Our Pastor

The Reverend Dr. Jonathan C. Augustine (a/k/a “Pastor Jay”) serves as senior pastor of St. Joseph African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and as general chaplain of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He is an accomplished author, respected academic leader, and nationally recognized social justice advocate.

Prior to his May 2019 appointment to serve St. Joseph, Pastor Jay led Historic St. James AME Church (1844), in downtown New Orleans, the oldest predominantly black, Protestant congregation in the Deep South, while simultaneously teaching at Southern University Law Center. He has served as a visiting professor at North Carolina Central University Law School and as a consulting faculty member at Duke University Divinity School, where he is also a member of the Board of Visitors and a missional strategist with the Center for Reconciliation.

An accomplished author, Pastor Jay’s 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 work on civil and voting rights, as well as other social justice matters, has been published in law reviews throughout the United States, including the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, Louisiana Law Review, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, and the University of Louisville Law Review, among many others. His most recent work on immigration reform appears in the Howard Law Journal.

Pastor Jay serves as a member of the board of directors of PartnersGlobal, Inc. and is a silver life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (“NAACP”). As a pastoral leader who serves his beloved AME Church beyond the local congregation, he is also an elected member of the denomination’s Judicial Council (Supreme Court). Among his many notable awards and distinctions, Pastor Jay was named “Outstanding Alumni Brother of the Year,” by Alpha Phi Alpha (2017), he won the fraternity’s Belford V. Lawson National Oratorical Scholarship (1994) and was awarded President Barack Obama’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2016). As a young activist, he was named to Ebony Magazine’s “30 Leaders of the Future” (2001) and is currently an active member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity (Alpha Tau Boulé).  

After graduating from Howard University, with a degree in economics, Pastor Jay served as a decorated infantry officer in the United States Army. He earned his law degree at Tulane University and served as a law clerk to Chief Justice (then-Associate) Bernette Joshua Johnson, at the Louisiana Supreme Court, before entering the practice of law and serving in both publicly elected and appointed offices in Louisiana. After accepting the call to ordained ministry, he earned his Master of Divinity degree, at United Theological Seminary, as a Beane Fellow and National Rainbow-PUSH Coalition Scholar, before completing a fellowship at Princeton Theological Seminary. He later earned his Doctor of Ministry degree at Duke University.

Dr. Jay Augustine is married to his partner and friend, St. Joseph’s first lady, Sister Michelle Burks Augustine. They are the parents of two college students.