John Christian Keener (February 7, 1819 – January 19, 1906) was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, an author and an editor, and the superintendent of C.S.A.

Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University, include correspondence and military orders related to the return of property to the Methodist Church, South, after the war.

At the age of 9 he was taken into the home of Doctor Wilbur Fisk, who was principal, and kept under his care for three years.

He was superintendent of a Sunday school in Wesley chapel charge for two years, and in this work he felt the divine call to preach.

After graduating from college, he entered the mercantile business[3] as a wholesale druggist, becoming prosperous and successful.

Keener joined the Alabama Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1843.

Keener "feared any movement that looked toward organic union with anything or anybody" and was "firmly fixed by the agonies and horrors of reconstruction" after the American Civil War.

Bishop Charles B. Galloway said he was "An ecclesiastical leader of rare gifts and vast influence, a preacher of apostolic spirit and power, and an eminent citizen of passionate patriotism and undaunted heroism ..."[8] Another commentator wrote of him: while the careful discriminations in his sermons satisfy the hearer of thoughtful preparation, the neat turns of expression, well-chosen words and chaste adornments prove him to be at once the enemy of slovenliness of style and a friend to the unaffected graces of speech.