Senior Minister
The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr.
Senior Minister of The Riverside Church

Before being called to Riverside’s pulpit, Dr. Forbes served from 1976-1985 as the Brown and Sockman Associate Professor of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. From 1985-1989 he was Union’s first Joe R. Engle Professor of Preaching. Union named him the first Harry Emerson Fosdick Adjunct Professor of Preaching in 1989, when he accepted the pastorate at Riverside. Dr. Forbes also serves on the Core Teaching Staff at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.

In national and international religious circles, Dr. Forbes is known as the preacher’s preacher because of his extensive preaching career and his charismatic style. In their March 4, 1996 issue, Newsweek magazine recognized Forbes as one of the 12 “most effective preachers” in the English-speaking world. This Pastor, Educator, Administrator, Community Activist and Interfaith Leader was designated as one of America’s greatest Black preachers by Ebony magazine in 1984 and 1993. He won the Alumni Charter Day Award of Howard University for Distinguished Post Graduate Achievement In Ministry. In 1995 he emerged in the Baylor University Survey as one of twelve remarkable and most effective preachers in the English-speaking world.

Dr. Forbes learned to preach and pastor in the parish. He has held pastorates at St. John’s United Holy Church of America in Richmond, VA, from 1965-1973; Holy Trinity Church in Wilmington, NC, from 1960-1965; and at St. Paul’s Holy Church in Roxboro, NC, from 1960-1969. He also worked as campus minister for Virginia Union University in Richmond, VA, from 1968 until 1970.