Did the "old" Lutheran Church lack grace?

This essay writer claims that the mid-2oth Century Lutheran Church in the USA lacked grace. The writer must be about my age. I don't remember the church lacking grace, but I do think it lacked a sense of joy in being forgiven. Is that a different way of saying the same thing?

I remember the services being the same (really, really!) every Sunday, not relating to the world outside the stained glass windows, and pretty much about what "I believed" (head knowledge, which could be described as a form of works) since I was a Lutheran, i.e. memorization of the catechism. But that could just be the particular church I experienced because that pastor was kind of cold and boring. Yet, the church had two services each Sunday, fairly well attended. I was a child then so I lack perspective. Maybe we expected less of our churched back in the last century.