NEW ORLEANS, La. (BP) – Joe McKeever, a well-known Baptist minister famous for drawing cartoons and caricatures for Baptist publications, has announced his intention to donate his entire archive of cartoons and other works to the John T. Christian Library at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS).
A two-time graduate of NOBTS, McKeever, 82, will be donating his entire archive featuring thousands of cartoons and caricatures as well as many sermons, articles and posts from his extended ministry career of more than 50 years.
When the idea came up about donating all of his “papers,” to a particular location, McKeever told Baptist Press “if New Orleans was interested in having them, that would be the appropriate place for them to be.”
Mark Hagelman, director of development for NOBTS, told Baptist Press, “the highest compliment we can receive ever is when Alumni give back to the seminary.”
“Joe has been gifted in the medium of cartooning, and it’s just one of the ways he has communicated the Gospel and just one of the ways he has contributed to New Orleans.”
McKeever’s journey of ministry, including his passion for drawing biblically influenced cartoons, goes all the way back to his time as a student at New Orleans in the 1960s.
Even as a young child, McKeever loved drawing and cartoons, but never used them in any ministerial way.
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After feeling a call toward ministry as a 21-year-old, he attended NOBTS and learned to combine his passions for art and ministry.
“I came to seminary at New Orleans because it was such as strategic place,” McKeever said. “People from all over the world come there, so if you wanted to touch the world for Jesus that was a great place to start.”
He recalls his first time connecting drawing cartoons and biblical ministry when he snuck into his classroom before anyone was there and drew a humorous cartoon about the previous day’s lecture on the rapture.
Both his classmates and the professor really enjoyed the cartoon, and McKeever was eventually asked by the school newspaper to contribute a cartoon for each issue.
McKeever told Baptist Press his cartoons have always been designed for good-natured fun, rather than making fun of particular people or issues.
“They were nothing profound, and certainly not anything of a put-down in nature or meant to include any satire. They were just to have fun,” McKeever said.
When McKeever began pastoring a local church in New Orleans, he began submitting cartoons, as well as spiritual devotionals, to a newspaper located near the town he was pastoring.
His devotionals and cartoons in the newspaper ended up helping increase attendance at the church as people saw him listed as the pastor in the paper.
The combination of serving in vocational ministry while also producing cartoons and caricatures continued throughout McKeever’s life.
McKeever would go on to pastor churches in Mississippi, North Carolina and Louisiana. He and his first wife, Margaret, have three children and several grandchildren.
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She passed away in 2015, and he later married his second wife, Bertha. They often travel together to his ministry engagements, and live together in what they call their “happily ever after.”
