# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 34 —

...the possibility not be foreclosed of joining one of the existing
general synods, so that their self-sufficiency and independence
toward them remain preserved; and 2. that the theological institutions
already existing among the general synods coming together into state
synods be united into one joint seminary.

The Synodical Conference had, moreover, passed the following
resolutions in 1876 regarding the establishment of a joint seminary:

"The Synodical Conference advises its present member synods to
dissolve the institutions for training preachers located within their
territories, to establish a joint seminary, and to place this under
the control of the Synodical Conference."

"We are convinced that the ... proposed joint preachers' seminary
should be taken in hand as soon as possible, even in the event that
state synods do not come into being so quickly. — We intend to
advocate for this at our synods." (Report of the Synodical Conference
of 1876, pp. 48 and 53.)

It is well known that all the districts of our Synod have already
expressed themselves very favorably regarding the establishment of a
joint seminary. Although voices have now been raised within the
Synodical Conference rejecting their synod's participation in
establishing a joint seminary (cf. the report of the Synodical
Conference of 1877, p. 42), this cannot and shall not keep us from
going forward with those synods that agree with us on this. If we
wanted to wait to establish a joint seminary until all the synods of
the Synodical Conference had given their consent to it, then a joint
seminary might perhaps never come into being at all, since now one
synod, now another, might speak out against it. In our firm conviction,
no more salutary arrangement can be made for unity in purity of
doctrine than the establishment of a joint seminary. That we hold the
pure doctrine and are united in it is God's sheer, undeserved grace.
But God also demands of us that we hold fast to what we have, and
accordingly deal faithfully with his great gift of grace and administer
it according to his will. A joint seminary, in which the preachers of
the various synods are trained together, serves this purpose as well.
Such a seminary naturally stands under the control of all the synods
participating in it, and it is — humanly speaking — impossible for it
to fall away from the pure doctrine so long as the synods as a whole
have not fallen away from it.

Through our consent to the establishment of a joint seminary we want to
prove by our deeds what we have so often testified in words: that we
are not concerned with any special interests of our own when it comes
to building the kingdom of our God, and that we are wrongly decried as