# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S72
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

72 Proceedings of the twenty-sixth convention

"The constitution of the Synod is indeed a solemn agreement among its members and determines under what condition they are to work together in one body. To prevent any hasty step and to afford protection against encroachments by a chance or temporary majority, the constitution provides that it cannot be changed except at two regular synodical conventions.

"But the synodical convention at Minneapolis was not a regular one; it was an extraordinary one, and nevertheless this non-regular synodical convention did something which is far more significant and far more important than assenting to a change in the synodical constitution in a single point. By the synodical convention's adopting a constitution for a new body, pledging itself to merge into it, and making a change of the synodical charter legal, it has indeed done something which is equivalent to the greatest possible change in the constitution of its own synod. It has in fact pronounced the death sentence on its own constitution.

"Even if the majority asserts that according to the state law the Synod was not obliged to go the way prescribed by its own constitution and to make so sweeping a change at two regular conventions, nevertheless according to the moral law and the order of the Church such a procedure must be called a breach of faith and a breach of trust.

"II.

"What further made this synodical convention so significant was this, that a great minority declined to go along in the union on the present basis.

"Even before the vote on the proposal to adopt the new constitution, the minority, through Rev. I. B. Torrison, submitted the following substitute:

"'Whereas a large minority in the Synod, of which the undersigned are a part, for their conscience's sake cannot go along in the union until the "Opgjör" is corrected to the effect that the first paragraph and the words "acceptance of" in the fourth paragraph be struck out, and in the third paragraph the reference to the Formula of Concord, Article 11, be extended so that it reads: Paragraph 1-20,

"'Therefore the undersigned, who otherwise consider a split in the body unavoidable, move that the Synod adopt the following resolution: The Synod calls upon the United Church and the Hauge Synod to adopt, if possible, at their approaching annual conventions these changes in the "Opgjör" and the corresponding