Ted Lockhart (’68) publishes “But for These”
But For These: A Memoir of Helpers on my Way to a Cohort of Preachers by Ted Lockhart (CAS’65, STH’68) is out now.
Theodore (“Ted”) L. Lockhart is a retired United Methodist minister and native son of St. Petersburg, Florida, where he attended kindergarten and the public schools in that city. After high school, he served four years in the United States Air Force, including two years in Japan, where he received “The Call.” He attended Gibbs Junior College (St. Petersburg) and Boston University. He served his entire ministry in United Methodist churches in Massachusetts during the 1960s through the 1990s. At various times during those years, he also worked on the faculties of Boston-area institutions of higher education.
Since retiring, he has served congregations on an interim part-time basis in his hometown, St. Petersburg, Florida. He has served as treasurer, vice chairperson, and chairperson of the board of directors of the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum in St. Petersburg. In 2016, he was selected as a Distinguished Alumnus of Boston University School of Theology. He is the author of three volumes of verse, In Search of Roots (Dorrance & Co., 1970); Before Blackness, Lying After Truth, In Rabbitude, and Other Poems (Dog Ear Publishing, 2013); and In Our Good Name: Poems for Reflection (Dog Ear Publishing, 2016).
Reverend Dr. William Alberts (’61) has written a book review of Reverend Lockhart’s memoir. Here is an excerpt:
“Rev. Theodore Lockhart’s BUT FOR THESE is a unique blending of prose and poetry that illuminates his struggle to “daringly become whosoever I could.” With searing honesty Ted takes us into his confidence, and tells what it was like being raised in the oppressive Jim Crow South, the obstacles he faced in pursuing a college and seminary education to become a minister in the white-controlled Methodist Church, and the critical role cohorts played in supporting him as he pursued his ministerial calling. A calling dogged by guilt and personal doubt about, “I’m not cut out for that.” He describes his rise in the Church’s New England Conference — and his fall at the hands of hierarchical “ecclesiastic politics” – a “cast-away tossed under the bus in a sacrificial offering to the gods of Saving Face and Incompetence.” Sharing his intense anger in response and how he handled it provide a humanizing service for anyone overcome by anger. The book ends with Ted’s rise again in the same Conference, culminating in his pastoral leadership in a church that became the first racially mixed United Methodist congregation to fully welcome LGBTQ persons into its membership. BUT FOR THESE is an inspiring down-to-earth story of a man seeking to be upright. There is much information and insight in Ted Lockhart’s 147-page book – not only for Methodists, but for anyone who believes that honesty and integrity are the two sides of the same humanizing coin.”
You can read the rest of the book review here: Review of BUT FOR THESE