Download or read book Power Politics and the Missouri Synod written by James C. Burkee and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod follows the rise of two Lutheran clergymen - Herman Otten and J. A. O. Preus - who led different wings of a conservative movement that seized control of a theologically conservative but socially and politically moderate church denomination (LCMS) and drove "moderates" from the church in the 1970s. The schism within what was then one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States ultimately reshaped the landscape of American Lutheranism and fostered the polarization that characterizes today's Lutheran churches.