# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1908_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1908. 35

it, when a congregation receives someone lawfully excommunicated by another congregation. Likewise it involves a gross disturbance of fellowship among brethren in the faith when a congregation refuses to grant to other congregations, or also to individual Christians who have come to have misgivings about an imposed ban, insight into the procedure of church discipline. Likewise it is a gross disturbance of fellowship among brethren in the faith when a congregation imposes a false ban and even wants to maintain it. — One might object here that this disturbance of fellowship among brethren in the faith can hardly be avoided, since Christians too often find it hard to agree about a ban. To this it is to be said: Christians who judge according to God's Word can in every case agree about the ban-worthiness of a person. The Lord does not indicate doubt, but expresses certainty for the judging and acting Christians, when He says in Matt. 18: "Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." But are there not many cases in which it remains doubtful even for calmly judging Christians whether someone sins out of weakness or out of malice? Certainly. Such cases occur not seldom. But Christians are agreed also with regard to such doubtful cases, namely in this, that in doubtful cases no ban is ever to be imposed. Disagreement in judgment is due — presupposing that both sides know the Christian doctrine of the ban and of church discipline — to fleshly congregational or synodical patriotism. One should not charge God's Word with the fault, as if it were not also for church practice a lamp unto our feet and a clear light upon our way. — A gross disturbance it further involves when one congregation seeks to draw members away from another congregation, or one synod from another synod. One should not appeal to the fact that every congregation and every synod has special interests. To this it is to be said: In the Christian Church there are no special interests. All Christians and all Christian congregations form one spiritual body, and the weal and woe of one member concerns the whole body. All members of the spiritual body have only one interest, namely the interest that the body of Christ be built up. All special interest that does not subordinate itself to this general interest is fleshly congregational and synodical patriotism. On the common interest of all members in the body of Christ the Apostle Paul instructs us very fully in 1 Cor. 12:12-27. — The Synodical Conference has also incorporated this into the provisions that are to regulate the relation of the synods to one another. (Cf. Synodalhandbuch [Synodical Handbook], p. 165.) — Likewise it is self-evident that there is a disturbance of fellowship among brethren in the faith when a congregation or synod receives as a brother someone who turns to it, if the same person the brotherly relation to