# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S89
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   89

not normal; his mind was too severely affected; this was the beginning
of mental illness; he had therefore advised him to seek medical
treatment and to accept the congregation's offer that he travel. Dr.
Sanders also said that persuasion and pressure from individuals would
only make his condition worse.

    "Since matters now stood thus with Pastor Döscher, the
congregation had no choice but to suspend him, which then took place
on January 13, 1882. The minutes concerned state: 'After lengthy
deliberation and careful consideration, the congregation, with great
sorrow, on the advice of the [District] President, the theological
faculty, and the local Evangelical Lutheran pastors, adopted the
resolution: Since the congregation is convinced that its dear Pastor
Döscher is ill and can no longer discharge his office among us with
blessing, it considers it its sacred duty to suspend him from all
ministerial acts until further notice — that is, all functions connected
with his office as pastor of the St. Johannis congregation are taken
from Pastor Döscher by the congregation, until his overstrained nerves
shall, God willing, be restored through rest and travel. It goes without
saying that the congregation is to provide for the support of Pastor
Döscher and his family during the suspension.'

    "This resolution was delivered to Pastor Döscher by the
congregation's secretary in the presence of the elders, since he was not
present at the congregational meeting, although he had been urgently
asked by a committee to attend it.

    "After reading the resolution handed to him, he replied: he was glad
that the congregation had taken part of his work off his hands, since he
now had more time for the English mission. He then also attended the
first reading service [*Leſegottesdienſt* — a service of readings, held
without the pastor]. Soon afterward, however, he issued a public declaration in
which he pronounced his suspension null and void; for, he said, 1) he
had in no way made himself unworthy of the holy preaching office, and
2) he had become neither physically nor mentally incapable of
administering the holy preaching office.

    "He went even further: he threatened the congregation with setting
up a rival altar. Even before this he had maintained church union with
the false-believing and the unbelieving, and had held pulpit fellowship
with the notorious Hoffmann, excluded from the Wisconsin District —
all of this, as he put it, in the name of Jesus, from an impulse of the
Holy Spirit, full of divine certainty. Now, however, he rented a hall near
Pastor Mödinger's St. Paulus [St. Paul's] congregation in order to set
up a rival altar against that congregation too. He took in four tramps
who had received a little secondary schooling in Germany, had them
conduct school, and installed them as "co-workers of mission."

    "He did all this even though the congregation earnestly warned him