Religion: Lutherans at War

"The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod we have known is dead. The institution that has given us life is no more. Its structures are hopelessly corrupt. Its leadership is morally bankrupt. Its rank-and-file members have chosen to ignore and overlook evil."

Wearing flowing white ecclesiastical robes, the Rev. John Tietjen, leader of the Missouri Synod's breakaway liberal faction, delivered that bitter eulogy last week from a pulpit set up in an auditorium at the O'Hare Inn near Chicago. It was what his 1,600 listeners wanted to hear. They were members of Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (E.L.I.M.), a dissident group that has been warring openly...

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