FAITH & SEX: An interfaith panel will...

FAITH & SEX: An interfaith panel will discuss “What My Faith’s Tradition Tells Me About Human Sexuality” on Sunday night at the First United Methodist Church of Northridge.

Sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council’s Interfaith Relations Committee, the panel will have four religious traditions represented. The discussion, including audience questions, will be moderated by the Rev. Jeff Utter, pastor of the Chatsworth Congregational Church and a religious studies department lecturer at Cal State Northridge.

The panelists are: Paula Jakunin Fuld, a lay practitioner and senior student at the Zen Center of Los Angeles; Elder Jan Kaatz, pastor of Northridge Seventh-day Adventist Church; Rabbi Denise Eger of Temple Kol Ami, Los Angeles, and the Rev. Barbara Cunningham, associate conference minister of the United Church of Christ’s Southern California Conference.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 7 p.m. The host church is at 9650 Reseda Blvd.

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FAITH & SECTS: An all-day conference aimed at scrutinizing cults and avoiding Jewish involvement in them is being offered on Oct. 24 by the University of Judaism’s Department of Continuing Education.

“Waco: Can It Happen Again? . . . Jews Are Keeping the Faith, But Whose?” is the theme of the Sunday Institute co-sponsored by the Commission on Cults and Missionaries/The Maynard Bernstein Center on Cults.

The conference, which will begin at 9:30 a.m., costs $60 with lunch included. For information and registration, call (310) 476-9777, Ext. 246.

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LUTHERANS GATHER: The Rev. Albert Starr Jr., pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church in Los Angeles, a member of the five-church consortium called New City Parish, will speak at the Tri-Valley Conference Fall Assembly on Sunday at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 512 Commercio Way, Woodland Hills.

The two-hour assembly, which will begin at 1:30 p.m., also will feature the puppet ministry of Canyon Country’s Lutheran Church of Hope.

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MOTIVATIONAL TALK: Susan Smith Jones, author of “Choose to Live Peacefully,” will be the pulpit guest speaker at 10 a.m. Sunday at Glendale Church of Religious Science, 2146 E. Chevy Chase Drive, speaking on “The Path to Self-Mastery.”

A physical fitness teacher and a competitor in swimming-running-biking events, Jones will also lead a workshop that afternoon titled “How to Release Your Bad Habits.” The donation for the workshop is $15 in advance or $20 at the door. For information, call (818) 244-8171.

News and announcements for this column may be sent to Religion Desk, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311.