Robert Smith Jr. is the current pastor at New Bethel where photos of the Franklins still line the walls. "When this place is packed, when she walks in the whole atmosphere changes," Smith said.

“She always put God, church, and her father first in her life,” Pastor Robert Smith Jr. told CNN Thursday, before news of her death was announced. “No matter where she was, no matter what ...

Preaching legend and longtime professor Robert Smith Jr. is retiring after years of scholarship ... would become a preaching legend. He was pastor of New Mission Baptist Church in Cincinnati ...

Robert Smith Jr. holds the Charles T ... with exegetical precision and theological depth, and always with a pastor's heart. His sermons reflect the richness of the African American tradition ...