While queuing up some music to listen to today as I write, I came across several songs by Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) artist Ray Boltz. As a person who knew me quite well years ago said, “If Bruce wasn’t a Christian, nobody was!” This line of thinking is ludicrous for the simple fact that everything I said and did from the age of fifteen to the age of fifty said to the world that I was an out and proud follower of Jesus Christ.

For these people, the answer to their queasiness is to say that I never was a Christian that I was wolf in sheep’s clothing that I was a Satanic angel of light. They can’t stomach the thought of me being an atheist, yet still getting a mansion - albeit a much smaller one - in Heaven after I die. They can’t bear to think that a blasphemer such as I am is still a Christian. Of course, such thinking is unpalatable for many Evangelicals. No matter what I say or do, if Evangelicals are right, I am still a born-again Christian. If I can’t fall from God’s grace, I still have it. My deconversion poses a real problem for Evangelicals. Today, I am an apostate a false prophet an atheist. No one, at the time, doubted I was a Christian. The fruit of the Spirit was evident in my life ( Galatians 5:22,23). My lifestyle was one of devotion to Jesus.

I was a once-saved-always-saved Evangelical pastor for twenty- five years. This belief, of course, causes a real problem for Evangelicals when they hear about people who were once Evangelicals and lived according to Evangelical interpretations of the Bible, but no longer do so. Most Evangelicals believe that once a person is saved, he is always saved that nothing can separate him from the love of God ( Romans 8:31-39).

Whatever happened to ray boltz