David H. Kelsey, ‘58 B.D., ‘60 M.A., ‘64 Ph.D.

One of the finest traditions of YDS is the excellence of its faculty. Thus, the recipient of the award in Theological Education will be an individual whose scholarship, teaching or leadership and contributions to vocational formation for ministry reflect the best of YDS traditions.

David H. Kelsey is the Luther A. Weigle Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School. Kelsey graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1958 and with a Ph.D. in 1964. He was on the faculty at YDS from 1965 to 2005, during which time he published several books including Imagining Redemption (Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), Between Athens and Berlin: The Theological Education Debate (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), and To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological about Theological Education? (Westminster John Knox Press, 1992). Most recently he has published the two-volume title, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology, (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). In 2011 he gave the Warfield Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary, entitled “Glory, Kingdom, and Power: Stammering about God.” In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Tubingen in Germany, a great honor for an international scholar.