Orr was or­dained an Amer­i­can Bap­tist min­is­ter in 1940, at­tend­ed North­west­ern Un­i­ver­si­ty (MA 1941) and North­ern Bap­tist Sem­in­ary (ThD 1943), and served as a chap­lain in the U.S. Air Force in the Pa­ci­fic in World War II. Af­ter the war, he con­tin­ued his school­ing, at­tend­ing Ox­ford Un­i­ver­si­ty (PhD 1948) and the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Los An­ge­les (EdD 1971); he al­so re­ceived hon­o­rary de­grees from an In­di­an sem­in­ary and the Un­i­ver­si­ty of South Afr­i­ca. In 1967 he be­came a pro­fess­or in the School of World Mis­sions at Ful­ler The­o­lo­gic­al Sem­in­ary, Pa­sa­de­na, Cal­i­forn­ia. He wrote at least six hymns, and a number of books, in­clud­ing:

• Can God?, 1934
• This Promise Is to You, 1935
• Times of Refreshing, 1936
• Prove Me Now, 1936
• This Is the Victory, 1936
• All Your Need, 1936
• If Ye Abide, 1936
• Such Things Happen, 1937
• The Church Must First Repent, 1937
• Telling Australia, 1939
• Through Blood and Fire in China, 1939
• Always Abounding, circa 1942
• I Saw No Tears, 1948
• The Second Evangelical Awakening in Britain, 1949
• The Second Great Awakening in Amer­i­ca, 1952

Sources

Hymns

1. Search Me, O God