Moderator, Church of the Crossroads

By early 1972, Lauren Ekroth had risen to the highest lay leadership position at the Church of the Crossroads — Moderator of the Executive Board. In a Congregational church, the Moderator is the equivalent of board president, the lay head of the congregation. In 1968 and 1969, that title had belonged to Rev. Mitsuo Aoki, the minister who had issued the ambiguous sanctuary policy statement that Ekroth, as committee chairman, had called into question. Now Ekroth held the office himself.

The occasion for the letter, published in the Honolulu Advertiser on February 2, 1972, was the newspaper’s dismissal of Rev. Larry Jones as a columnist. Jones was the minister who had officiated at Ekroth’s wedding in November 1969. Writing on behalf of the church’s Executive Board, Ekroth addressed the loss in careful parallel structure: “Little, powerless people needed Larry Jones’ column to tell them that someone in an apparently indifferent world cared about social justice, even for them. Fat and comfortable people needed the column to remind them of some old truths and to show them some new realities. The religious community needed it to suggest a model of faith that includes putting the body where the words are.” He closed: “Now there is an empty spot on Sunday morning.”

The phrase “putting the body where the words are” was entirely characteristic. Ekroth had put his body on the line at Bachman Hall in 1968, at the sanctuary in 1969. Jones had done the same through his writing. The letter was signed: “The Executive Board, Church of the Crossroads — Lauren Ekroth, Moderator.” He was no longer speaking as a private citizen or a committee chairman; he was the institutional voice of the church.