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The Reverend Gordon Jack Schultz, born December 5, 1947, in Seattle, WA, died on October 9, 2024 of dementia and Parkinson's disease, on Cape Cod, MA, surrounded by his family, Christine Mitchell (wife), Marillyn Schultz (sister) of Mukilteo WA, Kristina Elizabeth Schultz Donahue (daughter) of Aldie, VA, and Karl Dietrich Schultz (son) of Jamaica Plain, Boston, MA.

Gordon Jack was proud of growing up on the South Side of Chicago, attending Chicago public schools, North Park College, and Princeton Theological Seminary, where he received the Charlotte Newcombe Award in Ethics, the most prestigious recognition of PhD candidates in humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values. He also spent a year in Switzerland as a Fellow at The Ecumenical Institute at Chateau de Bossey.

The Reverend Gordon Jack Schultz grew up in the (Swedish) Evangelical Covenant Church and began preaching as a teen in Youth for Christ. In his college days he was a student anti-war activist, leading campus protests and teach-ins, writing and acting in plays. He was ordained as a Lutheran pastor and served a mission among the Batak people in North Sumatra, Indonesia with his former wife Nancy (Strandine Schultz) Barnes.  In 1979, while working for the World Council of Churches (an ecumenical alliance of over 300 church denominations in over 100 countries), Gordon Jack organized a World Conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Faith, Science, and the Future.

He subsequently directed the Walker Center for Ecumenical Exchange in Newton MA, developing educational programs and international outreach to promote a faith-based, more just, and peace-filled world. Among other endeavors, he would sometimes tell the story of a project to support Chinese dissident students during the Tiananmen Square protests (April 15 – June 4,1989), hunger strikes, and massacre,  when the Walker Center became a central communication point receiving faxes of information from students and re-distributing them via fax—disguised with pages of Chinese menus-- to dissidents in other cities in order to coordinate their activities even as government guards watched the fax machines in Beijing and other cities.  While at the Walker Center, he also worked with Ed Bednar, Barney Frank, the Dalai Lama, and others on the Tibetan Resettlement Project.

Early in his academic life, Gordon Jack began teaching religious history, philosophy, and ethics. During the '80s and 90s, he collaborated with other theologians and reporter Clark Booth of Boston's ABC TV on a weekly program entitled "In Good Faith," which raised and discussed religious perspectives on such topics as euthanasia, abortion, and mega-churches. He was convener of the Boston Theological Institute Ethicists for many years. He most enjoyed teaching students at Mt Ida College in Newton a few years before it closed in 2018.

The Reverend Schultz assisted Lutheran and Episcopal churches throughout MA and CT as an interim pastor or bridge priest including churches in Arlington, Hopkinton, Roxbury, Sudbury, Waltham, and Newton.  He served as Associate Priest at St Paul's Episcopal Church in Brookline with the Reverend Jeff Mello (now Bishop Diocesan of The Episcopal Church in CT) who literally tied the knot for the sacrament of marriage for Gordon Jack Schultz and Christine Mitchell on 10.10.10 during a Sunday service that neither she nor he ever forgot.

Gordon Jack was a pastor, political activist, theologian, actor, teacher, television commentator, poet, photographer, writer, and lifelong learner who in his last days walked from room to room, carrying and trying to read his books, in his home with Christine in Dennis MA on Cape Cod. Dementia deprived him of the most prized parts of his identity even as he tried to find ways to share his experience of it and organize teaching and support groups for those experiencing the unremitting loss of personal powers, identity, and relationships.

Throughout his life, Gordon Jack nurtured a creative interest in storytelling, radio (with Studs Terkel in Chicago), theatre, photography, and poetry. A few times, he would both perform the wedding service and do the photography for couples in love who could not otherwise bear wedding expenses.  Before he became unable to memorize scripts, he was part of an acting group and had roles in plays produced by The Apollinaire Theatre Company in Chelsea, founded and led by Danielle Fauteux Jacques, and several other plays in the Boston area.

Gordon Jack was the beloved sweetheart of Christine Mitchell, brother of the Reverend Marillyn Schultz Boggs, the father of Kristina Elizabeth Schultz Donahue and Karl Dietrich, stepfather of Charles Benajah Mitchell Potter and Christopher Ralph Mitchell Potter, Morfar of Owen and Cooper, Grandpa Jack to Charlie, Rosie, and Goldie, and colleague or friend of many, here and in other countries. He loved both Boston and Chicago, the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox, Bonhoeffer and Dr. Who, cooking and conversing about politics and the big questions about a life well lived.

It is not possible to summarize Gordon Jack Schultz's life. He was loving, compassionate, and creative, working with groups, parishioners, activists, actors, students, artists, and friends. The unifying principle was his commitment to love and justice, and the firm belief that truth can be found in many forms, sought in many ways.

All are kindly invited to attend visiting hours in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 15 St. Paul Street, Brookline on Friday, November 15, 2024, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. followed by a Celebration of his Life from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the church.

A funeral service will be held in the church on Saturday, November 16, 2024, at 10:30 a.m.  To live stream Gordon's funeral please visit: stpaulsbrookline.org. Interment will take place privately at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Gordon's memory may be made to Lutheran World Relief, P.O. Box 17061, Baltimore, MD 21297-1061 (give.lwr.org) or Episcopal Relief and Development, 815 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10017 (episcopalrelief.org)