Committing Faith in Public with the Rev. Dr. Lisa Barnett

One of the most unfortunate pieces of data from graduate seminary graduating student interviews is which courses graduands wish they had fewer of: history. In this pivotal era of the churches’, the nation’s, and the planet’s lives, there is a great deal of re-imagining and re-telling history happening; and that work directly feeds our current sense of what is necessary today for faithful living.

The Rev. Dr. Lisa Barnett, Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Phillips Theological Seminary, knows the critical importance of knowing history: learning what we did not learn in public schools, re-learning to correct the fictions that served the interests of the ruling classes in another time, and mining history for models of resistance and ally-ship.

Dr. Barnett sat down with Center for Religion in Public Life director, Gary Peluso-Verdend, on a tropical summer day in Tulsa to talk about her background, her love of history, her call, her teaching, and answering the persistent question, “So what?”