Hi there. I am a pastor and scholar who speaks about peace and democracy in our troubled times.
Dr. Wadsworth is an ordained clergywoman in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and has worked in local congregations, health care facilities and the U.S. military for over 19 years. She was an Army Chaplain from 2001-2011 and from 2008-2009 deployed with the 81st Brigade (WAANG) to Iraq. In 2018 she received her PhD from Saybrook University in consciousness, spirituality and integrated health. She serves on the board of Veterans for Peace and is board certified with the Association of Professional Chaplains. She resides in the Pacific Northwest. Public speaking: militarism, faith & society, health care, veteran issues, democracy, war & peace, church & state. Contact Dr. Wadsworth here
Speaking Engagements
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Weekly preaching @ Westminster Presbyterian Church
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January 2025 - Sick of War: Discussing Health Impacts of US militarism
https://www.rothkochapel.org/experience/events/register/2584
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National Gun Violence Awareness Day
June 2, 2023
Salem, OR
I bring greetings from Westminster Presbyterian Church, a welcoming faith community in South Salem, where I serve as the pastor and work alongside many saints in this pursuit of a healthier gun culture and a thriving society for all. It is an honor to be with you this evening.
Picture with me life 20 years from now. Picture this wretched chapter of violence over, when the memorials to the lost have been placed, when their precious names have been etched into marble, when the monuments have been erected and we are confident that this civil war is over.
Maybe there will be a holiday, perhaps we will call it the Feast for the Holy Innocents after similar bloodshed in ancient Greece (Matthew 2); perhaps we will call it the Innocent Victims Memorial after a similarly titled monument at Westminster Abbey, or perhaps more honestly, Sacrifices Made to the Gun Gods.
Let’s us dream then about reclaiming a national day dedicated to the well-being of our families whether then are 2 or 22 or 82. Julia Ward Howe envisioned such a day in 1873 and proposed we call it Mother’s Peace Day as she boldly proclaimed in her now infamous letter,
Disarm, Disarm, the sword is not the balance of justice; no longer shall our sons and daughters be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our children to be trained to injure theirs.
Imagine that day when our young adults are no longer robbed of their futures, recruited for suicide missions, and poisoned in their minds. Imagine an unmovable line of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, and neighbors from every race, ethnicity, income, gender identity, ability and disability linked arm in arm from the Atlantic to the Pacific protecting our young people and their God-given right to grow up, to get an education, to fall in love, to have a first job, to share life with 7 roommates and to even get an ill-advised tattoo. Imagine that line of 10 million neighbors unfazed by the gun lobby, unafraid of the gun manufacturers, fierce, bold and committed.
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5/4/23
Grace and peace to you from Westminster Presbyterian Church, a welcoming congregation here in Salem, Oregon and a grateful partner with many in your communities - Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhists, Sikh, Hindu, Native American, and the unaffiliated.
As a Presbyterian, my religious tradition and your particular work today as senators share a common ancestry. 12 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Presbyterian. The Revolutionary War was called the “Presbyterian Rebellion.” (More fascinating PCUSA history). We were all buzzing with the question…
““Where does power rightly belong?” ”
Over time, you and me, the political and the religious spheres together began to dislodge that power from
the monarchy and put it into the people,
from the politicians and the priests (yes we were lumped together) and into the common person.
Not one of us in this room report to a King this morning because our forefathers and foremothers imagined something different. They saw within each and every one of us something divine, something holy, our own self-agency, the ability to determine our own futures, the freedom of our communities to be a variety of things in this world.
And so your work today is no small feat. Make no mistake about it, yours is a whole-hearted task. Your vocation on this 4th day in May stands in a long chain in history to distribute that power and to make royalty of us all, to be the guardians of everyday kings and queens; to rewrite the story of peasants and nobility, to craft a new ending to the old belief that some some rule while others are ruled. Friends, we left that divine right of kings at our shores when we embarked on a new vision of what we might be together – partners, comrades, equals, a coronation for each and every one.
For the day ahead:
May your hearts be wide
May your imaginations be fresh;
May your spirits be high;
May your minds be free;
Amen and thank you.
(5/4/23 Rev. Kelly Wadsworth)
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March 2019
UW School of Public Health symposium: “The Future of the VA: Privatization or Model for a US single Payer System.”
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APC Annual Conference 2019
Orlando, FL
Professional development intensive:
“Million-Dollar Questions: 8 Key Skills for Researching Matters of Soul and Spirit” with Dr. Kelly Wadsworth
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October 2019
Valparaiso University, Indiana
https://sophere.org/archive/regional-conference-indiana-2019/
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Writing Projects
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https://www.saybrook.edu/unbound/armistice-day-veterans-day/
A hundred years after the Armistice of 1918, we reflect on peace and war on what is now Veteran’s Day.
By Kelly Wadsworth
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As I stepped off the C-130 into the sweltering desert heat, the sergeant next to me leaned over and said, “We carry this burden and fight this fight so our children won’t have to.”
It was 2008 and after months of preparation, my National Guard unit had finally landed in Balad, Iraq, for a 12-month tour as part of the Global War on Terrorism. Like the sergeant, a keen sense of idealism had taken root in me, bolstering my survival instincts and providing fuel for the long days ahead. I participated in the Iraq War with the hope that my role would shelter the next generation from having to do something similar. What I could not have known then, but understand now, is that even my loftiest dreams had a darker side.
The war to end all wars
Early in the 20th century, H.G. Wells penned the phrase “the war to end all wars” to describe how World War I would bring about lasting peace. A short time after this, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, the fighting of World War I ceased with the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918. It was ratified on June 28, 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France. In order to prevent such a global nightmare from happening again, a number of international measures were enacted including the League of Nations whose mission was to maintain world peace.
Armistice Day to Veteran’s Day
On June 4, 1926, Congress passed a resolution for the annual observance of Armistice Day
“Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.”
You can almost feel the optimism that another world war would, in fact, be prevented and that the pain of one generation would be redeemed by peace in the next. As we sadly know, this did not happen. World War II broke out 20 years later among the very same countries, leaving another 60 million dead. The next decade would see the Korean War followed by Vietnam, with wars in Laos, Lebanon, Thailand, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, and Panama following shortly after. I cannot help but wonder if those who went before me believed as I did, that their participation would somehow save the next generation from the anguish of battle.
After the end of World War II and at the urging of veteran service organizations, Armistice Day was amended to become Veteran’s Day. I wonder, why the change? Had we given up on keeping the peace? Was Armistice Day too painful of a reminder that with nearly 100 million lives abruptly lost in the span of 30 short years, peace had utterly failed on our watch?
Lie exposed
As we stand on the 100th anniversary of the World War I armistice, we can no longer pretend that any of the wars we fight will be the instrument by which we “end all war.” Nor can we continue with the idea that violent conflict is the mechanism by which we secure our children’s future and shelter them from the horrors of combat. Warfare as perpetual and unavoidable appears to be the lesson we have brought with us into the 21st century and this cup of nihilistic despair affects us all. We have each, in our own way, taken a sip. The narrow belief of war as inevitable is just as hopeless as the naïve belief of peace as easy. We must begin to understand in a new way that many of our conflicts, maybe even all of them, are rarely based on the deep principles of our highest convictions.
As we approach this remembrance, I am fully aware of the human impulse to wage war. However, the compulsion toward destruction and the legacy of mass warfare does not actually relieve me from my duty to engage in the “exercises designed to perpetuate peace.” If goodwill and mutual understanding do in fact pave the way by turning foe into friend and nation into neighbor, then let peace begin with me and let it begin today.
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March 2020 - Saybrook University https://www.saybrook.edu/unbound/asking-the-hard-questions/
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Rev. Wadsworth debunks myths about memorial services and Covid-19.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/coronavirus-readers-responses/
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Local Media
Rev. Wadsworth preparing for Easter in the early days of Covid-19.
