Transplanting a Seattleite

Yeah, tell me about it. Thing is, she was raised in a very small town and her own church was doubtless quite conservative in its way, mirroring the townspeople -- so if the Missouri Synod was notably worse, it's because they really, really wanted to be.

I think, but am not sure, that the churches she and her family went to in their various home towns are all just ELCA now.

Anyway, I grew up with a rather romanticized view of Lutheranism, which disappeared when I had occasion to read more about Luther for history class. My mother was all, oh, didn't you know what an old basket he was? or something to that effect. (I hope she said basket. It was a word of hers. I didn't work out for years that it was a euphemism for bastard.)