Douglas F. Kelly
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Douglas Floyd Kelly (born September 23, 1943) is a Presbyterian pastor, theologian and noted author, who was the Richard Jordan Professor of Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary for 33 years from 1982 to 2016, during which time he published numerous books and articles, of which he is best known for If God Already Knows, Why Pray? (1992), his translations of Calvin's Sermons on II Samuel (1989) and his three volume magnum opus of systematic theology: Volume One: The God Who Is: The Holy Trinity (Mentor, 2008); Volume Two: The Beauty of Christ: A Trinitarian Vision (Mentor, 2014); and Volume Three: The Holy Spirit and the Church (Mentor, 2021).
Douglas was born in 1943 in Lumberton, NC to Martha Pate Kelly and Floyd Ferguson Kelly while his father was in the army on the Western Front in France and Germany. He remained an only child but spent the summers through university on the family farm in Carthage, NC, which formation in family history would lead to two later publications: Carolina Scots: An Historical and Genealogical Study of Over 100 Years of Immigration (1998); and The Scottish Blue Family in North America. After completing high school at Lumberton High, he entered the University of North Carolina, where he received his B. A. in Classics (1961-1965), studying not only Latin and Greek, but also Hebrew, German, French and Gaelic. His final year he became part of UNC's first academic exchange with the University of Lyon, where he obtained a Diplome de Langue et de Civilisation Francaises. He returned to the U.S. to enter seminary at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA with a summer internship after his first year at First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS under Rev. John Reed Miller with the next two summers spent at Raeford Presbyterian Church in NC. After completion of his M. Div. (1968), he was awarded a one year academic scholarship from the St. Andrews Society of NY to pursue further theological studies at Edinburgh University (1968-1969). After returning to Raeford the following year to initially work under Cortez Cooper (who was eventually called to First Presbyterian Church of Nashville), he became the interim senior minister. When the Torrance brothers secured funding for further theological studies, he returned to Edinburgh (1970-1973) where he completed his PhD studies in Patristics under Thomas F. Torrance, completing the first English translation with commentary of Novatian of Rome's De Trinitate. At the conclusion of his studies in 1973 he became engaged to fellow theological student Caroline Switzer (of Cambridge, U.K.) and were married in Lumberton, NC, that same year.
He then took his first long term call as senior minister of First Presbyterian Church in Dillon, SC where he remained from 1973 to 1981. From the Carolinas he and his then family of four children transitioned to Northern, CA where he had received funding for two years of translation work on John Calvin's Sermons on Second Samuel which he later published with Banner of Truth. From the years of 1981-1983, he worked there with a somewhat controversial figure, R.J. Rushdoony, editing the Journal of Christian Reconstruction, speaking domestically and internationally, and carrying on the translation work. During the end of his time in CA, he was called by Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, to be their Professor of Systematic Theology. With a fifth child recently born, the family returned to the South, where Dr. Kelly taught at the Jackson campus for the next 12 years, working with David F. Wright at the University of Edinburgh as editor-in-chief of Calvin's Old Testament commentary.
As RTS opened further extension campuses first in Orlando, then later Charlotte, Dr. Kelly made weekly trips at different periods to each one as a visiting lecturer, ultimately transitioning to Charlotte in 1994, when RTS purchased the former Carmel Baptist Church as a full campus. He remained there as the Richard Jordan Professor of Theology until his retirement in 2016, and now holds the title of Professor of Theology Emeritus In addition to full-time teaching as well as writing (below), he spent nearly every Sunday when he was in Jackson and later in Charlotte preaching exegetically through various books of the Bible. These churches included First Presbyterian Church (Young Seekers' Sunday School Class), Trinity Presbyterian in Jackson (interim), Second Presbyterian in Yazoo City (interim Wednesdays and Sunday evenings), Sovereign Grace in Charlotte (of which he was a founding member) and Reedy Creek Presbyterian Church in Minturn, SC. From the time in Mississippi, we have his commentary on II Corinthians, New Life in the Wasteland: 2 Corinthians on the Cost and Glory of Christian Ministry. And from Reedy Creek we have the commentaries of Revelation and later Deuteronomy. The sermons from each of these eras are in the process of being digitized and placed on a dedicated site, DFKarchives.org.
