LAT: Long Tradition of Activism
Pasadena's All Saints, now an IRS target, has spoken out on contentious issues since World War II. The stances have drawn some in and driven some out.
By Patricia Ward Biederman, Times Staff Writer
All Saints Episcopal Church seems to embody staid, moneyed old Pasadena. Facing City Hall, the 80-year-old Gothic Revival church has glowing stained-glass windows by Tiffany and the local Judson Studios.
But though the medieval-looking church exudes serenity and other-worldliness, the 3,500-member congregation has been speaking out on controversial issues since an All Saints rector protested the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. That tradition continues, with the recent disclosure that the IRS is threatening the church's tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon there last year....
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The shift toward social action appears to have begun during the Great Depression. Until the 1930s, only men were allowed to serve as ushers at All Saints, and they did so in white gloves, according to senior warden Robert Long, who heads All Saints' governing vestry. The church also catered to privilege by allowing wealthy families to rent the choicest pews.
But, in 1942, then-Rector Frank Scott, who had already abolished pew rentals, stood in protest in front of trains spiriting local Japanese Americans off to wartime internment camps....
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Staff member Anne Breck Peterson remembers the excitement in the stately church during the Vietnam era when antiwar songs jumped from the radio to Sunday's Rock Mass. Regas' stand against the Vietnam War drove some congregants away, she said: "George almost lost his job." But it also drew newcomers to the parish....
(NOTE: Regas is the former Rector whose 2004 sermon is the subject of the IRS investigation.)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-allsaints13nov13,0,7685065.story?coll=la-home-local