RCA History Day

Open to the Whole Community

The Reformed Church Center and the Archives of the Reformed Church in America will be hosting the first-ever “RCA History Day” on Saturday, September 23, 10:00-2:00 at New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

The day will celebrate history in both formal and informal ways. RCA History day is for the whole community–not just the RCA and not just church. It’s an opportunity to learn about digitization of materials (records, video, photos, etc.), meet with a representative of a digitization vendor who can help with the preservation of family items, hear about stained glass windows and how to care for them, meet with a stained glass professional to ask about your own glass work (bring pictures), visit the seminary and Sage Library (acknowledged as the most beautiful library in the state), hear two prominent scholars talk about the Reformation from both a Protestant and a Roman Catholic perspective, and enjoy a variety of other historical fun.

Through the morning—10:00 am to 12:00 noon—participants may rotate through a variety of presentations;

• Preserve Your Memories: Digital Memory Media will be present to provide their services with scanning videos, photos, papers, and any other material for attendees. People may bring the materials with them to drop off with DMM or talk with the representatives to get estimates and suggestions for the best procedure to move precious memories from paper or video tape to digital formats.. To be better informed, attendees may view their website at https://dmmem.com/.
• Stained Glass Care & Handling: Representatives from J & R Lamb Studios, Inc., will review the history of stained glass from the early centuries to today, and discuss why stained glass has been used in religious edifices then and now. Then there will be a discussion of the responsibilities of stewards of these beautiful sacred arts. A checklist for examining windows will be distributed, highlighting how to look for signs of needed repairs and what should be done to make corrections.
• Rutgers Oral History Archives: the director of the oral history archive at Rutgers University will be here to talk about their work and how they document New Jersey history through their extensive program. The director will explain how more than 800 life stories and over 32,000 pages of transcripts offer excellent resources for history. This Archive has also started collecting oral histories of NBTS faculty. See more about them at: http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/
• What to Do With Records: Russell Gasero, RCA Archivist, will be available to answer questions and offer guidance about how to care for local church records as well as personal papers.
• Look Around Historic Sage Library: Gardner A. Sage Library, identified by Tech Insider as the most architecturally beautiful in New Jersey as part of a national survey, will be open for tours through the morning.

At noon, a buffet lunch will be served. This is free for all visitors, although donations to defray the cost will be accepted.

After lunch Dennis Tamburello and Allan Janssen will present “True Confessions: Reformed and Roman Catholic Reflections on the Reformation on its 500th Anniversary.” 

Fr. Dennis Tamburello is Professor of Religious Studies at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, where he teaches courses in theology and the history of Christianity. A part-time prison chaplain for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, he holds a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from the University of Chicago, and is the author of Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), Ordinary Mysticism (Paulist Press, 1996), and Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings (Crossroad Publishing Co., 2000). He is currently working on a new book for Paulist Press, 101 Questions and Answers on the Reformation.

The Rev. Allan Janssen is Affiliate Professor of Theological Studies at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where he teaches RCA polity and doctrinal standards as well as “Theology in Traditions and Contexts.” He is the author, editor, and translator of several books, most recently Confessing the Faith Today: A Fresh Look at the Belgic Confession (Wipf and Stock, 2017) and A Ministry of Reconciliation: Essays ion Honor of Gregg Mast (Eerdmans, 2017).

Both Tamburello and Janssen are members of the current (eighth) round of the national Reformed-Roman Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue, which is focused on ministry and episcopacy.

Reservations for the day are not required, and the entire day is open to everyone, but we would appreciate responses from those who think they may be attending the lunch, in order to allow for a proper headcount. Just respond by e-mail to jbrumm@nbts.edu.