Shawn

This response is to Strawberry Fields, Please don't assign titles or intentions to me or Born-Again Mormon Ministries. My book will not save a fly let alone a creation of God and I do not, cannot, will not claim CREDIT (as you put it) for people to experience salvation or rebirth. When you assign titles/intentions you are fighting a cheap battle. Let's stay with the facts. I claim Latter-day Saints do not teach, preach or substantiate through their services or lives genuine spiritual regeneration as evidenced by innumerable reborn Christians who are not denominationally connected. I maintain that Latter-day Saints insist on saying that the man Joseph Smith is a necessary for people to experience salvation (eternal life, exhaltation) and that Jesus alone is/was not enough? Am I right or wrong and please speak to these questions directly. Thank you.

Faith is the EVIDENCE of things not seen . . . the only way to comprehend evidence, as humans, is through our senses. You can try and label me a natural man but I, in turn, throw the title right back on you. I live by faith, which is based on the spirit, Latter-day Saints live by works, which is based on their own need to act in order to feel qualified before God. What is lost in the translation is that Jesus qualifies, justifies and sanctifies Man before God . . . and nobody else. Once this faith (which I claim) has taken place (which again is based on EVIDENCE and SUBSTANCE from the Word of God, not the works and ideas of Man) then reborn Christians accomplish far more in the name of the Lord than the LDS could ever dream. Bottom-line, Latter-day Saints do not belive salvation would be available to Man without Joseph Smith. Born-Again Mormons know Jesus is the ONLY thing necessary to live with God again.

(see below - apologies)

My name is Shawn McCraney and I am the person who wrote the book Born-Again Mormon and who started Born-Again Mormon Ministries. I was born in the covenant, served a mission, married in the temple, was in a Bishopric and served on a high council for 4 years. I taught early morning seminary 2 years in California. I know the Church and I know the doctrines. I appreciate the Church and all it does in the face of today's world. But I also experienced a completely genuine and undeniable spiritual regeneration where anyone who has experienced the same (regardless of denomination) share a distinct commonality of faith. This commonality is not orchestrated by Man or his ideas, does not succumb to dogma or religious doctrine, and can only be described as otherworldly. The results of this rebirth are a natural revulsion to sin and temptation, a fruitful desire to know, love, serve and please God from the deepest parts of the heart, and a God-given faith Man cannot produce by his/her own merits. Part and parcel of this rebirth experience is an overwhelming yearning to praise Jesus (in the heart and verbally) and a entirely new and fresh perspective of the Word of God (the Bible). Again, these things are not produced or generated in the heart of the transformed but naturally occur ONLY after God has touched their hearts. My point is, when I witness (hear and see) these elements evidenced in the general body of the Latter-day Saints, I'll believe that genuine spiritual rebirth is a viable, authenitc part of the religion. Active, honest Latter-day Saints must admit that rarely is the topic of spiritual rebirth every mentioned in church, and that when the rubber meets the road, Jesus is but a footnote to the religion. I am not slamming, I am stating what I feel is fact. Prove me wrong. In Jesus, Shawn P.S. Please do spend a lot of time trying to quote scriptures. I know them and I know what the LDS references say. Just describe some flat out universal experiences where Jesus is truly and constantly recognized as our only means to the Father.