# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1853_S250
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 250 —

— heartfelt, penitent acknowledgment of the wrong done to us, and
restitution of what was taken. And this restitution, specifically, in this
way: that the Reverend Synod testify to our fallen sectarians how they
erred and sinned in not directing them to their own Lutheran synod, which
it should now do, with the admonition that they also recognize that they
remain obligated, now as before, to seek reconciliation with the
congregations they abandoned, and, where they still have cause for
complaint against the pastors whom God had placed over them and whom
they abandoned, to bring such complaints first before their own church
court.

This is truly the right and only possible path of reconciliation, which
the Synod of Missouri can and must walk, free of sin — though certainly
with self-denial — in true repentance, if it does not wish to perish both in
time and eternally. It must also admonish to repentance the pastors sent
to our fallen-away church members, whom we can call nothing other than
sectarian preachers, namely Messrs. Bürger, Ernst, Diehlmann, Schaller,
Lochner, Fürbringer, Geyer, Günther; and we must likewise admonish
Pastor Keyl and Francke to recognize and make amends for their earlier
sin against us, so that they, like the whole Synod of Missouri, may
reconcile themselves with us and with God, and so that the blood-guilt
resting on them and on the Synod may be blotted out through God's
mercy.

Whether we, as the proper church court, or our Ministerium, bear
guilt for their blood is not for anyone to judge hastily, since all these
poor souls withdrew themselves from us, their proper church court, and
spurned our help, in the sin of factionalism and separation. Hence, in
individual cases, no just reproach can yet be made, prior to a Christian
investigation, against the pastors, congregations, and Ministerium whom
they abandoned in this sectarian way. On the other hand, our pastors
and Synod, where in the heat of the dispute they have erred in words and
expressions against love and gentleness, will gladly acknowledge this as
well, and, since both sides may well have erred in this respect, will also
be ready for apology and reconciliation.

The other path to reconciliation proposed by the Synod of Missouri —
that we enter into a colloquy with them before reconciliation and release
from the wrong has taken place — we recognize as incompatible with the
rule of God's Word, that we are to avoid those excluded from the
Christian Church according to Christ's own order, as the grounds are
correctly set forth in No. 14 of the Informatorium, according to
2 Thessalonians 3:14–15 and Romans 16:17–18.

As long as the Reverend Synod of Missouri does not recall the
preachers it sent to our excommunicated members, but instead keeps the
excommunicated, absolves, and communes them, then, by this very
action, we are in their eyes no longer a Lutheran church; and if we, apart
from this recall and a penitent reconciliation and apology, were to hold a
colloquy with them, we would be confessing just as surely that we are a
sect and no longer a Lutheran church, as Pastor Grabau would have
confessed himself guilty of the slander of being a pope, had he accepted
it, when the Synod of Missouri, passing over our Ministerium and Synod,
offered reconciliation and a colloquy to him alone.

We must also answer the objection that it is absurd to demand a
change in practice before there is unity in doctrine. An example will
disprove it.