# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1898_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1898. 37

We must hold fast that it is not reprehensible to pour beer and hand it to a customer where it will be the giving of a refreshing drink; rather, that is a right use on the part of him who gives the drink and of him who enjoys it, and unobjectionable before God. We sober Christians use such a business, so far as it has a right use, to the extent to which the tavern could quietly continue to exist, since there would be nothing reprehensible about it. We by no means approve thereby any excesses that take place at the place, but do what has been left free to us by God himself, that we use all God's gifts as God's gifts and get them where we can obtain them for honest, good money. To be sure, the circumstances can also be such that one should not send a child into a tavern, that one should go in oneself even less, namely if the very going in and coming out again from such a place made a person disreputable, if for example loose women who plied their trade there were connected with the tavern. In that case, then, one will have to see whether one can, with a good conscience, make joint use of such a business made reprehensible by added circumstances, insofar as it also has a morally justifiable use that is not offensive. For example, even in the latter case, as soon as a house of ill fame is connected with a bar, one should no longer go there, because the house of ill fame never and nowhere has a proper purpose, can never be used properly according to God's order, and is everywhere, under all circumstances, a den of shame and vice. So also a tavern in which this kind of abomination is not carried on can nevertheless be disreputable to such a degree that a Christian no longer goes there, in order thereby also to give testimony before his fellow citizens that he regards this house as a public nuisance that should no longer exist at all. So then the conscience of the individual will also be rightly advised when one looks at the individual case in view of its circumstances.

Where, now, in a congregation there is danger that congregation members will devote themselves to such trades as would violate love of God and of the neighbor, it is necessary that the congregation be instructed from the pulpit, in the school, in confirmation instruction and in the catechetical instruction [*Christenlehren*], at the proper place and at the proper time, what is to be thought of such trades. This is necessary not only in young, new, less schooled congregations but also in old congregations, especially in our days, when worldliness has begun to flood so mightily into just the old congregations; there the Law must be applied, and indeed sharply, so that everyone understands what is meant. Then, however, one must not suppose that with the Law one can really do away with the harm, or even merely dam it up, as it should be in a Christian congregation; but one must again trust the Gospel with this and the