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The Rev. Truman Dunn's actions - and the church's reaction - has thrust this tradition-bound denomination into a debate over what it means to be a Christian in the modern world.

Dunn, the pastor at Messiah Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, began giving lectures on his controversial beliefs in the past year. His assertions, including one that Jesus isn't the only way to salvation, almost cost him his job. The church's governing body backed off when Dunn's congregation supported him, and now the two sides are trying to come to an agreement where no agreement might be found.

Dunn's assertions "brought into public discussion issues that everybody knew were there and gave us the impetus to talk about something we didn't want to talk about," said the Rev. Bob Sawyer of Winston-Salem, the president of the Provincial Elders' Conference of the Southern Province of the Moravian Church.

Dunn's most public questioning of his denomination's beliefs came in the fall edition of The Hinge: A Journal of Christian Thought for the Moravian Church. He wrote: "For those of you who might be wondering, I do not believe that Jesus is the only way to find 'salvation.'" In that article and in college lectures, Dunn spoke of trying to save a denomination he loves, one that he believes is dying, in part because of what he sees as its rigid beliefs.

Yet for many Moravians, and for many other Christians, the belief in Christ as the only pathway to heaven is at the very heart of Christianity. Many other Christians, including some members of Dunn's church, disagree. So when Sawyer and his fellow members of the elders' conference tried to end Dunn's pastorate at Messiah Moravian in Winston-Salem, Dunn's church board nailed down an agreement with them, one by which Dunn will stay on at his church for at least the next year, a period in which he will meet with a bishop to discuss his beliefs.

The debate is not unique to Moravians. Most mainline denominations have wrestled, and in some cases fought, over similar questions of faith.

"I think it's an issue, I think it's a big issue: how the church maintains its sense of the unique revelation that Christ is, and yet engages in a dialogue where they're not only willing to talk, but learn from other faith traditions," said the Rev. Dan Wilkers of Parkway Presbyterian Church, a close friend of Dunn's.

Dunn declined to comment on the controversy. He said, "I'm hopeful of an increasing dialogue on these issues in the Moravian Church."

Dunn 52, grew up in Pennsylvania and was educated at Pennsylvania State University, Duke Divinity School and Union Theological Seminary in New York. In The Hinge article, he summarized lectures he gave at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pa., and at Salem College, where he's an adjunct professor.

Dunn writes that the Moravian denomination is dying. Although the denomination of about 800,000 members is growing in the Third World, it has been losing members in America since the 1960s, when it hit a high point of about 61,000 members. "(W)hat the church has to say about God, Jesus, the Bible is making less and less sense to more and more people," Dunn writes.

The Rev. Herbert Weber of Winston-Salem, a retired Moravian minister, disagrees with Dunn.

"I think there are a lot of things about our culture and the way of life in the Western world that influences the decline of membership, and we're not alone in that, the other mainline churches are suffering the same thing," he said.

In the article, Dunn calls for a new Moravian Church that "no longer makes exclusive truth claims." He critiques The Ground of the Unity, the Moravian statement of beliefs. "It clearly says on the very first page that we Moravians 'believe and confess that God has revealed himself once and for all in his son Jesus Christ ... and there is no salvation apart from him.' Now, I ask you how those in today's generations who are much more reflexive in their spirituality, much less willing to accept exclusive truth claims, find a spiritual home in the Moravian Church when this is what we say we believe?"

Later in the article, Dunn writes "we can still be faithful followers of Jesus without having to claim that following Jesus is the only way...."

Some Moravian pastors said they didn't want to pass judgment on Dunn's stance. "For Christians, Jesus is the way because that's what the Bible says, but the bottom line is God's going to be the one to judge us, I don't want to be the one doing the judging," said the Rev. Doug Rights of Olivet Moravian Church.

But the Provincial Elders Conference, the five-member, elected body that oversees Moravians in the Southern Province, reached a consensus to end Dunn's pastorate at Messiah Moravian. Sawyer said, "We always feel that it is essential that the ordained pastors under call, who are accountable to the synod and the PEC, do need to affirm the beliefs of the church."

The Provincial Elders' Conference's agreement with the board of Messiah Moravian came last week. "We take seriously what the congregational board had to say," Sawyer said.

Jeffrey Tibbs, a member of Messiah's board, said that Dunn has raised valid questions. "In talking with Truman and listening to his sermons and in his Sunday school class, I get the sense that he has a good heart, a kind, searching, truthful way about him."

Dunn soon begins his meetings with a bishop to resolve the doctrinal differences. "We need to have conversations to clarify what his personal beliefs are, and where he stands with respect to the church," Sawyer said. "There are challenges to the whole church in this."

Sawyer declined to say what would happen if Dunn doesn't change his beliefs, but did say, "I wouldn't want him to do anything but be authentic in terms of his own conviction and be a person of integrity."

Sawyer announced the conference's decision when Moravians from the Southern Province held their quadrennial meeting at Black Mountain last week. Moravians there began to talk about Dunn's case. They continue to wrestle with the issues he raised, issues that other Christians are also struggling with.