FASHION : Interest in Angels Takes Wing, but Will It Last? : Two clergy members acknowledge the trend. Meanwhile, shops with wares featuring the heavenly beings keep the faith.

If there’s an angelic revival in this country, we don’t want to get in its way. But if it’s a trend, we feel obliged to give it some ink.

So, which is it, and how long is it going to be around? Long enough to redecorate the patio with winged beings? To invest in a coffee-table book of Raphael? To learn to craft angels from Dixie cups? To get our faith renewed?

We looked around to gauge human commitment to heavenly beings. It was hard to rate.

Television has embraced them--in specials and in a CBS series, “Touched by an Angel,” which earlier this month was placed on hiatus.

Oxnard College has projected a class on angel awareness for next June--an optimistic lead time, but they won’t be out much in start-up fees if it doesn’t go.

David Connolly, a Santa Barbara writer, is beginning a newsletter on the subject. Connolly’s book, “In Search of Angels,” is one of 32--count ‘em--titles available on the subject at Ventura Bookstore.

Since his book came out last winter, Connolly says he’s had two or three pieces of mail a day, many offering accounts of angelic encounters. He plans to publish some of them in the newsletter.

Then, there are lots of calendar publishers who seem optimistic about angelic durability--at least through 1995.

And how about wallpaper? You don’t just go about repapering your rooms every year. Yes, there is angel wallpaper. Well, cherubic wallpaper. Cherubs are not serious angels, but they’ve sort of come in on the spiritual tide. Probably it’s less overwhelming to have your walls feature little Valentine charmers than heraldic beings.

But does any of this count as commitment? We looked for a professional opinion. What do the clergy think of the phenomena?

At Temple Beth Torah in Ventura the answer was, not much.

Rabbi Michael Berk said, “I’m not aware of a trend, to show you how out of it I am. I don’t sense it going on in the Jewish community.”

Meanwhile, Father Jack Brennan, professor of systematic theology at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, said the interest was greater than anything he had seen in 50 years.

“I think it may be an indication of people’s searching for the spiritual in their lives, but a spirituality that perhaps they can feel comfortable with rather than one that challenges them,” he said.

It might be good, he said, if the church took note that people want their religion a bit more individualized.

And, at Moorpark Presbyterian Church, Pastor Dave Wilkinson said, with some reservation, that the fascination could be positive.

“The name angel means messenger. And if you’re going to have a messenger, you have to have someone sending a message,” he said.

“Some people believe in angels, but they don’t believe in a God who stands behind the angels. . . . If they are just caught up in ‘Angels--neat!’ then that’s what the angels don’t want.

“I don’t doubt that people could have these experiences (of angel sightings), but an angel is not there to point to himself.”

The pastor quoted St. Paul, who said that angels are God’s agents and we may sometimes entertain them unawares. But, he said, there’s a chance of becoming charmed by mistaken images.

“They do not always have wings, nor do they necessarily look like Michael Landon,” he said.

His prediction for the duration of angel fascination:

“These things seem to peak at about two years. Then, in another year probably we’ll see angel books on the remainder shelves in Ojai and Santa Barbara.”

If he’s right, we should be at the crest now. And, looking around the shops at angel T-shirts, angel pillows, angels in glass, pewter and soap, it’s easy to believe. They are about as thick as the throngs of them in medieval art.

There are even stores with an entire inventory of angel merchandise. We called what is possibly the definitive one, Tara’s Angels in San Juan Capistrano. The staff was busy with the opening of a second outlet, but we managed to pose a question.

If angels phase out, what then?

Faith was manifest in a salesclerk’s answer.

“Most of the people who come in are those who have had angel experiences; they have been touched in some way,” she said.

“Do you think people are going to stop believing in angels once they are exposed to them?”

We weren’t about to say yes.