An Interview with
The Rev . Dr . Thomas E . Frank
Genece Minshew
T he Rev . Dr . Thomas E .
Frank has served as a pastor , teacher and leader in United Methodism and historic preservation for decades , in recent years serving as University Professor at Wake Forest University and Chairperson of Partners for Sacred Places . In the wake of the publication of his book , Historic Houses of Worship in Peril : Conserving Their Place in American Life , Bob Jaeger sat down with Frank to discuss how he came to write the book , and what he learned about the value and vulnerability of sacred places today .
Bob Jaeger : You ' re one of a small handful of people in America who have degrees in divinity and historic preservation . Can you tell me how that came about ?
Tom Frank : Well , I ' ve always been interested in urban studies and understanding how cities evolve . Going way back , though , I ' ve always been fascinated with ruins . When I was a little boy , I remember climbing around in a ghost town in Colorado and disappearing up on the second floor of an abandoned building with my mother screaming my name for fear I ’ d fall through the floor .
It ' s been a lifelong fascination with older buildings and the stories they tell . That evolved into a lot of reading and writing about sense of place and what gives particular locales their genius loci — the spirit of the place . And then I discovered the historic preservation Master ' s degree program at Georgia State University .
My degree work really deepened and rounded out a lot of my knowledge . And it fits very closely with the theology that I ' ve always lived by , which is that faith is meant to be lived . It ’ s not an abstract ideology . To me , it ' s about how you live .
I retired from ordained ministry after 45 years , and over that time began to realize how so many ordained people consider the building secondary or an afterthought . They ’ d rather not have to bother with it . And by A . Robert Jaeger
President , Partners for Sacred Places
I ’ m like , no , this is the space you ’ ve been given as a resource for ministries .
BJ : So what got you interested in North Adams , Massachusetts as a place to examine ? And when did you realize there was a story there regarding closing churches , transitioning churches , sacred places at risk ?
TF : Sometime around 2006 , my wife , Gail * and I had been going to the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown , which is adjacent to North Adams .
One day we drove through North Adams and I began to really notice that there were several different ethnic Roman Catholic parishes , some of which had closed . I noticed that the Unitarian Universalist Building had been converted to a sort of a museum by an artist , and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts was using the old synagogue as its auditorium .
So it occurred to me that this is a microcosm of America . Where else am I going to find this range of religious groups on a compact , accessible scale , where I could meet people who didn ’ t hesitate to share their memories and tell what they ’ re worried about ? I made an effort to meet people in the houses of worship and tried to attend services as often as possible . I met with the mayor and the town planners , a banker , store owners , artists , people who ran galleries , and most importantly , the people who ran the North Adams Historical Society .
© Amazon
* Editor ’ s note : The Rev . Dr . Gail O ’ Day , New Testament scholar who most recently served as Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity , died in 2018 .
10 SACRED PLACES • FALL / WINTER 2021 / 22