# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 16 —

to found a church that was to be a Babel. That the world is not united is no wonder, for it does not have the truth. We Christians, however, have the truth, therefore we also ought to be united. Congregations with a motley faith are, however, not united. It is therefore so shocking when the Unionists say: The Confession is a side issue, therefore one should start no quarrel; — if only things go peacefully among us! But oh, a blessed quarrel that is conducted because one wants to hold fast the truth. And oh, unblessed peace that one makes at the expense of the truth.

If someone sought to wrest your money from you, would you calmly put up with it? Would you not take him and throw him out of the house, so that all desire to steal would leave him? Who would then think of saying: Be ashamed of yourself, to start a quarrel with a scoundrel? Would not everyone laugh at such a remark and say to one who spoke so: You are simply mad, to demand such friendliness toward a scoundrel and to call me an unloving person? He would gladly sit quietly if the scoundrel would only let him sit quietly. So everyone acts, and that is generally regarded as right. But when God's truth is attacked, then we are to look on quietly, because it is not about our property but only about God's Word, as if this were far less important. Over a quarrel about temporal things one should well be grieved, but for strife for the divine truth one should praise and thank God. This strife must not cease. If it ceases, then the jewel of the truth is already lost. As long as there is a church that has the truth, so long the devil also fights against it and seeks to overpower it, so long we must also stand in his way and seek to frustrate his purpose.

Thereupon the question was raised: How are the words "continually" [*fort und fort*] in the present thesis to be understood? Is it permitted, according to this, for a Lutheran pastor to make an exception to the rule for a time and serve a Unionist congregation, or must a preacher who has such a Unionist congregation from earlier times, after he himself has come to right knowledge, leave it at once, before he has thoroughly instructed it about its false position? The great majority in the Conference was at once clear that the expression "continually" is not only very open to misunderstanding, but even false. For a Lutheran pastor can serve a congregation that is in fact Unionist not for a moment as such. It is also no theological expression at all, for it leaves uncertain how long such serving may go on. One would say: A year; another, to whom this would not be enough, would set two years, a third five, then ten or twenty years. If that were not enough, it would be: fifty years. Thus the demand would be raised ever further and in fact no limit would be set; it would rather stand in everyone's judgment and pleasure to determine when this "continually" is to