# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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communicated protest, our Pastor Dowidat personally appeared in his congregation and lent his hand to bringing about the split in the congregation at Oshkosh, whereby he even appealed to his still existing membership in the Synodical Conference and to the circumstance that he had been elected a delegate to the forthcoming convention of this body: therefore we, the members of the pastoral conference of the Synod of Wisconsin and Other States now assembled at Racine, Wis., consider it our unavoidable duty to protest against the admission of Prof. Schmidt as a delegate to the Synodical Conference; and to declare that, unless he repents, we no longer recognize him as a brother with whom our delegates could sit in church consultation, but regard him as an enemy from whom we must expect that he would only abuse any further negotiation with him.

J. Bading, R. Adelberg,
F. A. Ernst, O. Schröder.

To this last protest the explanation was also given that it originally proceeds from the general pastoral conference of the Venerable Wisconsin Synod, and is in fact a bill of complaint against Prof. Schmidt which the conference sent to the president of the Venerable Norwegian Lutheran Synod concerning the admission of Prof. Schmidt as a delegate to the Synodical Conference. The same bill of complaint is hereby also to be a reasoned protest before the Synodical Conference.

After hearing these protests it became clear to the Conference that all three protests agree in the following two points, namely that they are founded

1. on the fact that Prof. Schmidt has reviled and branded the doctrine of the three synods, the Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin Synods, concerning the article of election as Calvinism, and

2. on the fact that Prof. Schmidt has broken into our congregations as a sectarian [*Rottierer*, one who forms factions].

The protests also state expressly that, if Prof. Schmidt retracts both publicly and acknowledges them as sin, then the delegates of the three named synods are ready to deal with him about the doctrine itself, however long it might take and despite the fact that his doctrine is a ruinous error, in all patience as with an erring brother. But before the two points are answered with yes or no, one cannot possibly, for conscience' sake, enter upon a doctrinal discussion.

The motion was now made and seconded: these three protests shall hereby be adopted by the Synodical Conference and made its own.