# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 23 —

then the execution must of course be just as unconditional and regardless, just as absolute. But shame upon a cowardly, crypto-Calvinistic fox-theology, which indeed also teaches quite the same, but by no means wants the child called by its right name, because one is ashamed on account of its origin and kinship."

So writes Prof. Schmidt about Missouri's doctrine of election. The Joint Synod [Allgemeine Synode] of Missouri, Ohio and Other States, however, on the occasion of its convention in May 1881 at Fort Wayne, thank God! stated its doctrine of election publicly before God and His holy church so exactly that a misunderstanding is hardly possible; it made, namely, 13 propositions containing the doctrine of election, already published in the second and following numbers of its "Lutheraner" of the year 1880 and included in its eighteenth synodical report, p. 23 ff., "to express its confession in the doctrine of election," and unanimously confessed them, only with the exception of those members who thereupon left it and went over to Prof. Schmidt's party.

These 13 propositions have also appeared in the form of a pamphlet and read there as follows:

What We Believe, Teach and Confess Concerning Election.

Proposition 1.

We believe, teach and confess that God has loved the whole world from eternity, has created all men for salvation and none for damnation, and earnestly wills the salvation of all men; and we therefore reject and condemn from the whole heart the Calvinistic doctrine opposed to this.

Proposition 2.

We believe, teach and confess that the Son of God has come into the world for all men, has borne and atoned for the sins of all men, and has fully redeemed all men, none excepted; and we therefore reject and condemn from the whole heart the Calvinistic doctrine opposed to this.

Proposition 3.

We believe, teach and confess that God calls all men earnestly through the means of grace, that is, with the intention that through them they come to repentance and to faith, are preserved in it to the end and thus finally be saved, to which end God offers them, through the means of grace, the salvation won through Christ's satisfaction and the power to grasp it in faith; and we therefore reject and condemn from the whole heart the Calvinistic doctrine opposed to this.