# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1873_S8
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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existing heterodox books of this kind are abolished and orthodox ones introduced.

Thesis 14.

It contradicts the confession in the most decided way when in a Lutheran church body there is no church discipline [*Lehrzucht*], and the favored theory of "open questions" is indulged in it.

Thesis 15.

It is not in accord with the confession when a synod or larger church body does not work toward having introduced and practiced in its congregations, gradually, the discipline of doctrine and life that Christ willed and that is more precisely defined in Matt. 18:15–17.

Thesis 16.

It stands in exact connection with the confession that every Lutheran synod, for its part, apply all diligence to call into being, and to help sustain, orthodox institutions of learning for the training of faithful and capable preachers and schoolteachers for the preservation of the Church.

Thesis 17.

It is no less in accord with the confession that the synods exercise oversight as to whether and how the individual congregations of their body show active love in the care of needy widows, orphans, the sick, and so forth.

Thesis 18.

Finally, it is connected with the confession that the synods stir up the congregations of their body to cooperate vigorously, for their part, in the spreading of Lutheran doctrine and church, and in outer and inner mission.

We may well make the importance of the subject treated in these theses present to ourselves from the outset when we look at the present condition of the Lutheran Church in general. In Germany it is, to speak with the Prophet, like a little booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, like a devastated city" (Is. 1:8). The Union there aims to destroy the Lutheran Church, as is now plainly before our eyes, for example, in Hannover, while in other parts of Germany it has already completed this work of destruction, and in still other territorial churches that call themselves Lutheran, a plainly unionistic spirit and the most shameful servility toward the Union-minded authorities are gaining the upper hand. Here among us