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Community Member Eugene R. Schlesinger

Eugene Schlesinger

Eugene Schlesinger is Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. The author of Sacrificing the Church: Mass, Mission, and Ecumenism (Fortress Academic, 2019) and Missa Est! A Missional Liturgical Ecclesiology (Fortress Press, 2017), and the editor of Covenant, he understands his vocation to be an Episcopalian who does Catholic theology. He is a systematic theologian by training and, works primarily at the intersection of ecclesiology and sacramental theology. Since discovering Augustine of Hippo, much of his intellectual energy has been devoted to recovering the relevance of a theology of sacrifice for understanding “God, the universe, and everything,” which will be the subject matter of his next book (currently in progress). He is a committed Thomist insofar as he believes that understanding is good, and that being is intelligible, and he strives to belong to what Bernard Lonergan described as a “perhaps not numerous center.”

Through a circuitous route, Gene has “come home” to the Anglican fold. Raised Catholic by Yankee parents in the Protestant South, he experienced an evangelical conversion in a Baptist setting, and began a sojourn among them. His undergraduate degree in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro enriched what would otherwise be a bare Protestantism with essential texts and figures from throughout the Christian tradition. After M.Div. studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological seminary, Gene spent the next five years in pastoral ministry, most of it in church plant contexts.

Near the end of seminary, he experienced a sacramental and liturgical reawakening when he discovered Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Radical). Ever the eclecticist, he turned to John Calvin to help him reconcile these sacramental tendencies with his otherwise Evangelical outlook. After some flirtation with Presbyterianism, Gene found what he was looking for in the Anglican tradition. During doctoral studies at Marquette University, he learned and appropriated Catholic theology in a variety of forms (especially Patristic and contemporary instantiations), and is happy to belong to a tradition where all of his Evangelical and Catholic commitments are at home.

Gene peaked early, marrying his wife, Loren in 2002. Together they have two daughters, Joann, and Evelyn, whom they homeschool. The family loves camping, games (the nerdy variety), cooking (including forays into making cheese and mead) reading, and (to Gene’s chagrin) show tunes. He and his family attend St. Francis Episcopal Church in Willow Glen, California.

Lent is for Making Christians: The Way of Love Can Show Us How

Eugene R. Schlesinger
February 16, 2021
Commentary, Liturgy, The Episcopal Church, The Way of Love
By Eugene R. Schlesinger Lent is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. On the one hand, it’s fairly unpleasant. My daughters, for instance, spend Gesimatide lamenting the fast approach (no pun intended) of Ash ... Read More...

Comfort Food

Eugene R. Schlesinger
January 15, 2021
Bible, Commentary, Good Book Club, The Episcopal Church
Mark 6:30–8:26 By Eugene R. Schlesinger With these verses we approach the mid-point at the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus will ask his disciples, and, by extension, us: “Who do you say that I am?” Mark’s Gospe... Read More...

The Ten Commandments: Timeless, Just Not the Way you Think

Eugene R. Schlesinger
August 19, 2020
Bible, Catechesis, Commentary, Ethics, Ten Commandments, The Episcopal Church
By Eugene R. Schlesinger The Ten Commandments, recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, are the centerpiece of the Mosaic legislation, and have long been a major focus of Christian catechesis (alongs... Read More...

In the Midst of Life We are in Death: Eastertide and the Pandemic

Eugene R. Schlesinger
April 13, 2020
Commentary, Liturgy, The Episcopal Church
Here we are in Easter, yet it feels more like an extended Holy Saturday.

“Hell is Other People,” but Heaven Can’t Be: The Good Place’s Unintentionally Augustinian Outcome

Eugene R. Schlesinger
February 6, 2020
Ethics, Reviews & Culture, The Episcopal Church, TV
With its final door, The Good Place proves useful for our journey once more: we cannot stop here, we must journey on.

Mystery of Mysteries

Eugene R. Schlesinger
December 25, 2019
Commentary, Contributors, The Episcopal Church
By Eugene R. Schlesinger What is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out? (Psalm 8:5) There is a wonder in being small and recognizing your smallness. Living ... Read More...

Dialogue among Presbyterians

Eugene R. Schlesinger
June 18, 2019
Books, Reviews & Culture, The Episcopal Church
Review: Flawed Church, Faithful God: A Reformed Ecclesiology for the Real World By Joseph D. Small. Eerdmans. Pp. 242. $35 Church in Ordinary Time: A Wisdom Ecclesiology By Amy Plantinga Pauw. Eerdm... Read More...

‘And Now Our Watch Has Ended’: Game of Thrones and Disappointing Endings

Eugene R. Schlesinger
May 24, 2019
Movies, Reviews & Culture, The Episcopal Church
The dissatisfying conclusion of Game of Thrones may well be the triumph of its artistic vision.
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