I recently learned of the death of Chuck Carlston, my former teacher and longtime friend. Chuck also officiated at our wedding in 1987. The following obituary was mostly prepared by his family; with their permission, I added material about his scholarly life.
Charles Edwin Carlston
November 14, 1923–October 19, 2026
A Magnificent Life
The Rev. Dr. Charles Edwin Carlston, 102, of San Rafael, California, passed away on October 19, 2026. Known to most people as Chuck, he was born on November 14, 1923, in Lewistown, Montana, and grew up in Minneapolis. A beneficiary of Harvard University’s drive to recruit more talented students from outside New England—an example of geographical affirmative action that transformed Chuck’s life, and eventually his descendants’—he entered the College on scholarship in 1941 before leaving to spend three years in the Army, 1943–46.
While continuing his college coursework at the University of Iowa, he met the love of his life, Alice Swain, in a church youth group. Chuck and Alice married on January 5, 1945, while he was still in the Army; they would be together for seventy-six years, until her death in 2021, bonded by their shared faith and their ability to make each other laugh every day. After the war ended, Chuck returned to Cambridge, where Alice was working at the Harvard Observatory, and finished his undergraduate degree in 1947. Their first son was born in the same year, and the young family moved next to Pasadena, California, where Chuck was the first student enrolled at the newly established Fuller Seminary, from which he graduated in 1950.
Ordained to the ministry around 1947 at the First Baptist Church of Eugene, Oregon, he transferred his ministerial standing to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America around 1950–51. Chuck served as pastor of two rural Presbyterian churches in northeastern Iowa, at Wadena and Volga, from 1953 to 1955, and taught church history and New Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary from 1955 to 1964.
Somehow during the same period he found the time to acquire a PhD from Harvard University in 1958. He went on to teach at the University of Iowa, Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts, and (as a guest lecturer) in both West and East Berlin and at Yale Divinity School.
Chuck’s Harvard doctorate, in the History and Philosophy of Religion, was written under the church historian George Huntston Williams. His dissertation, “Metanoia and Church Discipline in the New Testament,” joined the two subjects he was then teaching at Dubuque. Though trained as a historian, he made the New Testament his life’s work—he described himself as an autodidact in the field—and he became a respected interpreter of the Gospels on both sides of the Atlantic. At Andover Newton he held the Norris Chair of New Testament Interpretation from 1971 until his retirement in 1994, and he taught in the school’s joint doctoral program with Boston College, which he twice chaired.
His research centered on the Synoptic Gospels: the parables, the sayings of Jesus and Q, the Sermon on the Mount, and above all Matthew. The Parables of the Triple Tradition (Fortress, 1975) traced how Matthew, Mark, and Luke each reshaped the parables they share. His essay “A Positive Criterion of Authenticity?” (1962) was an early contribution to the debate over how to identify the words of the historical Jesus and was later translated into Japanese. Other articles appeared in the Journal of Biblical Literature, New Testament Studies, the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the Harvard Theological Review, and Interpretation, and in Festschriften for Frans Neirynck and for two of his Fuller teachers, Everett Harrison and George Ladd. He wrote the article “Jesus Christ” for Harper’s Bible Dictionary, and with Robert Scharlemann he translated the Festschrift for Rudolf Bultmann as The Future of Our Religious Past (1971). His long-planned book on Matthew appeared as From Synagogue to Ecclesia: Matthew’s Community at the Crossroads, written with Craig A. Evans (Mohr Siebeck, 2014), when he was ninety.
Chuck served the guild generously. He edited Biblical Research (1966–68) and the Society of Biblical Literature’s Sources for Biblical Study series (1979–82), served as president of the SBL’s New England section (1979–80), and was a member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas and the Catholic Biblical Association. Sealantic and Fulbright fellowships took him to Germany, and other grants took him to Jerusalem and Claremont; in 1988, the year before the Wall fell, he lectured at the Sprachenkonvikt in East Berlin. He never stopped being a minister. A member of the Presbytery of Boston from 1969 and of the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts from 1983, he served as parish associate at Newton Presbyterian Church in 1985–86.
Chuck and Alice had two more boys, followed by a daughter born in Korea and adopted in 1962, and another daughter born shortly thereafter. In addition to the sabbaticals in Germany and in Jerusalem, they spent time living in Barcelona, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, and California. Chuck was almost as enthusiastic about politics (and his support for the Democratic Party) and sports as he was about theological discussion. In his younger years, he was a competitive pole vaulter; later he became an avid fan of the Celtics and the 49ers. Even more, though, he loved a bad joke and a worse pun.
Of his many accomplishments, Chuck will be most remembered for his dedication to his family and friends. He was a devoted, caring husband, father (and father-in-law), grandfather, and great-grandfather. To the end of his life he maintained an extraordinary network of friendships from his travels and church communities, not to mention among his colleagues and former students. He was firm in his beliefs and generous to all he met, regardless of theirs; his kindness, compassion, and integrity live on in our cherished memories of him. His final act of service to learning and the welfare of others was donating his body to UCSF for research. In the words of one of his dear friends: “What a magnificent life!”
Chuck Carlston was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Alice, and their daughter Cathy. He is survived by sons Douglas (Kathy Williams), Donal (Kristen Johnson Carlston), Gary (Nancy Ranno Carlston), and daughter Erin (Carisa Showden); grandchildren Amanda, J.D., Colleen, Nicole, Tyler, Mark, Jordan, Jason, McCall, Matthew, Katie, and Denman; and nine great-grandchildren, with two more on the way. All of us will miss his vast generosity of spirit, his unconditional love, and his corny jokes forever.
A memorial service will be held at San Geronimo Presbyterian Church at 11:00 a.m. on November 14, 2026, which would have been Chuck’s 103rd birthday. Details about an online link are appended.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Chuck’s honor may be made to Above and Beyond Teaching (formerly the Carlston Family/Broderbund Foundation), the American Indian College Fund, the Carlston Scholarship at Fuller Theological Seminary, or the Mt. Tam Community Land Trust.
San Geronimo Community Presbyterian Church is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Chuck Carlston Memorial Service, 11/14 at 11 am
Time: Nov 14, 2026 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89749997496
Meeting ID: 897 4999 7496
