A. R. Bernard

Alfonso Rogelio Bernard Sr., born August 10, 1953, is a Brooklyn pastor, religious leader, author, and institution builder. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and pastor of Christian Cultural Center, a megachurch in Brooklyn, New York. By the 2020s, CCC had grown to more than 37,000 members and occupied an 11.5-acre campus in Brooklyn. Bernard’s public life has been closely tied to New York City, especially to the borough where he arrived as a child and later built one of its largest churches.

Bernard was born in Panama to an Afro-Panamanian mother and a Castilian Spaniard father. After his father disowned him, Bernard and his mother moved in 1957 to Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. His family was Catholic and attended Mass, but he later became involved with local Protestant churches. As a young man, he was part of the Black Muslim movement, and in January 1975 he became a born-again Christian. His early years also included the public school desegregation efforts of the 1960s, when he was bused to school in Ridgewood, Queens, before attending Grover Cleveland High School.

Work and responsibility came early. Bernard held an after-school job in the garment district, pushing racks for $2.00 an hour to help his mother in their single-parent household. During his senior year of high school, he became a clerk at Bankers Trust Company, beginning a banking career that lasted ten years. He later earned a Master of Urban Studies and a Master of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary. He also received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from Wagner College and from Nyack College/Alliance Theological Seminary.

In 1978, Bernard and his wife, Karen, started a Bible study in the kitchen of their Brooklyn railroad apartment. The next year, he left banking for full-time ministry, and the couple rented a small storefront in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Household of Faith Ministries was incorporated later in 1979. In 1988, the ministry turned an abandoned Brooklyn supermarket into a 1,000-seat sanctuary, naming it Christian Life Center in June 1989, with 625 members. In 1995, the church purchased a vacant lot next to Starrett City, and on December 31, 2000, it moved into its new home.

Bernard has also served beyond the pulpit. He has been President of the Council of Churches of the City of New York and has served on the boards of the Commission of Religious Leaders, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation. He founded the New School of Biblical Theology in Orlando, Florida, and Brooklyn Preparatory School in New York City. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he joined Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, then stepped down in 2017, citing a “deepening conflict in values between myself and the administration.” In 2018, he proposed an urban village within the CCC complex, designed to include more than 2,000 apartments, a grocery store, greenspace, a trade school, a performing arts center, and a daycare center, with half the apartments reserved for people on low incomes.

Bernard’s published books include Happiness Is (2011), Chasing Donkeys: Finding God's Purpose at the Crossroads of Everyday Life (2013), and Four Things Women Want from a Man (2017). He has been married to Karen since 1972; they met in high school, and together they have seven sons and several grandchildren. Their eldest son, Alfonso R. Bernard Jr., died from an asthma attack in 2015 at age 39. Bernard’s words often return to discipline, faith, and responsibility. His line, “The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life,” reflects the practical tone that has shaped his teaching and public work.