# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S61
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of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 61

period, taking into consideration all communications that may have come in, prepare the text at a final meeting, which would then be laid before the next convention of the Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] for ratification.
A. L. Gräbner.
F. Kügele.
C. Gausewitz.
W. H. T. Dau.

This report was adopted and the Committee was thereby authorized to carry out the proposals it had made.

IV. Appeal.

Mr. J. Becker of Detroit, Mich., had appealed to the Synodical Conference on account of an action of the Michigan District of the Reverend Missouri Synod. His letter was given to a Committee, which reported as follows:

The Committee which was charged to report on the petition of Mr. Becker takes the liberty of presenting the following:

The document sent in by Mr. Becker contains, properly speaking, no appeal to the assembly of the Synodical Conference meeting here. We find in it, however, two accusations on which the sender in any case expects a pronouncement of the assembly.

The first accusation is that he, Mr. Becker, has been put under the ban by his congregation unjustly, on account of his position on marriage with a deceased wife's sister [*Schwagerehe*]. The congregation concerned declares, to be sure, that the ground of the exclusion was not at all the position on the Schwagerehe, and Mr. Becker himself admits this on page 5 of his document.

Since now the Synodical Conference has no competence in any cases of discipline, and therefore in matters of discipline an appeal from the individual synods to the Synodical Conference is inadmissible, the Committee recommends that this point of complaint of Mr. Becker be rejected as not belonging before the forum of the Synodical Conference, perhaps with the remark that Mr. Becker can go the proper way and turn to his District Synod and to the general body [*Allgemeine Synode*, i.e. the Missouri Synod as a whole, not the General Synod].

Secondly, Mr. Becker accuses the Synodical Conference of false doctrine in regard to the Schwagerehe. We find, however, nothing in his document that would substantiate this grave accusation.

We therefore recommend to the Reverend Synodical Conference to reject this point also as unfounded.
A. F. Ernst.
J. Herzer.
Jobst H. Büning.

This committee report was unanimously adopted.