Old Lutherans

6^th Session:

This session was opened Saturday, November 3, at half past 8 in the morning as usual with a service in which hymn 159 was sung and Ps. 68 was read. The minutes from the 4^th session were read aloud and accepted with a few necessary improvements. In connection with an expression contained in yesterday’s minutes—that someone who had not actually lost true faith is not really under the ban, even if every Lutheran preacher in the entire world had excommunicated him—it was asked how the matter would stand if someone did not wish to submit himself to a good, wholesome ordinance [Ordnung] in the church and, yet, could not be accused of apostasy, whether he could be placed under the ban on account of his obstinance and stubbornness.

It was answered that such an excommunication would not be a valid excommunication. Only public, gross sins incur excommunication.  Violations of human ordinances are only sins when thereby love is damaged; but wherever love is not harmed by the transgression of human ordinances, no excommunication may be pronounced.  In fact, if someone were to hold to a purely human ordinance as if it were a divine ordinance, then such an ordinance would have to be broken for the preservation of Christian freedom. So, for example, the celebration [of the Divine Service] on Sundays is only a churchly ordinance. Here the sin consists in despising God’s word and not making use of it.  But if there were no Divine Service on this day, I could work on Sunday, and no one would have the right to give me a bad conscience for doing so. No congregation should exclude a member for the sake of transgressing a human ordinance, unless love were clearly harmed thereby.  

The following example was brought up: a congregation sends a delegate to a convention and resolves that each member should contribute something to his travel expenses; however, there is one member who does not want to contribute; this is conceded to him as long as he leaves the matter in peace and does not agitate the other members. But instead of leaving the matter alone, he incites a rebellion.  If a congregation then excluded the person for this reason after admonishing him to no avail, would it be in the right to do so? Certainly, since love had suffered harm and sedition had been incited. 

Disagreement arose in respect to a passage in yesterday’s minutes which indicated that that person who left the Lutheran church due to an erring conscience had not necessarily lost the Lutheran faith thereby—which passage had been altered to make it clearer: “such a person has not necessarily thereby fallen from faith in Christ.” It was asserted that one would have to say that those persons who had fallen away from our church and had gone over to a heterodox fellowship had fallen away from the Lutheran faith.  This was admitted in as much as the Lutheran faith was understood as the developed dogmatic understanding.  This assertion, too, was regarded as dangerous, since many would then fall away from the Lutheran church. 

The objection was raised whether someone who had erred out of weakness could be excommunicated.  When this question could not be answered in the affirmative, the distinction was referenced which had already been made yesterday between someone who errs due to inhibition or unclarity and one who willfully hardens himself against the truth.  If someone is to be excommunicated, then that person himself must be able to be convinced that his sin is damning, so that if he were open and not obdurate, he himself would have to say: “Yes, I ought to be excluded, but nevertheless I do not want to repent and will not follow your admonitions.”  

In order to shed some light on what cases are included in this, reference was made to the vast difference between those who are clearly established in true doctrine and the thousands of believing immigrants who are only barely familiar with and hardly established in the Lutheran doctrine and have let themselves be seduced by the sects here in America.  One could certainly not say about these that they had lost faith in Christ. It would be different if, for example, someone had stepped away from our Lutheran congregations after hearing the true doctrine year after year; in this case it may well be that as a rule this falling away from the visible, orthodox Church is connected with a true apostasy from faith in Christ.  Lastly, the distinction made yesterday was repeatedly referenced, namely that it all depends on whether someone falls away in ignorance and out of weakness or from despising the divine, maliciously and willingly.  In every individual circumstance, however many may be thought up, it always depends upon this. 

Since when discussing this matter a brother expressed himself to the effect that God may judge this way or that concerning the brother who has fallen away, but the congregation and the preacher would need to know how they are to regard and treat this person, we were made aware of how terrible it would be if we wished to judge and treat a person in such a case differently than God would. No, in excommunication it is decisive that the pastor and congregation must be entirely certain from God’s Word that this person has been excluded by God and so we also must exclude him.  If there is no certainty, then one must leave it be and not excommunicate someone.

Here it was also remarked that many preachers and congregations only go according to their so-called moral conviction and the impressions that the behavior of one person makes upon another’s feelings and disposition.   But this moral conviction may never serve as our measure.  Rather, we must deal according to the clear, certain Word of God alone. If you want to act in a case of excommunication according to human discretion and feeling, then you are a dreadful tyrant.  In a case of excommunication, you must know from God’s clear word what God would think about such a person.