Theologian Hans Kung, who will be in...

Theologian Hans Kung, who will be in Southern California next week to take part in a Christian-Buddhist dialogue and to publicize a new book, will give a public lecture Thursday night in Claremont as part of another scholarly meeting.

Kung, an outspoken professor at the University of Tubingen, West Germany, who has engaged in theological disputes with the Vatican, will talk about a cross-denominational model for Christianity under the title: “Religion in the Post-modern Age.” The lecture, at 7:30 p.m., will be held in the Mudd Auditorium of the School of Theology at Claremont.

The event is part of the joint regional meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion. The meetings begin Thursday afternoon and end Saturday. Robert Ellwood, chairman of USC’s School of Religion, will give a plenary address 11 a.m. Friday on his recently published theory about evolutionary stages of major world religions.

Kung co-authored, with Julia Ching of the University of Toronto, “Christianity and the Chinese Religions,” to be published next week by Doubleday.

He will be among a select number of Christian and Buddhist scholars who will take part in the fifth and possibly final Christian-Buddhist theological dialogue from Friday through Monday, March 20, at the new Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights. In a separate engagement, Kung will give a talk at 7 p.m. next Saturday at Westwood Hills Christian Church in Westwood.

The Christian-Buddhist dialogue will end March 20 with a lecture by Jeffrey Hopkins, a religion professor at the University of Virginia. His talk, about Tibetan Buddhism as a religious option, will be at 7:30 p.m. in Claremont Graduate School’s Albrecht Auditorium.

HOLIDAY

At sundown Sunday and in services Monday, the Lenten period will begin for Eastern Orthodox faithful, who celebrate Easter on April 30 this year. Western Christianity, which calculates the date for Easter differently, will observe the holiday on March 26. For Eastern Orthodox Christians, the first Sunday of Lent, March 19, is an important date because it also commemorates the return of icons to church worship in AD 843 after they were banned in the previous century.

ACTION

Inspired by “AIDS Masses” and similar Christian services for those afflicted with the fatal disease, Reform Jewish leaders have planned a community service of “remembrance, healing and hope” for 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Leo Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles. The sermon will be given by Rabbi Alexander Schindler of New York, president of Reform Judaism’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations since 1973. The service is an outgrowth of a regional AIDS committee designed to help Reform congregations formulate policies on employees who contract AIDS and how to lend support to afflicted people.

More than 3,000 members of the Los Angeles Stake, or region, of the Mormon Church were expected to participate today in a disaster drill that assumes telephone lines have been knocked out. Bishops of the nine congregations will be told the circumstances at 9 a.m. and asked to use other communications over the next two hours. “We will plant messages with certain families saying that there is a gas leak in their homes, or that a family member needs medical attention,” said Lynn O. Poulson, a Los Angeles Mormon leader. The Mormon Church, which faced great adversity in its early history, has long preached preparedness and cooperation in emergencies among its membership.

DATES

Penny Lernoux, a one-time city editor of the Daily Trojan, will lecture on Catholicism’s struggles in Latin America at 6 p.m. Monday at USC’s Taper Hall. Now Latin American affairs writer for the National Catholic Reporter, she has written her third book, “People of God,” to be published this year by Viking-Penguin.

A four-part film series on Gnosticism, a religious movement of the early Christian era that was later branded a heresy, will be shown by its British film maker, Stephen Segaller, next Saturday at the NuArt Theater in West Los Angeles. Segaller said he will introduce each segment of the “semi-dramatization” of Gnostic influences through the ages. The program, lasting from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., will cost $37.50.

PEOPLE

Cardinal Timothy Manning, 79, took the microphone in hand and sang a couple of Irish melodies for the audience at an early St. Patrick’s Day parish party late last week at Holy Family Catholic Church in South Pasadena. Msgr. Clement J. Connolly, the pastor at Holy Family and former secretary to Manning when he was archbishop of Los Angeles, also contributed vocal solos. The cardinal resides at the parish rectory.