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Howard Erickson, a founding member and the first paid staff of Lutherans Concerned / North America (LC/NA), editor of “The Gay Lutheran” newsletter (later the Concord), newspaperman, and lay preacher, died early this morning of stroke and heart attack at age 73.
A memorial service for Howard will be held at 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, September 28, at Hollywood Lutheran Church, 1733 N. New Hampshire Ave., Los Angeles, California.
In 1974, Howard gathered with Allen Blaich, Diane Fraser, Marie Kent, and Jim Lokken in a room on the University of Minnesota campus and, in a weekend, formed the organization “Lutherans Concerned for Gay People,” later to be named Lutherans Concerned / North America. He was the only paid staff that Lutherans Concerned had for many years and was active in the national organization through 1980. Up until his death, he was active in the Los Angeles chapter.
Emily Eastwood, Executive Director of LC/NA, remembers him this way: “Howard Erickson was a man of courage, strong will, and equally firm opinions, which he generously shared with me from the first time I met him in my official capacity with LC/NA. To the end he was a newspaperman true to his notepad, typewriter, and hen scratch. Ours was the correspondence of another era, sparsely shared at a welcome pace. His interests, however, were in no way antiquated. A founder of LC/NA, and, in many ways the keeper of our early institutional memory, he was never content with the notion that LC/NA should be only a sanctuary for LGBT Lutherans. Rather, he told me how excited he was with the growth of LC/NA as an organization. He was proud of our mission, which he said had been that of the original founders, to create change in the church we love.
“Howard was quirky and lovable in his own way. His frank stubbornness, along with that of the Rev. Jim Lokken, who died four years ago almost to the day, and the Rev. Chuck Lewis, who remains active in the leadership of the San Francisco / Bay Area chapter of LC/NA, kept the organization going and communicating through the early days. Howard wrote and produced the “Gay Lutheran,” the first newsletter of LC/NA. I remember receiving my first copy when I joined by mail in 1979. As a closeted would-be pastor in south Texas, that newsletter was a lifeline for me, as I suspect it was to countless others. I give thanks to God for the life, passion, and gifts of Howard Erickson. LC/NA would not be what it is today without his contributions. Howard died in the arms of the God who made him, loved unconditionally with an extravagant grace that both he and we cannot fully imagine.”
Howard was a driving force in his assisted-living home in Glendale, California, organizing Sunday afternoon ecumenical worship services for the residents. For more than four years, Howard conducted those services and served as lay preacher.
Howard maintained a keen interest in racial reconciliation, and always participated in the annual Martin Luther King Jr. observance among the Lutheran churches in Los Angeles. He organized and trained the lectors at Hollywood Lutheran Church, lining up volunteers weeks in advance. As recently as September 12, he was part of a duet which sang during worship. He was a constant presence in the congregation’s mid-week Bible studies and was persistent and persuasive in his rock-solid grasp of the Lutheran central article of faith: justification by grace through faith.
Rev. Dan Hooper, Howard’s pastor at Hollywood Lutheran, said: “For all who have known Howard in his long and faithful lifetime, we understand what it means to say he was a ‘real character.’ But, along with his colorful and at times intemperate personality, Howard has been a genuine, faithful and grateful child of God. I first met Howard at a church convention of the South Pacific District of the former ALC in 1975. From the outset of the struggle and movement for the rights and dignity of sexual minorities, he was a rock of confidence that the institutional church was not going to drive him or any of us away, and that--with enough education and persistence--Lutherans Concerned was going to change the church for the better. I am glad he was able to live long enough to see the fruit of his life’s mission, as the ELCA now openly welcomes LGBT people and has removed the institutional obstacles to gay and lesbian people serving on its professional rosters.”
LC/NA offers condolences to friends, family, and all who mourn the loss of Howard Erickson. He will be deeply missed.
[Special thanks to Rev. Dan Hooper who contributed substantially to this message.] |
