By Bob Allen
David Lockard, a Southern Baptist missionary who established the first Baptist seminary in Central Africa before heading up race relations and world hunger awareness for the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, died March 14 at age 89.
Appointed missionaries in 1952, Lockard and his wife, Susie, who survives, served 14 years in Rhodesia, renamed Zimbabwe in 1980. There they led in establishment of African Baptist Theological Seminary, now known as the Baptist Theological Seminary of Zimbabwe.
Lockard served as the school’s president before moving stateside in 1967 to direct missionary orientation for the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board’s missionary orientation center, then located at Callaway Gardens, Ga.
In 1981 Lockard joined the staff of the Christian Life Commission, now known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, as associate director to Foy Valentine, who led the agency from 1960 to 1987 and died in 2006.
While there Lockard dealt with race relations, biomedical ethics and moral problems confronting teenagers. He also served as the CLC’s official liaison with other SBC agencies. The era saw steady growth in the denomination’s World Hunger Offering, which raised a record $11.8 million during a famine in Ethiopia in 1985. Today Southern Baptists fund hunger relief through Baptist Global Response, a stand-alone 501(c)(3) charity formed in 2006.
Lockard resigned from the CLC in 1988 at age 62, the week before newly elected Executive Director Richard Land took office. Land’s predecessor and Valentine’s successor, Larry Baker, lasted just 16 months after being elected by a 16-13 secret ballot vote in January 1987.
Lockard told Baptist Press he “did not want to leave the Christian Life Commission” but was stepping down because of “the low comfort level and the low security level” at the agency. Lockard said word was leaked after Baker’s resignation that “it might be prudent” for staff members to seek other employment, and “I took that very seriously.”
For the last 15 years Lockard lived at The Villages, a retirement community in Central Florida. He enjoyed golf, oil painting and being involved in a new church plant, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated Brownwood Baptist Church in Wildwood, Fla.
“Very few Christian servants have such a lengthy, uninterrupted tenure of service for a denomination as David and Susie did,” Brownwood Pastor Donn Poole said in a eulogy posted on the church website. “For me, such a witness is due to their commitment, dedication and unrelenting love for Christ.”
In addition to his wife of 65 years, Lockard is survived by two children and their spouses, eight grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.
His funeral was March 20 at Brownwood Baptist Church with burial at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Fla. The family suggested memorial gifts in his honor be sent to Brownwood Baptist Church designated to the Children’s Backpack Ministry, 850 South Main St. (Hwy 301), Wildwood, FL 34785.