Many of the reasons presented in the comments above are just low-hanging fruit, easy to criticize, thank God we are not like them, etc. I question whether our people’s knowledge about their salvation differs much at all from the unbaptized or confirmed. While many of us have diligently preached, taught, confessed the fact of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ promised by God, I was always surprised when one of my elderly, life-long LCMS Lutherans “confessed” that God considers the heart of the person and most good people end up in heaven. As an intentional interim Pastor, and as a now Emeritus Pastor, as well as a parish Pastor, I stopped being surprised when my long-term members got it wrong. Oh, they mouth somewhat accurate words, but when probed in love, they were uncertain at best, heretical at worst. All of this experience caused me to “start over” at every parish I served, beginning my Bible Classes with a study of the Small Catechism. So as not to pick on the elderly, I also taught Theology at one of our Lutheran high schools and heard over and over “Pastor, we might have heard that when we were 12 or 13, but that was so long ago (spoken by 16 year olds) and we weren’t ready to really learn that stuff. No excuses accepted. My preaching and teaching these days almost always involved “starting over” and then watch the wonderment in their eyes when the Gospel really hits home....priceless!