Paul Chaim Schenck is a Spiritual Integrator and pastoral counselor.
Early life and work
Schenck was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, to Henry Schenck and Marjorie Apgar. He has two sisters, Kathleen Bauer and Colleen Tappan, and an identical twin brother, Robert, with whom he was raised in Grand Island, New York. His father was born Jewish and his mother converted to Judaism from the Catholic and Anglican churches. He and his brother attended Beth El Hebrew School in nearby Niagara Falls until the sixth grade. As a teenager, Schenck turned away from Judaism, and after a period of atheism and agnosticism, he became a born-again Christian. He was married in 1977 in an interfaith ceremony in the Assembly of God church in Niagara Falls. While attending the Elim Bible Institute and College in Lima, New York, he was youth minister on Grand Island, New York, and an assistant pastor and pastor in the Town of Tonawanda, New York. Afterward, he was director of the Empire State Teen Challenge center, a faith-based residential treatment program for persons with "life-controlling problems" such as substance use and abuse, antisocial behaviors, criminal conduct, and relational conflicts. After joining the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1994, he was vicar of a mission in Virginia Beach, Virginia and later rector of a historic Anglican parish in Catonsville, Maryland.
Education and experience
Schenck graduated from the Luther Rice University with a B.A. in biblical studies with a focus on the Old Testament in 1984. He stood his canonical examinations for ordination in the Reformed Episcopal Church at the Philadelphia Theological Seminary in 1995. In 2007, he received a Master Certificate in Executive Leadership from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. In 2009, he completed certification with the Pastoral Provision at Immaculate Conception Graduate School of Theology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ and received the Certificate of Preparation for Ordination from the theological faculty there. He studied liturgical theology with Msgr. Kevin Irwin at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He received a master's degree in bioethics from the Pope John Paul II Bioethics Institute at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. In 2013, Schenck was awarded a certificate in health care ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He completed coursework with the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Virginia, where he gained the degree of Master of Science in psychology, and holds dual Doctorates in Educational Leadership and Pastoral Practice from the St. Thomas University School of Arts and Education and the Graduate Theological Foundation. He was granted the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Franciscan University. Schenck is a member of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. where he completed the Master Course in bioethics taught by Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, the noted bioethicist and academic. Schenck is a registered practitioner with the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, is Board Certified in Pastoral Counseling, and is listed as a pastoral psychotherapist with Psychology Today. He is currently working as a spiritual integrator at the Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, as well as a private practitioner in spiritual counseling. Between 1988 and 1992 Schenck became known as a pro-life activist, author, media commentator, and as a leader of large public demonstrations. He challenged a federal injunction prohibiting certain demonstration activity. The case, Schenck V. Pro-Choice Network was decided by the US Supreme Court, which found 8 -1 that certain restrictions against Schenck violated the First Amendment, while others were permissible in the interest of public safety. Between 1994 and 1997 Schenck was executive vice president of the American Center for Law & Justice, a public interest law firm then headed by attorney Jay Alan Sekulow. After 2016, he and his twin brother, Robert, "Rev. Rob Schenck", publicly distanced themselves from the pro-life movement. Rob Schenck published a memoir criticizing the movement for making moral compromises in exchange for political legitimacy. The Schenck brothers no longer consider themselves pro-life leaders.
Professional Life
As of 2020, Schenck is a spiritual integration therapist in private practice with clients in telehealth, clinical, and office practice. He is a member of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education in which he is a registered practitioner. He is also a member of the National Board of Pastoral Counselors, the American Counseling Association, and the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. In his Pastoral Counseling practice, he uses an eclectic approach, with the main focus in Logotherapy, developed by the renowned neuro-psychiatrist and author Dr. Viktor Frankl. Logotherapy aims to discover and apply a sense of meaning and purpose in overcoming problems in life such as substance use and abuse, relational conflicts, self-esteem, and self-care, anxiety and depression, and spiritual needs such as love, companionship, enjoyment, optimism and religious satisfaction. He is a faculty member of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, and has taught at the Elim Bible Institute, the Reformed Episcopal Seminary, and Thomas More College. In 2019 ProQuest published his research in the experience and operation of sensual and emotional empathy using the seminal theoretical work of Edith Stein.
Personal life
Schenck is married to Rebecca "Becky" Wald, an artist and gardener, and founding CEO of BookNow, an online book and media resale service. They have eight children and five grandchildren.
