Rev. William W. Carr

Rev. Bill Carr was born in Baltimore, Md., where he was baptized in a neighborhood Methodist church. The arrival of a second child prompted a move to another part of the city, where his parents were catechized and joined Calvary Lutheran Church. (Bill may enjoy a particular distinction, in that his kindergarten and first-grade teacher was Mrs. Ruth Hummel. At the Seminary, years later of course, one of his professors was Dr. Horace Hummel) A job transfer for his father brought about another move, to Orlando, Fla., where Rev. Carr attended Trinity Lutheran Church & School, and was a member of its first sixth-grade graduating class (1960). Rev. Carr graduated from University of Central Florida (then known as Florida Technological University) in 1972, with a bachelors degree in engineering (electrical) and promptly (with a draft lottery number of three, it had to be prompt) entered the Navy via the Officer Candidate School at Newport, R.I. He served in USS LaMoure County (LST-1194) from 1973 to 1976, as Damage Control Assistant and Main Propulsion Assistant. He transferred from the Line to the Civil Engineer Corps (CEC) and served as the Staff Civil Engineer, Naval Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor (1976-1978) and as an Assistant Resident Office in Charge of Construction, with OICC MidPac (1978-1979). Rev. Carr was released from active duty in August 1979, to enroll at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and graduated in 1983. He became pastor of Nazareth Lutheran Church, Hopewell, Va., in June 1983, and served there until August 1994, when he resigned his call to return to the Seminary for graduate study. In 1997, he was awarded the Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.) degree, for which he had prepared a thesis titled Hermeneutical Approaches to the Isaiah Apocalypse. During this time, as he continued his graduate study in the Ph.D. program, Rev. Carr began to teach, on a contract basis, the pre-seminary courses Old Testament Content & History and Elementary Hebrew, and the first-generation DELTO course in Old Testament. Rev. Carr was contracted in September 2000 to prepare for appointment to the role of academic advisor and registrar by participating in training and implementation of a comprehensive administrative software system (Banner). He was called to the faculty in May 2001 as an assistant professor of exegetical theology and in July 2001 assumed the duties of academic advisor and registrar, with responsibilities for general academic advising for all students, registration, preparation and maintenance of academic records, recommendations for academic policy and curricular review. The title changed, in 2004, to director of academic programming, with the authorization of a professional-staff registrar, and the responsibilities became more oriented to policy and curriculum. He also served for several years as the chairman of the admissions committee. He requested release from his administrative role in July 2010, in order to concentrate more fully on his own doctoral program requirements, with the goal of getting it done, and on teaching and research. Rev. Carr has one published article: Charity under the Covenant as Reminder of Redemption, in Concordia Journal (October 1998). He has written routinely for Homiletical Helps. He has delivered a sectional paper on ecumenical theology for the Seminarys Theological Symposium, and papers on topics related to his doctoral research for the Day of Exegetical Reflection, which precedes the Theological Symposium, and a sectional paper, Slow Church A Foodies Concern about the Fast Food and Fast Life of the Industrialized Church, for the Theological Professors Convocation (in 2009 at Fort Wayne, Ind.). Rev. Carrs areas of interest include hermeneutics, especially the engagement of contemporary literary theory for reading (which entails interpreting and understanding) the Bible; the biblical theology of creation, as it applies to environmental stewardship, and to analogies from creation for the way we do church. Rev. Carr enjoys music, from bluegrass to (some) blues and jazz to classical, and reading. His primary hobby is golf (with too few opportunities to exercise it). Rev. Carr and his wife, Nedra, who works part-time in the Seminary library, live in St. Louis, and are blessed to have their son, his wife, and two grandsons, live nearby.