Rev. Dr. Christopher M. Hamlin
The Rev. Dr. Christopher M. Hamlin serves as Pastor of the 138-year-old Tabernacle Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama. In 2023, he retired as Chaplain/Education Specialist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s 1917 Clinic, the HIV outpatient clinic treating over 3,400 patients. Initially, he went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the fall of 2000 as an assistant to the Provost directing an arts education program (Birmingham Institute for Aesthetic Education) in partnership with Birmingham City Schools.
For six years, he served as Facilitator for Project Corporate Leadership, a leadership program designed for middle managers of businesses and corporations sponsored by the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce. From 1990 to September 2000, Dr. Hamlin served as Senior Pastor of the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church of Birmingham.
A native of Macon, Georgia, Dr. Hamlin received a B.A. degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; Master of Divinity from Colgate Crozer Theological Seminary, Rochester, New York; and Doctor of Ministry from United Theological Seminary (Proctor-Moss Fellow), Dayton, Ohio. His doctoral dissertation focused on the unique role of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church as a memorial and opened-door church.
Dr. Hamlin moved to Birmingham in 1990 and committed himself to several local and national organizations, including Morehouse College National Alumni Association and the Birmingham Chapter; Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.–Omicron Lambda Chapter; Leadership Alabama; Leadership Birmingham; National Baptist Convention USA, Inc.; The Minister’s Discussion Group where he serves as the convener; and the Birmingham Sister Cities Commission; and others.
He has received many awards and recognition for community service. The Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel selected him as one of Alabama’s Unforgettable Faces. The Governor of the State of Alabama appointed him to the Governor’s HIV Commission for Youth, Children, and Adults. He was inducted into the Golden Key International Honour Society at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and was recognized by the Birmingham Business Journal as a “Top 40 Under 40” and named as a 2008 Healthcare Hero for his work in HIV.
In 1998, he published a history on Sixteenth Street Baptist Church titled Behind the Stained Glass: A History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Crane Hill Publishers, Birmingham, Alabama. He and the Rev. Sarah Jackson Shelton (Baptist Church of the Covenant, Birmingham) published the Teaching Church: Congregation as Mentor in 2013 (Smyth-Helwys, Publishers) that examines what pastors learn from congregations. He is currently working on three manuscripts for publication — one of spiritual reflections, another chronicling his journey with three bouts of cancer, and a research project examining the connectional links of Drs. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Benjamin E. Mays and Howard Thurman, all connected through Howard University and Morehouse College. He has contributed to three publications through his work with UAB’s Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the School of Public Health.
He is married to Sara B. Hamlin, Vice President of Tourism for the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau, and they are parents to Jermaine Fuller and Kyle P. Hamlin and grandparents of Karter, Peyton, and Kali.
