Rev. Earl E. Johnson

Last spring (2011) Rev. Earl E. Johnson, MDiv, BCC, deployed 53 highly credentialed chaplains through the American Red Cross Disaster Response to the mass fatality tornadoes in Alabama, Mississippi and Joplin, Mo. In the past decade, he coordinated professional spiritual care support to fatal domestic aviation incidents, massive Gulf hurricanes including Katrina, Rita, and Gus, and the Virginia Tech shootings.

Johnson is an ordained Disciples minister, Yale Divinity graduate, and Board Certified Chaplain through the Association of Professional Chaplains. He served Disciples and UCC parishes in Missouri and New York before his chaplaincy training at Memorial Sloan Kettering/New York Presbyterian (Cornell), and New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn.

Rev. Johnson was the Protestant Staff Chaplain at Cabrini Medical Center (now closed) from 1996-2001, when he moved from lower Manhattan to Arlington, Va., on Sept. 9, 2001, to work as a chaplain educator at Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center. Johnson was an adjunct instructor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY) from 1992-2001.

Johnson has served as the national disaster spiritual care coordinator for the American Red Cross since January 2002 until being laid off at the end of June this year due to financial restructuring. His responsibilities included preparedness and response to every domestic mass fatality incident since that time, including transportation incidents, natural disasters and criminal acts, as well as being a liaison to faith community disaster response organizations. Johnson helped develop the Psychological First Aid curriculum and its adaption for military families and the National Guard; Coping With Deployment for the organization.

He is a frequent presenter in the emerging field of disaster spiritual care, and currently is in a doctoral program at the Pacific School of Religion. Johnson's blog is his own and does not represent the views or policies of the American Red Cross, a humanitarian organization with a fundamental principle of neutrality.

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