ABOUT
Dr. Jonathan C. Augustine
Dr. Jonathan C. Augustine (a/k/a Jay Augustine) serves as senior pastor of St. Joseph AME Church and as a member of the inaugural faculty at the Hampton University School of Religion. He is an accomplished author, sought-after speaker, and internationally recognized academic leader.
Prior to leading St. Joseph, Augustine served at Historic St. James AME Church, in downtown New Orleans, the oldest predominantly Black, Protestant congregation in the Deep South, while also teaching at Southern University Law Center. He has taught at North Carolina Central University Law School and Duke University Divinity School, where he also served on the Board of Visitors, and was chaplain to the Duke Football Team. He also served eight years as the general chaplain of his beloved Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
An accomplished author, his most recent books are When Prophets Preach: Leadership and the Politics of the Pulpit (Fortress Press, 2023) and Called to Reconciliation: How the Church Can Model Justice, Diversity and Inclusion (Baker Academic, 2022). His scholarly articles appear in publications including, the University of Richmond Law Review, Howard Law Journal, Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, Louisiana Law Review, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, and Theology Today, among others.
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Augustine serves as chairman of the board of the Agora Strategy Council of the Payne Center, a research-based “think tank” and affiliate of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of PartnersGlobal, Inc., a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. He has been invited to lecture, internationally, in Heidelberg, Germany and Accra, Ghana; and has been nationally featured on C-SPAN Book-TV. His leadership was also nationally profiled, in March 2024, on the front page of USA Today.
A gifted and nationally celebrated communicator, Augustine was inducted into the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers (2024) and elevated to serve as vice president of the Judicial Council (Supreme Court) of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was twice awarded the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service (2024 & 2017), and previously named “Outstanding Alumni Brother of the Year,” by Alpha Phi Alpha (2017). He also won the fraternity’s Belford V. Lawson National Oratorical Scholarship (1994). As an emerging leader, Augustine received the Ten Outstanding Young Americans Award, from the U.S. Jaycees (2004) and was named to Ebony Magazine’s “30 Leaders of the Future” (2001). He is an active member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity (Alpha Tau Boulé).
After graduating from Howard University, with a degree in economics, Augustine served as a decorated infantry officer in the United States Army. He subsequently earned his law degree at Tulane University and served as a law clerk to Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice (then-Associate) Bernette Joshua Johnson, before practicing law and serving in both publicly elected and gubernatorially appointed offices. He earned his Master of Divinity degree at United Theological Seminary and completed a fellowship at Princeton Theological Seminary. He later earned his Doctor of Ministry degree at Duke University and is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Education degree at The University of Alabama.
Dr. Augustine is married to his partner and friend, Michelle Burks Augustine. They are the proud parents of two college students, Mason and Jillian.
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