Even with the mergers and schisms and all other sorts of difficulties surrounding defining one's organization as "we're not the lcms people," that didn't stop the lcms from continuing its influence on other Lutheran bodies. During the Seminex debacle, the LCMS kicked out some of their liberal professors, who went on to establish the AELC (Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches). Those guys promptly pushed for a merger between all the other Lutheran bodies, eventually forming the abomination we all know today as the ELCA.