RELIGION / JOHN DART : Interfaith Council Asks Chatman to Be Its First Minority President

After three decades of existence, the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council next week will elect its first nonwhite president--the Rev. Dudley D. Chatman, pastor of the Valley’s oldest African American church.

The Pacoima minister--whose nomination is not expected to be opposed in Wednesday’s council elections in Granada Hills--has been the interfaith body’s vice president for community response for two years.

The belated distinction of Chatman’s becoming the first racial or ethnic minority president of the liberal-to-moderate religious organization is merely an accident of the group’s history, officials said.

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Since its founding in 1964, the council had emphasized putting people of different faiths in leadership roles and, in the process, elected four women as presidents, the last being a Unitarian minister three years ago, said board member Ed Moreno.

“The council’s efforts recently have turned to getting greater ethnic diversity on the board,” said Moreno, a retired school principal who attends Chatsworth Foursquare Church.

The religious and social-service organization, which operates on a $3.8-million budget, has 400 “member units”--congregations, businesses, families and individuals. Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim and other faiths are represented in its ranks.

Chatman, 55, who has led the white-stucco Greater Community Missionary Baptist Church in Pacoima for eight years, said he has been impressed with the work of the Chatsworth-based interfaith council.

“They responded quickly, and without discrimination, in their earthquake recovery programs,” said the pastor, referring to the council’s role in handling relief funds collected by churches throughout the country that aided 5,200 victims of the Northridge temblor.

Chatman, who served churches in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma before coming to California, said that as president he hopes “to serve as a catalyst” to bring more Valley clergy into council programs.

“There are outstanding ministers here with spiritual dedication and brainpower who would be a real help to the Valley and the city at large,” he said.

Council leaders, including outgoing president Allyn Axelton, a United Methodist campus minister at Cal State Northridge, were outspoken last year in opposing Proposition 187, the anti-illegal-immigration measure that voters approved but has been challenged in court.

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One of the hottest issues now, Chatman said, concerns proposed government spending cuts at the state and national levels. “We don’t want a balanced budget at the expense of the disadvantaged.”

In addition, the council has prepared a statement opposing organized prayer in public schools. Although the statement does not mention it, the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday began hearings on a “religious liberty” constitutional amendment that would permit greater freedom for prayer in public settings.

Opposing such measures on traditional church-state separation grounds, the interfaith council’s board in April adopted a statement contending that informal, small-group prayer opportunities already exist in schools, but officially sanctioned prayer could not avoid offending students belonging to religious minority groups.

The council has delayed releasing the one-page position paper until more council members have a chance to sign it in support. The paper was sent to about 700 clergy and lay people, of whom about 60 had signed it as of Friday, said spokeswoman Arlene Landon.

Chatman, who helped craft the statement, said he favors prayer anywhere it is permitted but added that families and religious groups have the responsibility for teaching children how to pray.

A member of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc., the nation’s largest black denomination, Chatman will remain a full-time pastor while serving a two-year term as council president. The day-to-day administration of the organization is handled by Executive Director Barry Smedberg and his staff.

The Greater Community Missionary Baptist Church (which sometimes drops “Missionary” from its name for space reasons) has 2,200 names on its membership rolls, although Chatman said active membership is about 1,500.

The church’s sanctuary seats only 480 worshipers, however, and it runs near capacity most Sundays for the 8 and 11 a.m. services. “If the members all came to church at the same time, I couldn’t serve them,” he said.

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The congregation, founded in 1942 by the RevG. Pledger, is regarded as the “mother church” for several congregations in the area, including Calvary Baptist Church of Pacoima, led by the family of the late founding minister Hillery Broadous.

“Practically every black Baptist church in the Valley sprang out from this church,” said David Taylor, a member of Greater Community Baptist since 1953 and now chairman of its board of deacons.

A multistory, 101-unit senior-citizen apartment complex, named Pledgerville after the founding pastor, sits next to the church at the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Norris Avenue. It was completed about the time of Pledger’s death in 1986.

The congregation currently is seeking city approval of plans to build a community center and classroom building on its property.

Weighing his options this year, Chatman said that as first vice president of the Western State Baptist Convention, he could have been elected president of the convention, which is the regional association of national Baptist clergy and congregations.

“I chose instead to head the Valley Interfaith Council in order to increase the fellowship among the clergy and learn more about the religious diversity in the community,” Chatman said. “Not only that, the people at the council are sincere, dedicated, and I like them.”