Before becoming president of the ethnically diverse...

Before becoming president of the ethnically diverse School of Theology at Claremont three years ago, the Rev. Bob Edgar served six terms in Congress as a representative from suburban Philadelphia.

“I don’t consider the move a step down,” he said. “In higher education, I am engaging in the development of leadership,” which he views as the most critical issue of the decade.

“After serving in Congress, where people think leadership is, I have concluded that people are wrong,” he said. “Leadership comes from the bottom up. It is developed in communities and neighborhoods.

“Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson rose up from the community to provide a prophetic voice,” said the United Methodist minister, whose school has produced such community leaders as the Rev. Cecil (Chip) Murray of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas. “We need prophetic voices today on human rights and the environment, the preservation of creation.”

In an interview the day after the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Edgar said: “I think we have to learn lessons from the Los Angeles unrest of last year, where the church’s response was more impressive and effective than the political response.

“The new mayor would be well served by developing a political style reflective of strengthening neighborhoods and valuing the multicultural diversity of the city and the larger Southern California area,” Edgar said.

Edgar said that 40% of the Claremont school’s 400 students are people of color, many from abroad. The Chronicle of Higher Education has called the theological school, whose campus is owned by the United Methodist Church but houses offices of four other mainline Protestant denominations, one of the most diverse on the West Coast, if not the nation.

It has the largest American Indian enrollment. In some classes, Spanish and Korean are spoken. The school has centers for the study of the Pacific Rim and American Indian culture, as well as for pastoral care, counseling and process theology.

Asked how students can be taught evangelism and multiculturalism simultaneously, Edgar said emphatically that there is no conflict between the two.

“Christian missionaries made an awful lot of mistakes at the turn of the century,” he said. “Now we train a lot of foreign students . . . to be indigenous leaders who can take the Christian faith, theology and the Bible and touch the untouchable and love the unlovable and give aid and comfort to the hungry and bring those persons into an awareness of God through things that are indigenous to their culture and community.”

He added: “I’m constantly asking the questions: ‘How do you teach passion? How do you teach courage?’ ” Among the answers he has found are developing a high-caliber faculty, recruiting passionately committed students and emphasizing “contextual” education, which he said means “putting people in settings like South-Central L.A. or foreign countries, where they can learn by touching, feeling, hearing the cries of those communities.

“I’m interested in training leaders that have passion and courage,” Edgar said, “whether facing the issues of South-Central L.A. or rural communities, or things like sewing a hole in the ozone layer and replanting the rain forest. We need persons who can lead us and find solutions within their own spiritual formation on those issues.”

DATES

* The Visitors Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is celebrating Hispanic Cultural Month throughout June, with free entertainment, classes and special events. 10777 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles. For information, phone (310) 474-1549.

* A number of religious organizations are programming events in anticipation of the Christopher Street West Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade to be held in West Hollywood June 27:

--Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles will offer special worship services throughout the month, beginning with the Rev. Nancy Wilson’s two-part lecture series, “Outing the Bible” at 9 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. Sunday. 5879 Washington Blvd., Culver City. (213) 930-1600.

--Congregation Kol Ami will hold an interfaith gay and lesbian pride worship and Havdalah service at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 26. Rabbi Denise Eger participates with clergy from Metropolitan Community Church, West Hollywood Presbyterian Church and others. For information, phone (213) 893-2838.

--Edward J. Hansen of Claremont School of Theology will speak on “Myths and Reality of AIDS: Homosexuality and the Church” at 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Hollywood United Methodist Church, one of a network of United Methodist churches whose congregations have voted to welcome lesbians and gay men. 6817 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. (213) 662-5224.

--Members of three Lutheran churches--Christ the Shepherd (Altadena), Trinity (Long Beach) and St. Matthew’s (North Hollywood) will lead a group of marchers in the gay pride parade, under the banner “Lutheran Family of Pride.” (310) 837-1554.

* Evangelist Robert Pilgrim of Florence, Miss., will be guest preacher at a revival, “Holy Ghost Explosion,” beginning at 6 p.m. Sunday and taking place nightly, except Mondays, through Sunday, June 27, at the Lighthouse Church, 12500 Indian Ave., Riverside. (909) 737-6680.

* American Indians are invited to a worship service at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Michillinda Presbyterian Church, 700 S. Rosemead Blvd., Pasadena, and Sunday, June 27, at Covenant Presbyterian Church at Third and Atlantic in Long Beach. Bring a dish to share at a potluck meal after worship. The service is sponsored by the Native American Ministry Project and coordinated by the Rev. Buddy Monahan, who is a Choctaw-Maricopa Indian. (310) 670-5076.

* The Vincentian-run DePaul Center in Montebello will host a retreat for persons with chronic illness Wednesday and a summer getaway retreat the weekend of June 25-27. For information, phone (213) 723-7343.

BRIEFLY

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony ordained 15 priests last week. All graduates of St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, the new priests, ages 26 to 66, included a former bank officer, a lawyer, a human resources manager, an electrical engineer and several teachers.

Rabbi Janet R. Marder was one of 40 women rabbis, cantors and cantorial soloists honored this week at “Kol Ishah--Celebrating Women’s Voices,” a celebration of 21 years of women clergy in Reform Judaism. Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and newly elected Regional President Evely Laser Shlensky, spoke.

The new president of the 49,000-member Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is Bjarne Christensen. He replaces G. Charles Dart, who retired last month after seven years in office.

The world’s largest Baptist university, Baylor University, has named Richard E. James of Westlake Village and Walter F. Beran of Venice to its Sesquicentennial Council of 150 to assist in long-range planning.

Notices may be sent to Southern California File by mail c/o Religion Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or by fax to (213) 237-4712. Items must be brief and arrive at least three weeks before the event. Include a phone number, date, time and full address.