# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1877_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 30 —

into pastorates of their own, several fused into one, larger or smaller portions of a parish taken out of it and attached to another. Or, as the number of members grows, auxiliary offices for the various functions of the pastor can be set up, as at Jerusalem (Acts 6:1–7).

Thesis 9.

A ground for changing parish relationships cannot be: 1. offense at adiaphora; the acknowledgment of such a ground would be a denial of Christian freedom (Gal. 2:4, 5); 2. difference in non-fundamental convictions (Rom. 14:1–9); in this case, as in the first, the change would be a split, a schism, a separation, and the schismatics who separate, the separatists, will set up altar against altar (1 Cor. 1:10; 11:18, 19). (Such schisms are to be distinguished from the factions, sects, αἱρέσεις [*haireseis*, heresies], which involve a separation on account of the foundation of faith); 3. preference for a particular gift of a preacher (1 Cor. 1:11–13; 3:3–23), for that, for all its appearance of spirituality, is something carnal; finally 4. the growth of weeds in a congregation in which the means of grace are still in operation unadulterated (Matt. 13:24 ff.), which is why the apostle does not urge the upright Christians in the corrupt congregation at Corinth to leave it, but rather to hold the more firmly together and not to let division arise among themselves (1 Cor. 1:10; cf. 5:1, 2, 6; 6:1–8; 11:17–22, 30; 15:12, 34; 2 Cor. 12:20, 21).

Since the first ground of this thesis had already been discussed earlier (cf. the third Synodalconferenz [Synodical Conference] Report of the year 1874, pp. 35, 36), the Conference took up at once the second ground under which some wish to change parish relationships. It reads:

"A ground for changing parish relationships cannot be: 2. difference in non-fundamental convictions (Rom. 14:1–9); in this case, as in the first, the change would be a split, a schism, a separation, and the schismatics who separate, the separatists, will set up altar against altar (1 Cor. 1:10; 11:18, 19). (Such schisms are to be distinguished from the factions, sects, αἱρέσεις, which involve a separation on account of the foundation of faith.)"

On this the following was remarked: Fundamental convictions are those that concern the foundation of faith, whether directly