith Council is the predominantly homosexual Metropolitan Community Church in the Valley. Its pastor, the Rev. Sheree Boothman, will give the closing prayer at the King birthday service.

“This will be one of the few times we will be welcomed with open arms in a Mormon Church,” Boothman jokingly told her North Hollywood congregation on a recent Sunday. She said that she was surprised but pleased that the Mormons will host the service.

Asked about the gay church’s participation in the King observance, Mormon spokesman Adams said: “We have our principles and understandings, and we allow others that same privilege.”

Adams said that Mormons’ participation in interfaith activities allows a chance to clear up misunderstandings about each other’s religious beliefs and practices. “Once that happens there is a tremendous rapport,” he said. “We respect them more fully and I suspect they do us.”

The King service will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday. The Van Nuys Stake is located at 15555 Saticoy St., Van Nuys.