Keeping the Faith at the Battlefront : Religion: Liberalism combined with creative worship has resulted in unusual gains for All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

By RUSSELL CHANDLER

Dec. 12, 1989 12 AM PT

TIMES RELIGION WRITER

Eleven o’clock Sunday morning, and the parking lot at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena is full.

A goodly number of Porsches, Audis, Jaguars, Mercedes-Benzes and Volvos stand fender to fender, and more than a few sport bumper stickers. But these are not slogans of traditional piety such as “Jesus Is Coming Soon” or “Smile--God Loves You.” The All Saints crowd prefers messages like “Question Authority,” “Stop Apartheid,” “Boycott Shell” and “Support Greenpeace.”

If the parking lot tips off a visitor to the essence of this growing, upscale parish, its buoyant rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, leaves no doubt that during his 22 years at the helm the emphasis has been on liberal social causes.

“I felt my job was to lead the congregation into the battlefronts of Christian social justice,” the 59-year-old clergyman recalled recently over tea and scones.

The approach has been well rewarded: All Saints has become the largest Episcopal parish west of the Mississippi River. In fact, All Saints is one of a very few growing liberal congregations within mainline Christian denominations, giving it a leadership profile other congregations are eyeing as a model for the 1990s.

Since 1965, Episcopal Church membership has dropped 28%--from 3.4 million to less than 2.5 million. Other mainline churches, including the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, several Lutheran bodies, the United Methodist Church and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have lost between 18% and 43% of their members.

The reasons for the decline of the mainliners and the growth of the more conservative Protestant denominations

are complex. But church analysts say a major reason for the growth of the conservative and fundamentalist churches is that they encourage distinctive personal life styles and demand clear-cut beliefs.

Liberal Christians, on the other hand, tend to be affluent and highly educated, have fewer children than do members of conservative churches, attend church less often and consider church membership optional in a culture of pluralism and individualism. At the same time, the mainline churches have been vague in defining their mission and identities.

But there is no mistaking All Saints’ identity: Its spirited social activism and solid spiritual leadership are attractive to many.

“There are enough Christians in the west San Gabriel Valley who want to take their Christianity seriously and combine it with liberal political causes so that this (church) appeals,” says Peter Wagner, professor of evangelism at Fuller School of World Mission in Pasadena. “And George Regas is a good leader and preacher.”

During the last five years, net growth has been about 750 people and there are now 6,300 baptized members, representing about 2,300 households. The church’s annual operating budget has doubled in five years to $2.1 million.

Key to Success

Church analysts believe other congregations may be able to emulate some of All Saints’ elements of success, particularly its balance between strong social action and creative forms of worship.

Mary Alice Spangler, a former Methodist who has been at All Saints since 1976, says this approach takes “Christianity out into the world.”

At the same time, however, religion watchers recognize that All Saints does not have a sure-fire formula for fast growth that will work at all liberal churches.

The outreach, advocacy and social action programs at St. Augustine by the Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica, for example, are very similar to those at All Saints. Yet the Santa Monica congregation has declined from 458 family units attending in 1981 to about 320 now.

“Perhaps,” says Donald E. Miller, a professor at USC’s School of Religion and an All Saints member, “the success of All Saints is that it is liberal in emphasis on social justice ministries, intellectual challenge, and openness to many diverse people and life styles, but it is also deeply conservative in its recognition of the importance of worship, pastoral care and personal spiritual discipline.”

It hasn’t always been easy, Regas is quick to admit.

The struggle has been over taking liberal stands on such things as the Vietnam War, racism, disarmament, U.S. involvement in Central America, urban poverty and acceptance of gays and lesbians into the congregation.

“Twenty years ago, people stayed in spite of All Saints’ involvement (in liberal issues). Today, they come because of it,” Regas says with a smile.

A survey taken early this year reveals a profile of All Saints as a predominantly well-educated, wealthy and white parish:

Ninety-eight percent of the members have attended college, and 58% have education beyond a bachelor’s degree. More than half the members earn more than $50,000 a year; 12% of the households have an income between $100,000 and $150,000, and a full 10% earn more than $150,000 annually.

Almost half the members are professionals and nearly 90% are white. Women make up 60% of the congregation; gays and lesbians account for 8%, and 15% of the members are divorced or separated. Less than a third (31%) were reared as Episcopalians, while 15% were reared as Presbyterians, followed by Roman Catholics (10%). Half the members have lived in the area for at least 20 years.

“Most parishioners are extremely proud of the church’s commitment to social activism,” a report accompanying the survey says, “and the programs and sermons dealing with these issues are praised widely.”

Despite general approval and high morale, however, there is disagreement and even disharmony on some issues.

In fact, almost every aspect of the church asked about in the survey elicited negative responses from about one-third of the parishioners--such as believing the church is too big, too rich or too impersonal and elite.

Barry Jay Seltser, who prepared the parish survey, says: “It is not meant as a criticism of this church to suggest that most of the wonders and weaknesses of late 20th-Century liberal religiosity may be played out within its parish life.”

All Saints’ large membership, budget and staff make it possible to provide 90 separate activities, reflecting the church’s involvement with its people, the greater Los Angeles community and the world. And that is exactly what draws many parishioners--and keeps them coming.

“All Saints is a place that integrates your life,” says four-year member Sue Sprowls.

Among its many activities are these urban ministries:

* Union Station and the Depot, a hospitality center that each month offers free food, emergency shelter, counseling and friendship to several hundred of Pasadena’s most needy.

* The Office of Creative Connections, a network joining area leaders and resources in attacking urban problems.

* Las Familias del Pueblo, a community center near Skid Row in Los Angeles that has helped more than 1,500 immigrant families relocate. Directed by the Rev. Alice Callaghan of All Saints, Las Familias is supported by individuals, corporations and the church.

* Genesis Hotel, a 30-unit residence that is the first of three downtown flophouses to be renovated in a $7-million project. It is run by a nonprofit corporation formed by members of All Saints and the Jewish Leo Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles.

* AIDS Service Center, the nation’s largest parish-based AIDS program, with 10 support groups throughout the western San Gabriel Valley.

Every Sunday, All Saints volunteers staff an AIDS information table on the church lawn--one of more than a dozen programs presented there in a colorful potpourri of banners and booths. They challenge the church family to get involved in everything from choirs to feminist agendas to peace and justice groups.

The Spiritual Side

One of the best-known is the Interfaith Center to Reverse the Arms Race, founded 10 years ago by Regas. The center underlines All Saints’ 1987 commitment to be a “peace church” and encourages protests at nuclear test sites and boycotts of goods produced by corporations making nuclear weapons.

All Saints also declared itself a “sanctuary church” early on in the 1980s sanctuary movement, disobeying U.S. immigration laws by pledging aid to illegal aliens and refugees.

Other ministries advocate justice for refugees in Los Angeles and the oppressed in Central America, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, relief of world hunger and the advancement of environmentally sound life styles, the promotion of U.S.-Soviet relations.

Lest a visitor conclude, however, that All Saints is all works and no pray, a newcomer’s information packet points to a plethora of “conventional” parish programs: family ministries, Christian education, youth classes and retreats, weekly healing services with “the laying on of hands,” Bible studies, “covenant” groups and prayer fellowships.

On a recent Sunday, Associate Rector Denis O’Pray--his real name--devoted his sermon to “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and Other Simple Thoughts About Prayer.”

O’Pray’s advice on prayer? “Just do it.”

Services at All Saints are rich and varied, and a printed order that often runs to 25 pages details every aspect.

“There’s a tremendous diversity . . . and it’s not stuffy worship,” says Regas. “We may go from an elaborate expression of classical repertoire one week to all Hispanic music the next and black gospel after that.”

Regas, a theological liberal, says All Saints is “an open community” with “no theological straitjackets on anyone.” Only 15% of those in the parish survey considered themselves “born-again” Christians.

“On the other hand,” adds Regas, who directs a staff of 45, including five full-time priests and seven professional lay associates, “we’re a Christ-centered church. We believe in the power of the living Christ to change lives.”

Last Easter, Regas preached that the Resurrection of Jesus, “the greatest story ever to break across the Earth . . . is the bedrock of Christian faith. . . . You take that away and the structure of the New Testament would collapse.”

Regas studs his sermons with quotes running the gamut from Martin Luther King Jr., Leo Tolstoy, Carl Sandberg and Agatha Christie to “New Age” Dominican priest Matthew Fox, Peanuts cartoon characters and Los Angeles Times sports columnists.

A condensation of a recent sermon, a pro-choice view of abortion through the lenses of “the courts, the church and the conscience,” was published in The Times and other newspapers.

Subsequently, the church’s elected lay leaders approved a pro-choice policy statement defending abortion from a religious perspective, saying that “no law should be enacted to force an unwilling woman to give birth to an unwanted child.”

The son of a Greek immigrant, Regas attended a Greek Orthodox church as a youngster. He was graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and ordained a priest in 1956. He first served “a little bitty mission” of 50 members in Pulaski, Tenn., before spending seven years as rector of an 800-member church in Nyack, N.Y. He came to All Saints in 1967.

Regas pursued graduate studies with his longtime friend and mentor, Anglican Bishop John A. T. Robinson, the late “Honest to God” theologian whose book by that name questioned most traditional Christian concepts. In 1972, Regas earned a doctor of religion degree at the School of Theology at Claremont.

He’s Staying

Active at diocesan and national levels of the church, Regas was a key strategist in the denomination’s 1976 vote permitting women priests. And last year, Regas was among finalists seeking the influential post of retiring liberal Bishop Paul Moore of New York.

Now, says Regas, “people expect me, and I expect myself, to stay here.”

Regas has a $70,000 base salary, drives a church-leased BMW, and with his $30,000 housing allowance is buying the All Saints’ rectory. Regas also receives income from a family real estate enterprise, and his second wife, Mary, owns and operates a jewelry-making business. The couple give $14,000 a year to the church and have pledged another $32,000 to the church building fund.

Ironically, perhaps, the church’s most attractive feature--strong preaching and commitment on social issues--was also singled out in the survey as the thing that made parishioners the most uncomfortable.

About a third of the All Saints family would like more balance between social activism and spirituality, with greater attention to worship, theological reflection and spiritual depth.

“In some superficial respects,” concluded Seltser, the survey analyst, “All Saints fits the stereotype of the large, white, wealthy, mainline Protestant church: uncomfortable with dogma beyond the platitudes of peace and love; unafraid to speak out against racial or sexual discrimination but terrified of alienating members by taking theological positions and drawing lines about belief; open to diversity in membership and supportive of a pluralistic society but unable to identify precisely what makes it distinctively ‘Christian.’ ”