# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 15 —

regions where there is no purely Lutheran congregation, they would hold to some other church, since one must after all hold to some church. But this is a shameful unfaithfulness. — Is not the first question at holy Baptism too: Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways? That is done for the very enlightening reason that one cannot pledge oneself to God until one has renounced the devil, under whose dominion we all stand by nature until God releases us from it. So it is in all Christian conditions of life. If anyone has been in error, he must confess this also and at the same time promise that he will not return again to his error. That someone confesses the pure doctrine is therefore in itself not yet a sufficient proof that he is also a genuine Lutheran.

We live just now in a time when indifference toward pure doctrine has gained the upper hand. To say Yes, one is very quick. But the question is whether someone regards himself as bound in his conscience not to return again to his abandoned error. Many a one who comes from the Prussian Union would become hesitant if the question were put to him: Would you, if you returned to Germany, rather let yourself be mocked than return to the Union? Christ wills that one not be ashamed of the truth, or he will also be ashamed of us on the last day.

That the serving of a congregation that is in fact Unionist by a Lutheran pastor stands in contradiction to the confession lies already in the pastoral office. Every congregation obligates its pastor to its confession. How can a Unionist congregation, as such, call a Lutheran pastor, since such a man does not stand on its confessional ground! If it does so nevertheless, it deceives itself. The question here is not so much whether Union or Lutheranism is right, as rather how one can reconcile such a call with one's position. There takes place here a double deceit, both on the part of the congregation, which believes that a Lutheran pastor could accept such a call, and on the part of the pastor, who believes he can accept such a call and serve a Unionist congregation. Here, however, the discussion is only of a moral "can." For otherwise any congregation, whether Unionist or Reformed, can call whom it will, and indeed even one whom it does not want. For the call of a heterodox communion too can be a valid one, for the sake of the true Christians found in it.

And now let it be considered further: Christ came into the world to create a church of the graced. This church is to do honor to Christ, it is to be a company of such as are one in faith. Such a congregation, however, which has all sorts of faith in its midst, brings the most dreadful disgrace upon Christ, just as if Christ had come for that reason