There have been a lot of letters lately about churches, Christianity, and pastoral comments concerning controversial issues. While a fairly new Christian (7 years), I have nonetheless been an avid student of the Bible for some 35 years, and thought it prudent to offer a few thoughts of my own.

I don't think it's a secret that there is much doctrinal disagreement among Christian churches on many issues, including, but not limited to, baptism, the Lord's Supper, marriage/divorce, the problem of sin and how to deal with it, women preachers, and the purpose of the church. Granted, it takes time to work these matters out, church, but you have had 2,000 years.

One area of agreement is that you are all in the "business" of saving souls, but even here there is still disagreement, after 2,000 years, with regard to "HOW" that happens according to the same Bible you all read and claim to believe in. And it is doctrine concerning Christian salvation that concerns me the most.

I have met (if only briefly) hundreds of professing Christians in a wide variety of denominations, and have asked the majority how they got saved. I was amazed at different answers I elicited. After a while, I concluded that either their pastors didn't understand Biblical Salvation themselves, or there was mass failure to communicate it. And then after speaking with many pastors over the years, I concluded it was the former which led to the latter.

Was it a big deal that pastors didn't understand the basic message of Christian Salvation? Well, yeah, it sort of is because people are looking to them to "shepherd" them into a correct understanding of what that is, due to the fact that their eternal destiny depends on getting it right. Please believe me, Christian Salvation is NOT a matter of multiple choice - there is only one way to be born again!

I found that when I spoke with pastors or congregants asking them how they got saved, many would deny saying in a follow-up what they clearly said in the first conversation. And then when I would explain to them from the Scriptures what was really involved in being twice-born, they would claim that they said the same thing only using different words.

So I began asking congregants (mostly church members) if I could tape record the conversations. They agreed, but when the pastors learned what I was doing they would tell me to stop or leave. Attempting to "convert the choir" is a gigantic task requiring super natural power, but I still insist that the greatest need for evangelism is within the church itself. While certain pastors will speak publicly about certain issues (that might scare people into joining their church), these same pastors will NOT give a public interview to explain what they meant by what they said, and take other questions.

On the whole, pastors believe they can say and teach whatever they wish to whomever they want and that they are above public scrutiny. They answer only to God. They will indeed answer to God, but they need to answer to the public also, as much of what they teach has hard-to-detect negative consequences both here and in the hereafter.

I am asking all Christian pastors to make public their beliefs about what it means to be born again in a Biblical sense. To make themselves available to people interested in interviewing them on this and other subjects, and allow tape recording of the interviews so there is no mistake about what is being said by anyone.

I am available anytime to interview any pastor who is not ashamed of what he believes about how to be saved. And unlike many, I know how to ask the hard, but necessary, questions. False teachers abound today and it is an eternal imperative that we know who they are. Let's get the interviews and have the public debate.

Bill Johnson is a resident of Rathdrum. Contact him at [email protected]