# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1874_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 43 —
colloquium is to take place are such that we can enter into the invitation with a good conscience. For the question here is not whether one should be willing to hold a colloquy with the General Council. We can and will hold a colloquy also with the General Synod. About the differences concerning the doctrine of the Augustana one can hold a colloquy with anyone, as Christ himself disputed with the Pharisees and Sadducees about doctrine. But if the matter is so fixed that we are to make to our hitherto opponents, from the outset, the concession that they confess the Augsburg Confession without reservation, not only formally but also materially, which is all that matters here, then it would be made impossible for us to accept the invitation. To acknowledge the orthodoxy of one's opponents in advance, that is indeed asking too much.

From various sides, therefore, the wish was expressed that a declaration be added, that we are indeed not in a position to acknowledge the other church bodies as confessing the Augsburg Confession without reservation, that by accepting the invitation we do not in fact acknowledge them as orthodox Lutherans, but nevertheless hold it highly desirable that a colloquium come about. Both in the General Council and in the General Synod there are individuals who are in earnest about the confession in doctrine and practice, and for the sake of these one should enter into it. It is true, if the acknowledgment of orthodoxy is to lie in the invitation, then we must protest against it unanimously. But if that falls away, every misgiving is removed. And have we not acted similarly in the past? Have the confession-faithful brethren compromised themselves in any way by having held colloquies with others? It would therefore certainly give a false appearance if we were now to decline this invitation.

Against this it was repeatedly stressed that the *status controversiae* [point at issue] is by no means whether we should and will hold colloquies or not, but whether we can accept a colloquium on the strength of this invitation. If it had been written in the invitation: "All who confess the Augsburg Confession formally," then certainly no one would have raised a misgiving against it. But the expression "without reservation" presupposes the acknowledgment, unless it is expressly excepted in accepting the invitation. If this were done, then every member of the Synodical Conference could and certainly would gladly give his assent to it.

Against the above committee proposal it was then further emphasized from many sides that we, as the Synodical Conference, for the reasons already discussed, should have nothing to do with the arrangements. Time and place we can confidently leave to those who sent out the invitation. It is left to individuals to take part in the colloquium as individuals, and the Synodical Conference not only lets this happen without misgiving but rather recommends it to individuals.