Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Senior, is a visionary and the illustrious Pastor Emeritus of the historic Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California, where his son, the Dr. Rev. J. Alfred Smith Jr. is currently the senior pastor.
Dr. Smith Sr. is married to Rev. Bernestine Smith, Pastor of Allen Temple Arms I and II.
Pastor Emeritus Smith is also a giant of a man in intellect, wisdom and fecundity of the mind. An erudite sage, blessed by God with a plethora of knowledge and immense sagacity, Dr. Smith Sr. serves as “Distinguished Professor of Christian Ministry and Preaching at the American Baptist Seminary of the West and the Graduate Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. He is also currently a Visiting Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, as well as Scholar in Residence at the Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.
He has served as an Acting Dean of the American Baptist Seminary of the West and as Area Representative for the American Baptist Churches of the Ministers’ and Missionaries Benefit Board. Dr. Smith Sr. is a past national president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC), and a past president of the American Baptist Churches of the West (ABCW).
For two years consecutively, Dr. Smith was one of Ebony Magazine’s Most Influential Black Americans, and was among the magazine’s Top 15 Greatest Black Preachers of 1993. In 2001, Dr. Smith Sr. was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Greenlining Institute, the Humanitarian of the Year Award by the East Bay Area Agency For Children, and in 2002, the Agape Award from the Women’s Ministry of the Shiloh Baptist Church, Washington, D.C., and the Gandhi Ikeda Award from Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Smith Sr. is a man filled with “milk of human kindness and compassion”, who champions the causes of the poor, the down-trodden, the left-outs and the left-behinds. He is a voice for the disliked, the disaffected, the displaced, the disdained, the left-outs and the left behinds. He uses the pulpit to uplift the poor in spirit, the broken-hearted and the afflicted. He also challenges and afflicts the rich and comfortable to get up and get out of “their lazy chairs of religion”. He is a “fish of many waters” and a “bridge builder” who feels comfortable and at home with ordinary “every day” people as well as the movers and shakers of the society.
A renowned scholar, an acclaimed preacher and an accomplished author of more than sixteen books and a prolific writer, Dr. Smith Sr. has a voracious appetite for reading. His most recent book “Speak Until Justice Wakes: Prophetic Reflections from J. Alfred Smith, Sr. was released in 2006. In May 2004, “On The Jericho Road” was released and this book is a biography of his life in the ministry. Dr. Smith Sr. has several publications, which include: Giving to a Giving God, Basic Bible Sermons, his prayer in 9.11.01: African American Leaders Respond To An American Crisis, his sermon “Facing the Insufficiency of National Security With the Sufficiency of Faith”, Living Pulpit-Special Supplement, November 2001,, and his essay, entitled “Lamentations In The City”, in the April 2002 edition of The Living Pulpit. His work also appears in The Encyclopedia of African-American Christian Heritage, by Dr. Marvin McMickle, and Power In The Pulpit: How America’s Most Effective Black Preachers Prepare Their Sermons, by Dr. Cleophus LaRue.
Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. can be reached by email at: emeritus@allen-temple.org
