# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1920_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6 Proceedings of the twenty-seventh convention

he also at the same time protects the parents against unauthorized interference from outside.

The duties of parents concern both the body and the soul of the child. Before God the parents are responsible for food and clothing, for shelter and suitable health care of the child. But especially, inasmuch as the soul is more important than the body, they must see to the right upbringing. In particular the fathers, and indeed the individual fathers, God holds liable for the education of the children assigned to them through fatherhood. Eph. 6:4: "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD!"

This responsibility no one can take away from the parents. Our government also recognizes it, at least in part. Parents who do not provide for their children physically are called to account; the damage that minors may cause the parents must make good again.

In our country the state has gone strongly into the business of education. The citizens are taxed, and the state establishes schools, appoints teachers and offers the most varied courses from the elementary school to the university. Now it is not to be investigated here what calling the state has to meet the parents in this way; only this is to be stressed, that by the establishment of an educational system on the part of the state the responsibility is not taken away from the parents; that the parents rather, in accepting the help, take the responsibility for it along with them; that therefore before God the state has no right to compel any parents to use its system.

The Christian congregation also cannot take their responsibility away from the parents. It does indeed have the calling to preach the Gospel to the children also; for that reason the care for education belongs (unlike the state) directly to its tasks. But here too the original way is that Christian education is impressed upon the parents as a necessary part of their sanctification. The congregation may, however, also fulfil its calling toward the children in the way that it sets up special schools for them. Yet even by this the parents' responsibility is not taken away; and the congregation also may not wish to compel anyone who otherwise conscientiously cares for the Christian education of his children to use the institution of the parish school.

As for preparation for special callings, those of state officials as well as of servants of the church, this is not in the first place a task of the parents. Parents should not withdraw their children who are especially gifted by God from either state or church; but to provide the necessary training is then a matter for the state, or the church respectively.