At first glance, this volume might seem like a history of only one particular American Lutheran parachurch organization—this assumption does the book a disservice. On one level, it is the history of the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau (ALPB), and a very good history at that. Beyond this, however, it is an important history of twentieth-century American Lutheranism and of some of the major figures within this tradition. Richard Johnson has produced a well-researched and well-written study that helps to broaden our understanding of this tradition, one that fills in many of the gaps that are not covered by traditional denominational histories.

The ALPB was formed by a group of young Lutheran leaders in the early twentieth century who were a part of a rising group of second- and third-generation immigrants who sought to “Americanize” their immigrant denominations and to explain Lutheranism to a wider English-speaking world. Their work was to produce English-language materials about the Lutheran traditions for both Lutheran and non-Lutheran audiences, especially through their periodicals.

Though it was originally pan-Lutheran, the ALPB leadership was primarily from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and this book is a valuable contribution to the history of that denomination. ALPB leaders were deeply involved in many aspects of the intra-Lutheran struggles in the twentieth century and played an important role in the development of this tradition. When the Missouri Synod underwent its schism in the 1970s, many of the ALPB leaders found themselves in the group that broke away from it, and since that time, the organization has sought more of a pan-Lutheran orientation. Within American Lutheranism, this group has often espoused a more formally liturgical, ecumenical, and confessional stance, a movement that has often gone by the term “Evangelical Catholicism.”

This is a good and important book, one that helps to fill out the history of American Lutheranism as well as the general history of twentieth-century American Protestantism.