Robert D. Preus

Robert David Preus (October 16, 1924 – November 4, 1995) was an American Lutheran pastor, professor, author, and seminary president. Biography Robert Preus was born to Minnesota Governor J.A.O. Preus and Idella Haugen Preus. His older brother is J.A.O. Preus II, former president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Preus graduated from Luther College with a B.A. degree and thereafter entered Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where his uncle Herman Preus served as a professor. Preus found Luther Seminary, which was the seminary of the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA), to be theologically compromising and indifferent, so he left to attend the newly formed Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) in Mankato, Minnesota. The ELS had been founded by a group of Norwegian Lutherans congregations that had not joined the merger creating the NLCA in 1917 and had remained in the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America with the LCMS. Preus became the seminary's first graduate in 1947. Preus was ordained in October 1947. He served congregations in Mayville, North Dakota, and Bygland, Minnesota. He married Donna Rockman in 1948. They had ten children (six sons and four daughters) and more than 50 grandchildren.