Dr. Andre E. Johnson serves in the department of Communication at the University of Memphis. He teaches in the areas of rhetoric and religion, media studies and African American Public Address. He formerly served as professor of rhetoric and religion and African American Studies at Memphis Theological Seminary. Along with his academic titles, he is currently Pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries an inner city church built upon the servant leadership philosophy.
Dr. Johnson was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee and after graduation; he attended the University of Tennessee at Martin where he received his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Communications. He graduated from Memphis Theological Seminary where he took the Masters of Divinity (M.Div) degree and completed the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Communication at the University of Memphis.
He is currently editing the works of AME Church Bishop Henry McNeal Turner under the title The Literary Archive of Henry McNeal Turner (Edwin Mellen Press). He has already published the first four volumes, “An African American Pastor Before and During the American Civil War” (2010), “The Chaplain Letters,” (2012), “American Reconstruction,” (2013) and An African American Pastor After American Reconstruction: 1880-1892 (2015). The fifth volume, is set for publication in 2016.
In addition to collecting the writings of Bishop Turner, Dr Johnson is also the author of The Forgotten Prophet: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and the African American Prophetic Tradition, (2012) that won the National Communication Association (NCA) 2013 African American Communication and Culture Division Outstanding Book Award. He is the editor of Urban God Talk: Constructing a Hip Hip Spirituality (2013) both with Lexington Books. He also serves as editor of the popular Rhetoric Race and Religion Blog and is the editor of a book series under the same name with Lexington Books.
Dr. Johnson has presented academic papers at national, regional, and state conferences winning awards at each level, has published essays in the Black Theology Journal and holds membership in several national, regional and state associations in the areas of Communication, History African American and Religious Studies. Dr. Johnson is an avid blogger for The Huffington Post and Political Theology blogs.
In addition to what many consider groundbreaking work on Bishop Turner, Dr. Johnson maintains an eclectic research agenda. Ongoing research projects explore the nexus between rhetoric, theology and the Bible, religion and politics, the religious rhetoric of Barack Obama, religion and media and more recently, the prophetic rhetoric of W.E.B. Du Bois.