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On January 15 my wife and I sat in the guest room sipping tea with Abdullah Serour, the current sheikh of the Umm el-Jimal village in northeastern Jordan. I have been working in the area for over thirty years, among other things documenting how archaeological materials have been reused over time. As Abdullah described how he used to go to school in a refurbished Byzantine house surrounded by ruins, the television on the wall displayed live coverage of the bombing…

Three Reformed theologians--Gabriel Fackre, George Hunsinger, and Leanne Van Dyk--recently joined together to discuss, via a telephone conference call, Christ's atoning work and some of the current criticisms and challenges to traditional understandings of it. Perspectives editor Steve Mathonnet-Vander Well posed the questions. The responses of the three theologians are indicated by their initials.Just by way of introduction, what particularly interests you or seems important for a discussion of the atonement? Gabriel Fackre (GF): How come there's no ecumenical consensus…

In my childhood, when it was my turn to do the dishes, one of my diversions was to use a tall glass as an upside-down periscope. You know, you poke the empty glass down through the suds and you can see into the water and examine the stuff at the bottom of the sink. The cool thing was how the water made the forks and knives look bigger and closer. I offer this as a metaphor for how the great…