# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S53
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 53 —

...those who have fallen away desire to be received back. It seems to the
committee that the conference should rather have directed its attention to
preserving those who had perhaps remained faithful; and this would best
be achieved if, provided there be a willingness to follow the divine order
and a felt need for a good congregational order, the members of the
congregation themselves were drawn into the deliberation and nothing
resolved without their consent.

On the assumption, then, that the conference wanted some guidance as to
what it should aim at by such means, the committee remarks:

1. that the distinction between the more and the less guilty must not be
overlooked;

2. that the degrees of admonition, according to Matt. 18:15–18, must
never be omitted;

3. that no requirement be made that does not necessarily follow from the
general duties of a Christian;

4. that no case be judged by such statutes of a congregational order,
insofar as these are merely human ordinances, as were adopted by the
congregation only after the case arose; but that what Scripture itself
demands in unambiguous words is to be regarded as a law long since
given and binding on all Christians.

Toward those who wish to return, one should proceed as gently as
possible; a pastoral conversation, together with a confession made before
the pastor and its report communicated through him, should therefore be
preferred to public humiliation.

As to what the conference says about a certain probationary period and
actual proof of improvement to be awaited in some cases, as well as about
a public procedure at readmission, it is remarked that in general the
confession must suffice, unless there is substantial reason for distrust, and
that external procedures in matters of church discipline are to be applied
in any congregation only insofar as they are necessary to settle an
otherwise persisting offense.

Finally, as to the qualifications the conference sets for an electable
member of the church council, the synod holds that, as regards gifts and
knowledge, equal demands are not to be made of all members of the
church council.

Furthermore, the synod finds it improper for a preachers' conference to
propose to the congregations that the church council be given the power
to overturn an election of one of its members carried out by the
congregation; it likewise declares it contrary to our synodical constitution
for the conference to want election disputes referred to the synod's
decision.

Concerning the Fort Wayne conference report, the committee noted that
both documents — the letter from the Reverend Pastor Löhe as well as the
report itself concerning it — are so precise in composition and so
important in content that it must move that the synod have these
documents read out word for word.

The synod, however, resolved, on account of the many other items of
business still to be taken up, to postpone the reading and discussion of
these documents until after the close of the actual synodical sessions.