Following a presentation by Alfred Tibor, a Holocaust survivor and sculptor, Trinity Lutheran Seminary President Dennis Anderson asked Mr. Tibor to produce a sketch for a public sculpture to be placed in a prominent position on the Trinity campus. The president gave Mr. Tibor a theme that proclaims how God confronts and deals with our sin and our hope for life. This theme is engraved on the base of the completed Sculpture:
“Out of the flames of human hate come the ashes of death. Out of the flame of God’s love comes the promise for life.”
Within several weeks, Mr. Tibor returned with a sketch of a dramatic bronze flame rising through and above a huddled group of men, women, and children surrounded by barbed wire. At the top of the flame stand a mother and father lifting up their newborn child. With its granite base, the bronze sculpture of rising flames reaches a height of 27 feet. An interfaith Promise for Life Committee began fundraising in January 1997, eventually raising more than $200,000 to fund the sculpture and the surrounding landscape.
The sculpture and garden were dedicated in an interfaith ceremony on May 23, 1999, Pentecost Day in the Christian tradition, which symbolizes the gathering of people of many lands and languages and the outpouring of God’s Spirit-giving unity and life.
