Thomas R. Kelly

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This article is about Kelly the Quaker. For other people by the same name, see Thomas Kelly (Disambiguation).

Thomas Raymond Kelly (1893-January 17, 1941) was an American Quaker missionary and educator. He taught and wrote on the subject of mysticism. His books are widely read, especially by people interested in spirituality.

Kelly was born in 1893 in Ohio to a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) family. The Quakers in Ohio had been influenced by the 19th Century revivalists and were hardly distinguishable from other low-church Protestant groups.

He graduated in 1913 from Wilmington College as a chemistry major. Then he went to Haverford College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he came under the mentoring of Rufus Jones, a prominent Friend. It was at this time that he came into contact with the more traditional mystical vein of the Religious Society of Friends.

Kelly went to Hartford Theological Seminary to be trained as a missionary. He desired to serve in Asia. When World War I broke out he signed up to do civilian non-combatant service in Europe. Devout Quakers practice pacifism in accordance with the Friends' Peace Testimony. For this reason he chose non-combatant service. Kelly went to England where he worked first with the YMCA and then with German prisoners of war. When he returned to the United States he completed his Seminary training and married Lael Macy.

Kelly taught for two years (1919-1921) at his alma mater, Wilmington College. Then he went back to Hartford Seminary where he earned a doctorate in philosophy and an induction to Phi Beta Kappa. He and his wife then went to Berlin and worked with the American Friends' Service Committee on the reconstruction of Germany.

When he returned, the only job he could find was at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He was unhappy there and came to realize that he did not agree with much of his evangelical background anymore.

In 1930 Kelly began working on a second Ph.D. at Harvard. While working on this degree he taught at Wellesley College (1931-1932) and again at Earlham (1932-1935). In 1935 he went to teach at the University of Hawaii and began advanced research in Eastern philosophies.

In 1936 Kelly became a professor at Haverford College. He published the dissertation for his second doctorate in 1937, but he failed in the oral defense due to a memory lapse. This failure put Kelly into a period of grief, during which time he apparently had a spiritual awakening.

In 1938 Kelly went to Germany to encourage Friends living under Hitler's regime.

Kelly received word on January 17, 1941 that Harper and Brothers was willing to meet with him to discuss the publication of a devotional book. He died of a heart attack later that same day. Three months later Kelly's colleague, Douglas Steere, submitted five of Kelly's devotional essays to the publisher along with a biographical sketch of Kelly. The book was published under the title A Testament of Devotion. Some of his other essays have been collected in a book entitled The Eternal Promise.