LOS ANGELES — The City of Angels, long denounced by religious conservatives as a modern-day Sodom for its permissive Hollywood culture, and historically exemplified as the urban melting pot of boiling racial tensions, is an unlikely destination for a spiritual revival.

But the Rev. John M. Song, senior pastor of Mijoo Peace Church, is one of more than 200 Southern California-based Korean church leaders who says that because Los Angeles is such a den of iniquity, it is sorely in need of a holy movement. “Holy L.A.” is what they hope the city will become after a three-day event to be held Oct. 7-9 at the Crenshaw Christian Center, a.k.a. the Faith Dome.

“The Korean American community in Los Angeles has encountered a lot of problems,” Song says in Korean. “Like the ‘ugly Korean’ stereotypes, which are based on capitalistic greed and others’ perceptions of Koreans as being generally dishonest people who can’t be trusted in financial matters. Christian Koreans first need to stand up right before Christ, and reconcile. Then we will make Los Angeles a holy city. We need to return to the Bible.”

Holy L.A., modeled after a 2003 Christian movement in Pohang, South Korea, is not strictly a Korean American thing. Members of the black and Latino communities have been invited for the weekend revival as well, says one of the event’s organizers, Dennis Han, who is expecting more than 30,000 to attend, most of them first- and 1.5-generation Korean Americans. Rick Warren, Saddleback Church pastor and author of The Purpose-Driven Life, Jack Hayford of the Church on the Way and various pastors from Korea will speak about evangelism, purification and religious dedication.

“Everybody knows there are so many problems in Los Angeles — prostitution, teen pregnancy,” Han says. “Even in the churches, there’s fighting. Churches don’t follow the Bible and do whatever they like. We don’t want Los Angeles to be like this any more.”

Han emphasizes that “we need to renew the church itself first, renew ourselves first, before we go out” to proselytize others. “We need to be the light that shines from inside the church.”

— Josephine Cho