Group Urges ‘Living Wage’ for Church Workers

The 16-denomination Southern California Ecumenical Council is urging congregations, schools and other religious institutions to pay employees no less than a so-called living wage similar to what Los Angeles and some other cities have instituted.

In action Thursday at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, the council’s board of directors adopted a statement declaring that widely shared religious principles call for “paying workers fairly for their labor.”

The statement is not binding on the council’s membership--Episcopal, United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, African Methodist Episcopal, Armenian and Greek Orthodox churches, among others. But the Rev. Albert Cohen, the council’s executive director, said the statement will be distributed to dioceses and regional jurisdictions of churches to call attention to “the opportunity to participate in economic justice.”

The step follows public suggestions by Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Episcopal Bishop Frederick Borsch and Methodist Bishop Roy Sano that Los Angeles adopt the standards.

A city ordinance, which went into effect Wednesday, requires companies that hold city contracts or receive city subsidies to pay employees a minimum of $7.25 with family health benefits or $8.50 without benefits. (The federal minimum wage this month rose to $5.15 an hour, and the state’s minimum wage rises to $5.75 in March.)

Proponents of the “living wage” say the minimum pay should be enough to keep a wage earner above the poverty level. “Some churches might have initial difficulties, but we can’t have one standard for general society and another for our own church workers,” said the Rev. Richard Gillett of Pasadena, who heads an Episcopal social concerns ministry.

MUSIC

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The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 1997-98 season will open at 8 p.m. Friday at Bel Air Presbyterian Church with Jeffrey Kahane directing “Laconic Variations” by Kenneth Frazelle, the orchestra’s new composer-in-residence. The ensemble also will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. The church is at 16221 Mulholland Drive. Tickets: (213) 622-7001, Ext. 215.

* Pianist Michael Sellers will perform works of Chopin, Liszt and Gershwin at 3 p.m. Sunday, opening the concert season at Inglewood First Presbyterian Church, 100 N. Hillcrest Blvd. Sellers, a member of the Mt. St. Mary’s College piano faculty with a private studio in Los Angeles, will begin his 15th European tour in November. Suggested donation $5. (310) 677-5133.

* Myron Floren, an accordionist best known for his role in the Lawrence Welk Orchestra, will play three religious pieces at the 11 a.m. service Sunday at Emanuel Lutheran Church, 150 N. Palm St., La Habra. Floren and the Rev. Virgil F. Bjerke, the pastor, were classmates decades ago at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. (562) 691-0656.

* Evan Kent, cantor at West Los Angeles’ Temple Isaiah, will perform “Love Affair: A Jewish Musical Journey Told Through Story and Song” at 7 p.m. Sunday at Temple Beth Ohr of La Mirada, 15721 Rosecrans Ave. Admission $5. (562) 691-2551.

SEMINARS

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Speakers from the controversial Jesus Seminar, which claims that the biblical Gospels contain relatively little historical information about Jesus, will lecture at two United Church of Christ congregations on coming weekends.

New Testament scholar Robert Funk, founder of the Santa Rosa-based seminar, will open a two-day conference at First Congregational Church of Long Beach, 241 Cedar Ave., on Friday with a 7:30 p.m. talk. Funk and F. Stanley Jones, who teaches religion at Cal State Long Beach, will lead workshops next Saturday. Costs range from $15 to $50. (562) 436-2256.

The Rev. Culver Nelson of Phoenix, editor of the Jesus Seminar’s bimonthly magazine, The Fourth R, will give three talks Sept. 26 and 27 at Woodland Hills Community Church, 21338 Dumetz Road. Registration ranges from $10 to $20. (818) 346-0820.

DATES

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Three clergy members and Betty DeGeneres, the mother of actress Ellen DeGeneres, will speak Thursday at a Hollywood synagogue in an interfaith forum designed to rally religious groups behind same-sex marriage. This week, the elder DeGeneres was named national spokeswoman for the National Coming Out Project of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign.

The Revs. Ed Bacon, rector of Pasadena’s All Saints Episcopal Church, and Herman Haller, administrator for United Church of Christ congregations in Southern California, as well as Rabbi Janet Marder, regional director of Reform Jewish congregations, will join DeGeneres in speaking. The 7:30 p.m. meeting at Temple Israel, 7300 Hollywood Blvd., is sponsored by the Progressive Religious Alliance. (213) 651-4601.

* The Rev. James Lawson, pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles and host of a talk show on the Odyssey cable network, will address the second annual Westside Youth Interfaith Conference Sunday at the Soka Gakkai International-USA Community Center, 2601 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. Speakers with Bahai, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim beliefs also will moderate group discussions, beginning at 11:30 a.m. (310) 260-8942.

* Actor Charlton Heston and singer Linda Hopkins are among celebrities who will appear at next Saturday’s 125th anniversary banquet of the 4,000-member First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. Proceeds from the dinner at the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles will benefit the church’s Cecil L. Murray Education Center, named for the pastor. Tickets are $125 and $250. (213) 730-9180.

* The Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles will hold a Mexican fiesta this evening for more than 200 guests from Latino churches. The event, at 545 S. San Pedro St., is to celebrate the mission’s Ambassador Program, which has been dealing with an increase in Latinos on skid row through adult and youth recovery projects. The program has more than 250 volunteers from 100 churches. (213) 347-6300.

* “Mysticism in Buddhism and Judaism: Surprising Connections” will be the lecture topic of Benjamin J. Hubbard, chairman of the Cal State Fullerton department of comparative religion, at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Hsi Lai University Auditorium, 1409 N. Walnut Grove Ave., Rosemead. (626) 571-8811.

* Rabbi and author Zelig Pliskin of the Aish HaTorah Orthodox organization in Jerusalem will talk on love, anger and forgiveness at 8:45 p.m. today at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, 9786 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. $10 admission.

FINALLY

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Desert Winds Community Church, a Palmdale congregation that rented space in a local high school for its first six years, will dedicate its new storefront church Sunday in a strip mall at 2121 Palmdale Blvd.

The congregation, affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, averages 270 worshipers at its 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. services, said founding Pastor Ned Beadel.

In choosing an unconventional name for the church (one that does not mention the city or denomination), the pastor said the congregation tries to put a positive slant on the gusty atmospheric conditions in the Antelope Valley.

Beadel said the church name also has a biblical spin. “The Holy Spirit is often referred to as a wind, including the wind that went over the face of the Earth in Genesis.”

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SCHOLARSHIP

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Eleven scholars from UC campuses were joined this week at UC Irvine by two Israeli thinkers for the start of a four-month study of Jewish self-identity in the Diaspora, or lands outside of Israel.

“The dialogue that will take place at UC Irvine is expected to produce new knowledge in understanding, coping with and solving the erosion of Jewish identity,” said Patricia O’Brien, director of the host UC Humanities Research Institute. Since its founding in 1987, the institute’s projects have yielded more than 30 books.

The fields of the California scholars--six men and five women--

include comparative literature, history and sociology, among others. The only religious studies specialist is Richard Hecht, chairman of UC Santa Barbara’s religion department. The Israeli scholars are political scientist Bernard Susser of Bar-Ilan University and ethicist Asa Kasher of Tel Aviv University.