Robert Gerald Hamerton-Kelly (December 26, 1938 – July 7, 2013) was a Christian theologian, ordained United Methodist pastor, ethics scholar, and author and editor of several books on religion and violence.

In that capacity, he also was minister of Stanford Memorial Church, and a Consulting Professor of Religious Studies and Classics, where he taught New Testament Greek to graduate and undergraduate students.

[6] Another of Hamerton-Kelly's key works was editing 1987's Violent Origins: Walter Burkett, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, a collection of essays from early meetings of the colloquium by Girard, Jonathan Z. Smith, Walter Burkert, Burton L. Mack, and Renato Rosaldo, among others.

[5] He traveled extensively in Central Europe during the early 1990s, shortly after the Revolutions of 1989 had created unprecedented democratization of the region, but which also exposed ethnic friction.

[3][7] He started a speaker series in Woodside that featured several former Stanford colleagues, including Condoleezza Rice and former United States Secretary of Defense William Perry.

[7] After leaving Woodside, Hamerton-Kelly continued to deliver several sermons a month to a smaller congregation based in Palo Alto, California.