As Hurricane Harvey dumped over two feet of rain in the greater Houston area, Romans 8:39 kept ringing through Donna Pyle’s head with Hurricane Harvey subtitles: Neither height of rising water nor depth of flood, nor anything else Harvey can hurl at us, can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“There had been no mandatory evacuation for Friendswood residents. No one knew it was going to be this bad … And still, the rain continued.”
Learn more about our creeds and confessions — what we believe, and how and why we talk about those shared beliefs — in this month’s Lutheran Witness.
There are a number of fascinating things about the Basilica of San Frediano in Lucca, Italy, but what really caught my eye was the baptismal font.
We sometimes speak of holding Law and Gospel in tension or balance, but we do well to remember that they are not even. Each has its own place and purpose. They should be rightly distinguished and applied, but this doesn’t always mean that they will be evenly distributed.
A happy, terrible act is Baptism — a rebirth of life and, at the same time, a drowning and death. We see this contrast in Romans: “We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
If you’re looking for some spiritual significance to the total eclipse, why speculate? Rather than guess that it’s a harbinger of the future apocalypse, look back instead to the cross. Let it remind you of the Lord’s death for you, when even creation convulsed as the Creator suffered for your sins.
![By Oregon State University (Solar eclipse) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://witness.lcms.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Total_solar_eclipse_1999_feature.jpg)
A solar eclipse is one of the most spectacular astronomical events observable with the naked eye. But what does it look like to a Lutheran scientist?
How can Christian parents raise faithful children in a hostile culture?
America’s founding fathers believed that the “pursuit of happiness” was an inalienable right, and most people today certainly think that they deserve to be happy. But what happens when we face unhappiness? How does God’s word comfort us then?
In the August issue, we’re seeking faithful answers to some of life’s toughest theological questions.
The Lutheran Confessions give us a firm place to stand as we consider the world in all its complexity.