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With its own national association (www.cwreenactors.com) and magazine (www.campchase.com) serving an estimated 50,000 re–enactors in the U.S., Civil War re–enactment thrives today. However, until a few years ago, the re–enactors who worked so painstakingly to replicate each detail accurately often overlooked an entire group of participants. On the battlefields and in the camps, these men fought a different war—the war for souls—and some paid the ultimate price. They were the roughly I ,200 to 1,400 Confederate chaplains, 3,000 Union chaplains, and 5,000 Christian Commission volunteers.

Alan Farley (pictured above with his family, in costume) won't let reenactors forget the chaplains or the faith that animated them. Farley, an evangelist who began attending these events as a child in 1984, now portrays General Lee's chaplain—and presents the gospel—at Virginia reenactments. Over the years, Farley and The Re-enactor's Missions forJesus Christ (www.rmjc.org) have successfully pushed for Sunday morning worship services at re-enactments. They argue that any accurate Civil War portrayal must include the deep currents of Christian devotion and revival in both sides' armies.

Dear to Farley's heart is the National Civil War Chaplains Research Center and Museum, a 10,000-square–foot exhibit space projected to open at Liberty University in Lynchburg in fall 2007.

In fall 2004, workers repairing a sewage pipe in the old city of Jerusalem discovered the edge of an ancient poo1. Israel Antiquities Authority officials believed it to be the biblical Pool of Siloam&mdashwhich John's Gospel names as the place where Jesus cured a blind man. Now further excavations have uncovered a much more elaborate pool and water system than previously believed. This substantiates the site as the Siloam Pool of Jesus' time—a large freshwater reservoir that served as a gathering place and focus of religious pilgrimages for Jews.

"Scholars have said that there wasn't a Pool of Siloam," says New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary. These scholars have argued that John, whose Gospel is known more for spiritual than historical content, had simply chosen the name to illustrate a point. "Now, we have found the Pool of Siloam … exactly where John said it was.

The website www.bibleplaces.com/ poolofsiloam.htm provides photographs and a brief account of the excavation, and hazards the "wild prediction" that "this will be the archaeological discovery of the decade for biblical studies."

Recently beatified (a step toward sainthood) and declared the patron of artists by Pope John Paul II, the Dominican friar Era Angelico (1390/5—1455) will now be the subject of a landmark exhibition at New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visitors will see 75 of the artist's paintings, drawings, and manuscript illuminations. But they will not see some of the works that have made Era Angelico famous: untransportable large altarpieces and frescoes like those on the dormitory cells at Elorences convent of San Marco. Born Guido di Pietro, the artist's better–known moniker is an English translation of his Latin handle, pictor angelicus, the Angelic Painter. He is best known for his psychologically penetrating, compellingly realistic portrayal of human forms and dramatic stories.

The birthplace of the Christian monastic movement is marked by the soaring, Coptic-cross-topped towers of St. Anthony's Monastery, one hundred miles southeast of Cairo, Egypt. The monastery's centerpiece Apostle Church dates back only to the 15th century, but excavation beneath the church's floor has revealed a far more ancient treasure: the oldest monastic cells ever discovered. These date back to the fourth century&mdash perhaps from the very lifetime of St. Anthony of Egypt, the man considered the first Christian monk, who died some time around 356 or 357.

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