# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1898_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1898. 31

this church life together will from the outset be exposed to great dangers, and is exposed by this, that the right handling, or any handling at all, of Christian church discipline is lacking; first, then, by this, that no church discipline at all is exercised in a congregation. This lack is not to be excused by saying: "The congregation is not yet so far along." That is no excuse, but rather an acknowledgment that things stand badly in this congregation and must get better; and the sister congregations have a right to be provisionally content only if one can also sense that effort is being made here to bring things in time to a better state. If a congregation were now to declare: We are not in a position to exercise church discipline, and therefore none is exercised among us, one would have to say to it, not: Now we understand why we can overlook it in your case, but one must say: Then see to it that you get into a different position, where it also becomes deed and truth among you, what the Savior demands of you as well as of us. For if it is right under certain circumstances to suspend Christ's command, Matt. 18, precisely because drunkenness has become an epidemic or endemic in a congregation, why does one not at once suspend the seventh commandment and a few other commandments too, and declare that one has put these commandments out of operation because under the prevailing circumstances one cannot carry them out or press for their fulfillment? The commandment "Thou shalt not steal" is surely not with more truth a divine commandment than: "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person." The one commandment can be suspended on account of prevailing circumstances as little as the other. We should therefore stand up in all our congregations for this, that God's Word is the majesty that reigns among us alone, that must also reign, and to which we therefore have to bow. As surely as we are members of One Body, subjects of One King, so surely must it be observed everywhere in our congregations that church discipline be conscientiously exercised.

And indeed not only is church discipline in general to be exercised, or, where it is not yet in practice, to be worked toward so that it becomes better and better in this matter, but also, with regard to certain sins, the church discipline prescribed by Christ the LORD to all of them alike is to be exercised in Christian congregations. Christ the LORD did not address his command, Matt. 18, and Paul his words, to the strong congregations only, and something else to the weak congregations, but they said it to all congregations. As surely as we recognize a sister congregation which is orthodox as a real sister and do her this honor, so we must also do her the honor of recognizing her as a congregation of which also the highest that Christ demands of his congregation at all is required as a demand. But whether now what in a sister congregation here