A narrative history of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod that sees authority—of scripture, of the ministry, of women, of the congregation, and of the synod itself—as the central contested issue in the church’s quest for identity.

Recounting first the history of the denomination, from its beginnings in Saxony in 1847 to its growth into a modern ecclesial institution with 2.6 million members, Mary Todd describes how this ethnic church has retained its identity as a conservative enclave amid a dizzying array of Lutheran church mergers. Yet this identity has not gone unchallenged, and it remains at the root of internal political struggles that mark the synod’s twentieth-century history. Todd shows that in order to retain their theology amid profound historical change, the church has had to continually refine its understanding of authority, thereby fundamentally redefining its own historical identity as a confessional Lutheran congregation.

Foreword by Martin E. Marty