Kelsey is a graduate of Haverford College and currently Luther Weigle Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School.
Like his colleagues Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, Kelsey received both a BD (1958) and PhD (1964) from Yale.
He taught in the Religion Department of Dartmouth College from 1961 to 1965 and was a member of the faculty at Yale Divinity School from 1965 until his retirement in 2005.
[1] In 2017 he held The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and their Impact on Culture, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta GA.
In 2012, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Tübingen in Germany.