# LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters Minutes_St. Louis Missouri_May 12 2017_S9
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

thirty-five standards for when a worker must be confronted with his or her error, or thirty-five standards of
how, should he or she refuse to repent, upon repeated futile admonition, he or she be expelled from the
Synod—not only for the Synod’s good, but as the strongest evangelical admonition against final
impenitence (excepting, of course, excommunication). The Synod has one set of objectives and one
standard, the application of which is ultimately supervised by and—should the district-level authorities fail
to do so—applied by the President of the Synod. This power is inherent in Const. Art. XI B 1–3. The
President of the Synod, who is ultimately responsible for the maintenance of doctrinal and practical unity
in the Synod, must be provided the means, ultimately, to carry out that responsibility. And, it should be
noted, members under district supervision are well afforded the benefit of another overseer, to make not
singly but doubly sure that they are carrying out their offices as the Lord of the Church has commanded,
under the reliable norms of the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.
An historical parallel exists in the very early days of the Synod, at the division of the Synod into districts.
In the 1854 Constitution of the Synod, the President of the Synod “has the supervision over the doctrine,
practice, and the respective administration of all synodical officers, all pastors and teachers within the entire
Synod, over the individual Districts of Synod as such, over the pastoral conferences, and over the individual
congregations of the District Synods” (1854 Constitution, Chapter VI E 1). “He has the duty to see to it
that those who are named in the preceding paragraph conduct themselves in doctrine, practice, and
administration of office in accordance with the constitution of Synod. In all cases of deviation it is his duty
to admonish. If this is not heeded, it is his duty to report the case in Christian order and according to the
proper steps, as befits the nature of the censured matter or person, to the District President or District Synod
or finally, if need be, to the assembled Synod” (1854 Const. Ch. VI E 2). While already at this time only the
district president was explicitly empowered to suspend a member “between conventions of the district”
(1854 Const. Ch. VI A 13), the President of the Synod was able, if the district president would not initiate
action, to bring the matter directly to the district convention (or ultimately, the Synod convention) for the
case to be acted upon and, if needed, the member expelled. 12 Apart from the fact that expulsion is today
procedurally impossible apart from prior suspension, the 1854 state of affairs is actually quite analogous to
(in fact, far broader than) the bylaws called for in Op. 16-2791 and Res. 12-14, and presented in the
Secretary’s proposal. 13
5. Evangelical Counsel and Care, Previous Futile Admonition, and the Protection of Rights of Members
Certainly the exercise of a power of suspension (more precisely, historically speaking, the power to initiate
proceedings leading to an expulsion from the Synod) is not exhaustive of the responsibility of ecclesiastical
supervision. Expulsion from the Synod requires, constitutionally, “previous futile admonition” (Const. Art.
XIII 1). Bylaw procedures (Bylaw sections 2.14–17) carefully delineate face-to-face meetings,
consultations, investigations, evangelical counsel and care which would not be abrogated if the President
of the Synod were to exercise his authority to act on an appeal for action. One of the required factors in a
panel’s sustaining a suspension is that these measures be demonstrated to have been carried out in
faithfulness to the Constitution and Bylaws of the Synod. The President of the Synod would be held to the
same standard as the district presidents, so far as the carrying out of these necessary and evangelical aspects
12

At present, “suspension” is not the “optional,” stop-gap measure it was in 1854, but the necessary first step of such
formal proceedings under the bylaws developed pursuant to the modern Const. Art. XIII 1. Since 1966’s amendment
of Const. Art. XIII, the conventions of the districts and Synod have had no direct role in deciding or hearing appeals
in discipline cases; long before that time, already, cases could not simply be brought directly to the conventions, but
had to go through other formal proceedings first.
13
While the President of the Synod’s supervision is, from 1864 on, described only as “over the individual districts as
such,” without the 1854 continuation, “over the pastoral conferences, and over the individual congregations of the
District Synods,” from 1864 until at least 1899 an addendum to the Constitution read, “The Synod declared that the
synodical president is directed to serve as inspector of the district presidents, and that he therefore has the right and
authority in cases where he is convinced that the district president has erred in his dealings [with the local congregation
/ member] to convince himself of the situation by a personal investigation at his discretion.” (1864 Proceedings, p. 4)

CCM Minutes – May 12, 2017 – Page 48