Education

Ph.D. (Duke University)
M.A.R. (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary)
B.A. (Salem College)

Dr. Susan Wilds McArver is the H. George Anderson Professor of Church History, Emerita, at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, where she served on the faculty from 1998 until her retirement in 2025. Her areas of scholarly interest include religion in America, diaconal history, women’s history, and the history of Lutherans in the American Southeast.

She is a past president of the Lutheran Historical Conference, a professional organization comprised of historians and archivists of the ELCA, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the Wisconsin Synod. She has served in many capacities in the ELCA, including a term on the ELCA Church Council and as a member of the ELCA’s Word and Service Task Force and its Entrance Rite Discernment Group.

She is a frequent presenter in synods and congregations and currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the James R. Crumley Jr Archives of Region 9 of the ELCA.