Research and Scholarship

The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary helps people to explore what it means to be Reformed in the 21st Century. As part of that mission, every year, the Center offers three fellowships—in the areas of history, worship, and women’s studies—to people who are working on projects and could benefit from an intense time of research in the New York metropolitan area. Fellowship recipients get access to the resources of the Seminary as well as the Archives of the Reformed Church in America, as well as the use of an apartment in New Brunswick for up to two weeks if needed.

For more information about the fellowships, contact James Brumm, director of the Center, at jbrumm@nbts.edu.

The Reformed Church Center provides opportunities for research through three fellowship programs, The Albert A Smith Fellowship, The Alvin J. Poppen And John R. Young Fellowship, and The Hazel B. Gnade Fellowship.

The Albert A Smith Fellowship
An opportunity for research in Reformed Church History

The Smith Fellowship provides a stipend of $500.00 and the possibility of a two-week residency at New Brunswick Theological Seminary to support research into the history of the Reformed tradition, particularly as it pertains to the Reformed Church in America (RCA). It was established in memory of the Rev. Albert A Smith, late pastor of the First Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York, and author of a history of the Preakness Reformed Church in Wayne, New Jersey. The resources of the seminary and the RCA Archives are at the Fellow’s disposal, including advice and assistance of the faculty, the RCA Archivist, and the library staff. The Fellow will present a lecture to the seminary community.

Previous fellows have included pastors and lay persons with historical interests as well as professional scholars. Projects have focused on a variety of topics, such as the evolution of particular congregations or classes, the ideas of leading Reformed figures, and the trajectories of church growth and decline. The selection committee looks for applications that show careful planning; a good grasp of the project’s purpose, scope, and significance; and clarity about how the results of the project will be disseminated. Preference will be given to applicants who have already begun research in a project and will thus able to share preliminary results in the Smith Lecture.

Applications are due by April 1, for fellowships during the following academic year. Click here to download the application document; please address any questions to James Hart Brumm, Director of the Reformed Church Center (jbrumm@nbts.edu).

The Alvin J. Poppen And John R. Young Fellowship
An opportunity for research and/or presentation in Reformed Worship and Liturgy

The Alvin J. Poppen and John R. Young Fellowship provides a $500.00 stipend, travel expenses, and the possibility of a two-week residency at New Brunswick Theological Seminary to support research in Reformed Worship, particularly as it pertains to the RCA. It has been established by gifts from friends of Alvin J. Poppen and the late John R. Young. The resources of the Seminary, as well as the wide variety of worship resources and experiences in the New York metropolitan area, are at the Fellow’s disposal. The Fellow will provide an experience of the results of the work, through a lecture, a convocation on the theme chosen, or some other public expression shared with the Seminary community.

Anyone with an interest in Reformed Worship is encouraged to apply. This is an opportunity for personal study that can improve the vitality of the worshiping church. The selection committee looks for applications that show careful planning and a good grasp of the project’s purpose, scope, and significance. Preference will be given to applicants who have already begun research in a project and will thus able to share preliminary results in the presentation.

Applications are due by April 1, for fellowships during the following academic year. Click here to download the application document; please address any questions to James Hart Brumm, Director of the Reformed Church Center (jbrumm@nbts.edu).

The Hazel B. Gnade Fellowship
An opportunity for research in RCA Women’s Studies

The Hazel B. Gnade Fellowship provides a $500.00 stipend and the possibility of a two-week residency at New Brunswick Theological Seminary to support research in the history of women’s involvement in the RCA. The resources of the seminary and the RCA Archives are at the Fellow’s disposal, including advice and assistance of the faculty, the RCA Archivist, and the library staff. The Fellow will present a lecture to the seminary community. This fellowship has been established in memory of Hazel B. Gnade, a long-time member of the RCA Women’s Board of Foreign Missions.

Anyone with an interest in the history of women in the RCA is encouraged to apply. The selection committee looks for applications that show careful planning; a good grasp of the project’s purpose, scope, and significance; and clarity about how the results of the project will be disseminated. Preference will be given to applicants who have already begun research in a project and will thus be able to share preliminary results in the Gnade Lecture.

Applications are due by April 1, for fellowships during the following academic year. Click here to download the application document; please address any questions to James Hart Brumm, Director of the Reformed Church Center (jbrumm@nbts.edu).

Click here to download a PDF of this information. 

2019-2020 Fellowship Recipients

The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary helps people to explore what it means to be Reformed in the 21^st Century. We are pleased to announce the two fellows who will help us do that during the 2019-2020 school year.

Fred Mueller—2019-20 Albert A Smith Fellow in RCA History

Fred Mueller is a 1975 graduate of NBTS, who earned his DMin at Chicago Theological Seminary in 2008. He has pastored RCA congregations in Jersey City, New Jersey, and in Herkimer, Hudson, and Locust Valley, New York For the past sixteen years, he has pastored the Hillsborough Reformed Church in Millstone, New Jersey. 

At Hillsborough, Dr. Mueller is living in the same house that Edwin Tanjore Corwin did when pastoring the congregation from 1863-1888. One of the little-known stories of Corwin’s career and that congregation’s life is how Corwin sponsored the first Japanese students at Princeton Seminary, Rutgers, and NBTS, including Hikoichi Orita, who returned to Japan to establish the modern secondary education system. The way in which Hillsborough provided a connection between Princeton, New Brunswick, and Japan is the focus of his fellowship work.

Lynn Japinga—2019-20 Hazel B. Gnade Fellow in RCA Women’s Studies

Lynn Japinga holds degrees from Hope College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary in New York, and is Professor of Religion at Hope College. She is the author of Loyalty and Loss: The Reformed Church in America, 1945-1994 and Preaching the Women of the Old Testament: Who They Were and Why They Matter.  She is examining how divorce has been dealt with in the RCA. What has General Synod said about divorce? How did churches handle it? In particular, she would like to explore what seems to be a larger than average divorce rate among RCA clergy women, particularly those ordained in the first ten decade after 1979. Many of them have entered into quite happy second marriages. 

This topic is significant first because people are still divorcing; do they find RCA congregations to be supportive places for them? Also, the way that the RCA has dealt with divorce could be a useful case study as we wrestle with questions of same-sex marriage and the ordination of lbgtq+ people. In the 1950s and 1960s, divorce would have been considered sinful and immoral. Divorced people may have been unwelcome. But fifty years later, divorce is seen as something that happens to many families, and most congregations are welcoming, or at least not obviously judgmental. How did this change happen?

2018-2019 School Year Fellowship Recipients

The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary helps people to explore what it means to be Reformed in the 21^st Century. We are pleased to announce the three fellows who will help us do that during the 2018-2019 school year.

Emily Brink—2018-19 Poppen-Young Fellow in Reformed Worship

Dr. Brink is Resource Development Specialist for Congregational Song at the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship, where she has been on staff since 2002. Prior to that, she spent nineteen years as Music and Liturgy Editor for the Christian Reformed Church in North America, editing the 1987 Psalter Hymnal, Songs for LiFE, and Sing! A New Creation. She was also founding editor of the journal Reformed Worship. In 2004, she co-edited The Worship Sourcebook with John Witvliet. In addition to teaching at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary (both in Grand Rapids, MI), she has taught in colleges and seminaries and led conferences around the world. Her project will be a comparison of twentieth-century liturgical developments in the CRC and the RCA.

The Alvin J. Poppen and John R. Young Fellowship supports research in Reformed Worship, particularly as it pertains to the RCA. It has been established by gifts from friends of Alvin J. Poppen and the late John R. Young, long-time members of the RCA denominational staff. Dr. Brink will be resident in New Brunswick during the first two weeks of April, 2019, with a presentation scheduled for 11 April 2019.

David Zwart—2018-2019 Albert A. Smith Fellow in Reformed Church History

Dr. Zwart is Assistant Professor of History, Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, and holds a Ph.D. in History from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His doctoral dissertation is “Faithful Remembering: Dutch-American Protestant Commemorations, 1924-1976.” He has also authored numerous articles and essays. His project will look at how RCA congregations in New York and New Jersey constructed a Dutch-American identity in the twentieth century.

The Albert A. Smith Fellowship supports research into the history of the Reformed tradition, particularly as it pertains to the Reformed Church in America (RCA). It was established by First Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York, in memory of the Reverend Albert A Smith, late pastor of that congregation and author of a history of the Preakness Reformed Church in Wayne, New Jersey. Dr. Zwart will be resident in New Brunswick during two weeks in the fall, 2018, term.

Elizabeth Estes—2018-2019 Hazel B. Gnade Fellow in RCA Women’s Studies\

Ms. Estes, a business writer and strategy consultant, was awarded the Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 2017, with her chief area of study being and exploration of why Christianity seems to be at war with itself. She is a former chaplaincy resident at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, an elder at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, a new member of the Reformed Church in America Commission on Theology, and a licensed candidate for ministry under the care of the RCA Classis of New Brunswick. Her project is titled: “God’s Inclusive Future: Persons, Offices, and the Local Church”.

The Hazel B. Gnade Fellowship has been established in memory of Hazel B. Gnade, a long-time member of the RCA Women’s Board of Foreign Missions, to encourage research into the history and theology of women’s ministry in the RCA. 

The Reformed Church Center will begin receiving applications for the 2019-2020 fellowships in November. These fellowships each offer a $500.00 stipend, two-weeks’ residency in New Brunswick, access to all the resources of New Brunswick Theological Seminary and the RCA Archives, and an opportunity to share learnings in a Reformed Church Center program.  For more information, contact James Hart Brumm, director of the Center, at jbrumm@nbts.edu or 732-247-5241.

Last year’s fellowship recipients

The Albert A. Smith Fellowship
The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary is pleased to announce that the Rev. Harold “Hank” Lay of Brick, New Jersey, has been chosen as the Albert A. Smith Fellow in Reformed Church History for the 2017-2018 academic year. Lay, a retired RCA Minister of Word and Sacrament and a native of Fair Lawn, NJ, holds degrees from Hope College (1968) and Western Theological Seminary (1971), both in Holland, Michigan. He also attended the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and Claremont, California, Graduate University. A minister of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) ordained in 1978, he served churches in northern New Jersey and on Long Island, New York. He has been engaged in ecumenical and interfaith relations throughout his ministry, and has visited mission sites in Honduras, the Sudan, and Ethiopia.

The RCA has a long history of work in the Arabian Gulf that has expanded to other locales inhabited by Muslims. For over one hundred years, these interactions took place in foreign lands. But over the past 50 years, via immigration and conversion, Muslims have grown to 0.9% of the US population, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center study. The current political climate, heightened by the violence of ISIS, leads Americans to see Muslims as a threat. Yet we have so much in common—religiously and as human beings. Can our missionaries help the American church see that and find the presence of God in our common present? Lay’s Smith Fellowship project hopes to learn from the past in a way that will illumine and guide the present, especially within the Reformed Church. How did RCA missionaries among Muslims speak about Jesus? In what ways did they try to bridge the chasm?  And what can we, who now have Muslims living among our Christian communities, learn from these apologists for the Christian faith?  All of this builds on his continuing quest to discern God’s relationship with and between Christians and Muslims and to serve the church with my findings.

The Albert A. Smith Fellowship provides a modest stipend of and the possibility of a two-week residency at New Brunswick Theological Seminary to support research into the history of the Reformed tradition, particularly as it pertains to the RCA. It was established by the First Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York, in memory of the Rev. Albert A Smith, late pastor of that congregation and author of a history of the Preakness Reformed Church in Wayne, New Jersey. Previous fellows have included pastors and lay persons with historical interests as well as professional scholars. Projects have focused on a variety of topics, such as the evolution of particular congregations or classes, the ideas of leading Reformed figures, and the trajectories of church growth and decline. Each Smith Fellow presents a lecture to the seminary community.

The Alvin J. Poppen And John R. Young Fellowship
The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary is pleased to announce that the Rev. Paul G. Janssen of Somerville, New Jersey, has been chosen as the Alvin J. Poppen-John R. Young Fellow in Reformed Worship for the 2017-2018 academic year. Janssen is pastor of United Reformed Church in Somerville and holds degrees from Central College in Palla, Iowa (1981) and New Brunswick Theological Seminary (1985). During his seminary years he met and married Annette Giles, a daughter of First Reformed Church in Astoria, Queens. They have two grown children, Samuel and Emma. Paul served two other congregations in New Jersey: Third Reformed Church in Hackensack, and Pascack Reformed Church in Park Ridge. He has always had a keen interest in the liturgical life and renewal of the church, and finds deep value in both the historic reformed tradition and more contemporary influences like Taizé and Iona. An occasional composer of hymns and music, Paul continues the tradition of singing a new song to the Lord.

Janssen plans to use the Poppen-Young Fellowship to study ways to share with worship leaders and practitioners information on recent studies of how worship effects the human brain—an interest that was sparked for him by an elder in one of the congregations he served. He hopes to raise a few basic questions that are appropriate to a scientifically ‘lay’ audience:

• How do neurologists see inside the brain?
• How do the (normal) brains of worshippers experience worship practices?
• What practical implications might brain science have for worship?

While it may be playfully said that congregants who worship in the northern European tradition tend to worship “from the neck up,” there is a good deal of truth in the old saw. However, while worshippers in some traditions may be more physically “present” during worship, all have “a lot going on upstairs” as they gather in the presence of God. Janssen’s research hopes to contribute to the church’s calling to perform the gospel with the best tools it has available.

The Alvin J. Poppen-John R. Young Fellowship provides a modest stipend of and the possibility of a two-week residency at New Brunswick Theological Seminary to support in Reformed Worship, particularly as it pertains to the Reformed Church in America (RCA).  It was established by gifts from friends of Alvin J. Poppen and the late John R. Young, long-time members of the RCA denominational staff. The resources of the Seminary, as well as the wide variety of worship resources and experiences in the New York metropolitan area, are at the Fellow’s disposal. Each Smith Fellow provides an experience of the results of the work, through a lecture, a convocation on the theme chosen, or some other public expression shared with the Seminary community.