# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 24 —

to persevere with all patience in teaching. He must also declare to it: I am Lutheran and I can stay with you only if you too want to be Lutheran. At such a testimony some turn will soon arise in the congregation. The celebration of the Holy Supper he would of course have to postpone until then. This is only a suspension [*Suspenſion*], which is to be distinguished from excommunication. Suspension, however, is only a postponement of the enjoyment of the Supper, during which the pastor declares that he can only not give it now. We do not give the same to anyone outside our church fellowship either, but say to such as belong to it: We must wait with the administration of the Sacrament among you until you accept the right doctrine.

As long as the congregation does not give up the Unionist confession, so long we cannot receive into the synodical body even such a pastor, who has come to better knowledge and is orthodox. We can indeed say to him: You are our brother! but we must also declare to him: Things cannot go on so in your congregation; you must reform it; before that we cannot receive you among us. For a pastor need not necessarily belong to our confessional fellowship in order to be saved.

If a congregation in fact Unionist calls a preacher, it is by no means our opinion that he should coldly turn the congregation away; rather, let him take this opportunity to negotiate with such a congregation, tell it honestly where he stands, and encourage it to make his position, which is right according to God's Word, its own also. We are not such heartless people as to think that we have no responsibility for the salvation of such as still go on in error.

How to act in the cases named above belongs to casuistry and cannot possibly be expressed in a thesis, which is to give a rule in short, definite and plain words.

This, however, is clear: a sinful practice I may not continue for a moment. What is sinful I may never do at all, let alone continually. Let one just turn our thesis around, then everyone will have to say at once: the expression "continually" [*fort und fort*] is false, it must go out. If it stays in, then all Unionist Lutherans are right. The converse of the 10th thesis evidently reads thus: "It does not stand in contradiction to the Lutheran confessions when individual preachers of a Lutheran synod who call themselves Lutheran temporarily serve congregations that are in fact Unionist."

Despite these explanations one member of the *Synodalconferenz* [Synodical Conference] could not bring himself to let the expression "continually" fall as false, because he thought that by such a striking out the Conference would declare that even cases such as named above might not take place. With the exception of this single member, however, the striking out of the expression concerned was then unanimously resolved and the 10th thesis adopted in the following form: