# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1905_S158
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

158 Proceedings of the 26th General or

Appeals.
1.

"The undersigned, a member of the Eastern District of the Reverend Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, finds himself compelled in conscience to bring a complaint before the Reverend General Synod against the Central District of the Missouri Synod, whose conduct, in the case named below, he cannot approve or make his own by silence, but rather must condemn and denounce as a manifest circumvention and gross violation of all divine and recognized human right.

"This complaint against the Central District is at the same time a petition, or appeal, to the Reverend General Synod, asking that it set right, so far as lies within its part, the grave wrong the Central District has committed. —

"On November 3, 1903, President Niemann suspended Pastors A. and E. v. Schlichten of Cincinnati, Ohio, from synodical fellowship until the next meeting of the Central District. He had brought three serious charges against the two pastors, who until then had faithfully and conscientiously tended, with the gifts God had given them, the office entrusted to them in their congregation. Up to that time they had been found sound in doctrine, capable and faithful in the administration of their office, and blameless in conduct; no stain attached to their name — and then, all at once, three grave accusations were raised against them, not privately but publicly before the whole church, on the basis of which the suspension was imposed on them.

"Where there are accusations, solid proof must also be produced, or else the accuser is a slanderer and a defamer. Where there are accusations, the accused must be granted the full, unimpaired right of defense before his judge, and that against every point of the original charge, as well as against every accusation, insinuation, distortion, and omission, etc., that arises in the course of the proceedings. If the defense is not allowed, or is unduly restricted, the judge will inevitably render a one-sided and skewed, and therefore false and unjust, verdict.

"Where the accusations were raised publicly before the whole church, then, by every standard of fairness and justice, a public presentation of proof should likewise take place and a public defense should be granted, or else the judge exposes himself to the just suspicion and reproach of unfairness and of doing violence to due process.