# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S68
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

68 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

intersynodical disputes, takes the liberty of submitting the following recommendations to the Honorable Synodical Conference:

1. We recommend that paragraphs 10 and 11 under the heading "Some Guiding Principles Concerning the So-called Opposition Congregations" (see *Synodalhandbuch* [Synodical Handbook] of the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States, 5th edition, St. Louis, Mo., Concordia Publishing House, 1924, pp. 152—155) be struck out.

2. We further recommend that the following sentences concerning the so-called opposition congregations and the settlement of intersynodical disputes be put in place of the paragraphs to be struck out, namely:

I.

If an excommunicated person turns to a pastor of another synod, the pastor may not pass judgment on the basis of the statement of the excommunicated person, but may turn to the former pastor of the excommunicated person for information. The latter is then bound to give information about the excommunication proceedings. In such a discussion the district officers (visitors and presidents) may be consulted. If an understanding is reached, the excommunicated person is to be directed to go the route through the successive courts of appeal [Instanzenweg] in his own synod, so that the case is not drawn out unnecessarily in any way. If an excommunicated person turns to a pastor of another synod after he has been rejected in the last instance in his own synod, then, if no understanding can be reached between the pastors and congregations concerned, the presidents concerned shall act.

II.

The Synodical Conference has declared: "The right and the freedom to join a synod or to withdraw from one is an inalienable right of the congregation. How a congregation exercises this right is finally for it itself to determine; yet it should take good care that it does not sin against love."

Before a congregation has definitively declared its withdrawal from a synod, it is not permissible for an officer of another synod to take it up and advise it. But if the withdrawal is established, it is not improper for officers of another synod to serve the congregation with their counsel.

III.

If a member of a congregation wishes to dissolve his membership in the congregation in order to join a congregation of another synod, he is to do so in consultation with his pastor and his congregation. The bond that unites him with the congregation and his pastor is a divine one and should therefore be dissolved only in an orderly manner. In a case of collision, that is, if a member of a congregation cannot agree with his pastor and his congregation about the usefulness of entering a new congregational connection, if the member is of the opinion that a greater spiritual blessing will result from it for his own person and for his family, perhaps because of the language, then the final decision rests with the individual Christian.

If the two congregations concerned cannot come to an understanding, reception is not to take place without further ado, but the matter is to be laid before the district officers responsible, who then are to advise according to the above principle and thus bring the case to a conclusion.