Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict That Changed American Christianity
"Burkee ... executes his historian's craft superbly...enormous research ... interviews with willing primary actors, and contemporaneous news reports....  He takes no side but remains objective."--John Hannah in Lutheran Forum"A book that could change American Lutheran history." --Paul Hinlicky in Lutheran Forum"Historians and others with strong interest in the Missouri Synod or in how staunch religious-social conservatives achieved success during the Cold War years will be engaged by the book." --from Religion in Review, Jan 26, 2011"Burkee ... executes his historian's craft superbly...enormous research ... interviews with willing primary actors, and contemporaneous news reports.... He takes no side but remains objective." --John Hannah in Lutheran Forum"A book that could change American Lutheran history." --Paul Hinlicky in Lutheran Forum"Historians and others with strong interest in the Missouri Synod or in how staunch religious-social conservatives achieved success during the Cold War years will be engaged by the book." --from Religion in Review, Jan 26, 2011"A riveting account of a perfect storm that did not have to happen, a storm that was reinforced by the political and cultural dynamics of the turbulent 1960s. This massively-researched book tells the fascinating story of the destructive clash between scheming conservatives and elitist liberals in the Missouri Synod wars of the 1960s and 70s, with the vast majority of laity and pastors caught between them. An infinitely sad but instructive story indeed." --Robert Beene, Director of the Ranoke College Center for Religion and Society"James Burkee has done a commendable job of providing not only a rich measure of historical background and perspective on 'Seminex,' a controversy of the 1970s that continues to impact the Missouri-Synod as a Lutheran church body, but also a case-study example of the Christ-and-culture battle line that runs through all of American Christianity." --Jon Diefenthaler, LCMS District President"For many reasons, this could not have been an easy book to write and perhaps no one besides James Burkee could have carried out the task so successfully. With a critical eye and a sympathetic heart, Burkee illuminates the mechanics of America s rightward turn of the 1960s and 70s through the history of one of its great churches. This is a crisply told story of institutional transformation with profound implications for the entire nation." --Chris Beneke, Associate Professor of History, Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts