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You are still confusing sin with temptation.

I don't think I am. I am perfectly aware of Jesus' teaching about inner lust and how it is considered adultery in one's heart.

What I am doing is WONDERING how a church or a denomination can JUDGE a person's heart without the person actually committing the act.

How are you for instance, as a pastoral committee member going to decide whether a person is qualified to be pastor or bishop or not based on what is in his heart ?

Are you going to EXPLICITLY ask the question --- HAVE YOU EVER COMMITTED ADULTERY IN YOUR HEART ? or HAVE YOU EVER HAD HOMOSEXUAL DESIRES IN YOUR HEART ? or HAVE YOU EVER LUSTED AFTER MATERIAL THINGS IN YOUR HEART ?

Are these questions standard questions in your church or in your committee ?

I can tell you honestly that if you asked me this question as an applicant, I will honestly answer YES to the first and third question above. Would that sin-in-my-heart then disqualify me from being pastor ? ( assuming I was educationally qualified and applied for such a position ).

Would it be better for me to lie and say NO in order to get a better chance of being ordained than be honest ?

Furthermore, the last thing a regenerated sinner, be it a Homosexual or serial adulterer or anyone suffering from any other type of sin is going to do, is refer to themselves as a Homosexual, Serial Adulterer, or whatever the sin is. Because each of those labels imply an active condition which goes counter to the message of the Gospel of being free from your sin.

If it were an ACTIVE CONDITION, the person would be LIVING IT OUT either openly or secretly (e.g., Ted Haggard) and if he did, I would have NO OBJECTIONS to having him DEFROCKED.

However, it is not right to defrock a person from being a clergyman simply for his confession that he as lusted in his heart. This sin-in-your-heart affects EVERYONE ( even St. Paul admits to it in Romans 7 ) and if you disqualified everyone on that basis, you will have no clergy to serve at all.

However, it is not right to defrock a person from being a clergyman simply for his confession that he as lusted in his heart. This sin-in-your-heart affects EVERYONE ( even St. Paul admits to it in Romans 7 ) and if you disqualified everyone on that basis, you will have no clergy to serve at all.

I am afraid your definition and perception of this issue and those we are talking about, the ECLA, are not the same thing.

In the context of what the ECLA is talking about, it is someone still suffering from the Sin or Desire of Homosexuality, else there would be no need to mention the word Homosexual or make a big point about it.

They are trying to mainstream the idea of Homosexuality, while sanctimoniously pretending to be understanding and of a more loving nature: their words and action prove this to be true.

Once again, there is no need to make mention of someone being a Homosexual, as there is no need to make mention of a Liar, as there is no need to make mention of an Adulterer in referring to those who are to be members of the clergy.

The basic requirements for those in leadership positions in the Church is an active and up-to-date relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in which we are not sinning or suffering from any sinful condition AND, at least for the position of Pastor, should be a calling from God for the position. Anything less, and the person involved will not only be ill-fitted for the position, but will be responsible for the souls of the Men/Women/Children that they will mislead.

Are these questions standard questions in your church or in your committee ?

I can tell you honestly that if you asked me this question as an applicant, I will honestly answer YES to the first and third question above. Would that sin-in-my-heart then disqualify me from being pastor ? ( assuming I was educationally qualified and applied for such a position ).

Would it be better for me to lie and say NO in order to get a better chance of being ordained than be honest ?

Concerning the standard questions in our church, our doctrinal theology states that no man/woman will be in a position of authority if they are not up-to-date in their relationship with Jesus. This means, of course, that they are not in a state of sin, that they have been forgiven and their heart has been changed and they have been given power over their sin by their Redeemer. This removes the necessity and impossibility of "judging" a person's heart. Furthermore, their testimony will precede them before they ever get to the point of seeking a position of authority in the church and if the Board of the church is being responsible in their decision making process, they will be using that person's personal testimony (not a verbal testimony but the testimony of that person's past actions) in the decision-making process.

If they cannot answer that request honestly in the affirmative, they will not be given the position of authority.

IF they are lying, it will show itself soon enough and they will be removed from that position.

With regard to your question about lying, it would be better for you, if you were in that situation, to be honest with God, the committee, and yourself and withdraw yourself from that process UNTIL you repent and let God make things right in your heart.

However, it is not right to defrock a person from being a clergyman simply for his confession that he as lusted in his heart. This sin-in-your-heart affects EVERYONE ( even St. Paul admits to it in Romans 7 ) and if you disqualified everyone on that basis, you will have no clergy to serve at all.

You have taken the scripture in Romans Ch. 7 out of context:

Romans 7

1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Many people read this scripture out of context to the detriment of their soul thinking it excuses them for the sinning they do or the sin they find themselves trapped in.

Pay particular attention to vs. 5 and 6 for these scriptures point to a complete deliverence to sin that is further strengthened by verses in Chapter 8:

5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Furthermore from Romans ch. 8:

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

So Jesus did not just die to forgive you of your sins, but to save you from the power of sin by giving you the ability to live above that sin.

Chapter 7 just details the struggle of a man who has been awakened to his sinful state, basically a state of Repentence where he realizes that without the help of a benevolent God, he is doomed.

Chapter 8 details the salvation of that sinner both from past sins and the power to not sin anymore, after he has released control of his will to God and believed the Gospel of Redemption given to us by Jesus Christ.