# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1920_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14 Proceedings of the twenty-seventh convention

Mich., two members of your Reverend Synod, the Professors President D. H. G. Stub and D. J. Ylvisaker, appeared as delegates, to our great joy, and gave expression to the existing fellowship of faith. This relationship, the close bond that, despite the difference of nation and language, unites your Reverend Synod and the synods of the Synodical Conference, moves us to address this letter to you, and as it proceeds from heartfelt brotherly love, so we ask you, dear fathers and brethren, to receive it in the same love.

"The relationship of fellowship in faith brings holy duties with it, including the duty of brotherly reminder and representation. For this we have the express biblical direction and the fine example of the early Christian congregations. Now the Synodical Conference has taken notice of the movement toward union among the Norwegian synods of our country, in which your Reverend Synod also takes part. It has also discussed in detail, for more than two days, one day in the presence of your Reverend delegates, the published articles of agreement, the so-called 'Opgjör,' and has examined it closely by Scripture and Confession, since it concerns a union with a Norwegian church body which thirty years ago, and ever since, again and again, has opposed and rejected the doctrinal position of the Synodical Conference, especially in the articles on conversion and election of grace (*Gnadenwahl*). This examination of the 'Opgjör' moves us, honorable, dear fathers and brethren, to ask you as heartily as urgently to give us a hearing on the three following points, so that with you as with us the one pure truth of the divine Word and of the Lutheran Confession may be confessed definitely, clearly and firmly, maintained and defended against all error, the consciences bound in God's Word and in the Lutheran Confession may be quieted, and unity of faith among us all may be preserved.

"We therefore ask your Reverend Synod, for the sake of the Confession:

"1. in Theses 1 to 3 on election of grace, to eliminate the equation of the so-called first and second forms of doctrine, since only the first is the truth of Scripture and of the Confession, the second having no ground in God's Word and in the Confession of the Lutheran Church and therefore no right to exist in the church;

"2. to cause the theses to contain a rejection of human conduct, especially also of the omission of the so-called willful resistance by natural or gracious powers, as an explanation of why God has converted and elected some before others, as is taught by our opponents in the American Lutheran Church, since the present conditions in the church demand such an antithesis;

"3. to hold with us a Christian-brotherly discussion of the earlier theses on calling and conversion and of the present ones on