I Was A Born Again Mormon

By Shawn McCraney

Born-Again Mormon is for those Saints who long to praise Jesus Christ with all their heart but who rarely hear Him discussed in church. It is for those who yearn to please God but somehow sense that they are lacking or failing in their authentic efforts. Born-Again Mormon claims that whatever church with which a person chooses to affiliate after personally becoming born again through Jesus is an intimate decision that should be made between the individual and the Lord. There is plenty of Christian work to be done in every denominational pasture.
Keeping this concept in mind, the title of the book, Born-Again Mormon, should be no more shocking (and no less viable) than the hypothetical titles of Born-Again Baptist, Born-Again Catholic or even, Born-Again Jew. Contrary to the ardent beliefs most religious organizations propagate, the operative words, according to the Lord Himself, are Born-Again, not the denominational title that follows.
There will certainly be members of the Church who will, to some degree or another, reject this work based on the title alone (not to mention the premise). In keeping with the LDS tradition of “allowing all men to believe how, where or what they may,” I respect their right to scoff. It’s important to know, however, that I am not recommending that members of the Church abandon their memberships nor am I suggesting they join another religious institution. But I am relentlessly promoting, above everything else considered important in the Church, the inward change (or spiritual rebirth) Jesus proclaimed as necessary for anyone desiring to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever happens thereafter in terms of worship, fellowship, or membership is between the regenerated soul and the Lord.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawn McCraney
• Release date: Apr 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310080647

Shawn McCraney

Shawn McCraney, the host of Heart of the Matter Live every Tusday at www.HOTM.tv. Shawn provides great entertainment value and valuable knowledge of Mormonism and what it means to be a Born-Again Christian.

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ACKNOLEDGMENTS

I’d like to express my love and gratitude to the following people, businesses, and organizations that have, in one way or another, supported me as I wrote Born-Again Mormon. I could have never done it without them.

Kinko’s Copies, Del Taco, and Super-Mex of Huntington Beach, California. Lavina Fielding Anderson, Sunstone Symposiums, and my friends and colleagues at Crystal Cove State Park in Laguna Beach, California. Jeff McCraney, Brian Large, Scotty Lang, and Perryman DuBose, four great LDS men who have all gone to live with the Lord. Venessa Maggione, Phil and Sheryl Howard, Dan Wootherspoon, Grant Palmer, and my brothers and teachers at the Calvary Chapel School of Ministry. Dr. Charles Stanley, Pastor Chuck Smith, Adam Braithwaite, M.D., Andy Aaron Arness, and Dennis and Synthia Loy. My old friends, Steve and Jen Rudd, my parents, William Ed and Lucille McCraney, my mother-in-law, Mary Blanche DuBose, my devoted wife, Mary, and my vivacious daughters, Mallory, Cassidy, and Delaney.

Of course, without the LORD, I can do nothing.*

*John 15:5 : I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

To anyone who has ever taught me

anything, especially Mary, Mallory,

Cassidy and Delaney.

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.

- Walt Whitman

MISSION



To introduce Latter-day Saints to the God-given gift of spiritual rebirth through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

To assist Born-Again Mormons in their sacred mission of peacefully bringing other Latter-day Saints to the Lord.

To help Born-Again Mormons appreciate and support positive aspects of Church membership while simultaneously (but politely) rejecting any doctrine or practice contrary to biblical truth and authentic Christian belief.

To patiently help initiate an integration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into the existing body of Christ.

PROLOGUE

It has long been my observation that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints insist on knowing the background, qualifications, and spiritual condition of an individual who has authored something about the Church. This demand is understandable since publications regarding the LDS Church are often misinformed, and in many cases, are composed at the hands of people who have a seething hidden agenda. Admittedly, I have an agenda, but it is out in the open and aimed at bringing Latter-day Saints to the Lord by attacking erroneous doctrines and practices and not the physical church they have grown to love.[1]

Understanding this, and in an effort to provide some background to the interested Christian reader, I’ve included my spiritual history in Section I – Rebirth.

I wrote this history to give the reader an idea of where I’ve been in my relationship to God (and man), what my relationship has been to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what my present standing is with the Church, and how my own spiritual rebirth actually occurred. I readily acknowledge that by including this unadulterated expose about my failures and successes as an LDS man and Born-Again Christian, I am not only jeopardizing the small amount of credibility more anonymous authors generally enjoy, but I am also running the additional risk of having most readers automatically question my ability to author a meaningful book about what it means to be a born-again Latter-day Saint.

Just as the character of a political leader does count in his or her ability to govern the masses, the character of a writer of religious thought is important to his or her perspective of difficult religious issues. It is my hope, however, to use my personal failures as an unregenerated Latter-day Saint (and my experience in becoming a born again Christian) to help illustrate some of the inherent problems faced by members of the Church who love Mormonism but need more to thrive spiritually than the rites, demands, and culture it provides.

I readily admit that as a man of the flesh (or natural man) I am capable of almost all manner of egregious sin and have willfully committed more than my share as an active member of the Church. This is a very important admission when considering the purpose of this book. For while I was able to outwardly do what most Latter-day Saints do, I inwardly knew I was a complete failure in my heart and soul before the Lord. Herein lies one of the greatest problems with organized religion today – it produces religious people who may not have any idea what it means to really know, love, worship, or serve God.

While the Christian community is more likely to understand and accept this type of confession from a repentant author, I am fairly certain such an admission will automatically cause many LDS readers to reject my opinions and perspectives as tainted.[2] This is an understandable response, but it was never my intention to write this book for those Latter-day Saints who sincerely believe they have it all together in life. Instead, I’ve written Born-Again Mormon for those people who are at least willing to recognize themselves as constantly failing and who hopefully are open to doing something about it while they remain active members of the Church.

In the name of the Lord whom I love, follow, and trust, I give my word that everything I’ve written is true, including my account of who I genuinely was as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and what I’ve become through the absolutely miraculous rebirth of my spirit by God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that this promise and confession will somehow allow each reader to decide whether my work qualifies as an object of value in their personal search for God or an object of derision about mine. I pray that, if you choose to read Section I, Rebirth, you so do with a heart willing to forgive me of my failures and a mind ready to examine the facts as they relate to the purpose of this book. For the past three years I have committed my hands and heart to writing and reporting truth. I pray that each reader will seek to understand the contents of this work with the same dedication.

Shawn McCraney

August 31st 2005

INTRODUCTION

I am a born-again Mormon. And though I won’t offer an exact time and date when this miraculous rebirth officially occurred, I can honestly report that after seventeen years of continually searching for absolute truth, I unquestioningly became, and will forever remain, a new creature in Christ.[3]

Having been a member of the Church since birth and blessed with a keen desire to truly understand God, people, and the theologies presented to me since boyhood, I’ve written this book for those Latter-day Saints who genuinely love the LDS Church but remain spiritually hollow; who find themselves certain of their place in the Church, but remain spiritually yearning about their place with God; who silently question many of the doctrines, practices or cultural expectations present in the Church today, but who remain active out of fear, personal comfort, and even family continuity. I emphasize today, because Born-Again Mormon is not a regurgitation of early LDS history or an expose on the life and times of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Porter Rockwell or any other significant LDS figure of the past.[4] By no measure can Born-Again Mormon be considered anti-Mormon literature as I have purposefully omitted anything that attacks the Church through its unique history or the failures of its founders. Instead, Born-Again Mormon seeks to explain how people who have been miraculously born again by the gift and power of God (through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ) can remain active, peaceful, evangelical members of the present-day LDS Church while bringing other Latter-day Saints to the Lord. Born-Again Mormon also seeks to help unregenerated Latter-day Saints (those who have not been born again) understand the unique differences between their view of the Lord Jesus Christ and how Born-Again Mormons have come to know and trust Him.

Born-Again Mormon is for those Saints who long to praise Jesus Christ with all their heart but who rarely hear Him discussed in church. It is for those who yearn to please God but somehow sense that they are lacking or failing in their authentic efforts. Born-Again Mormon claims that whatever church with which a person chooses to affiliate after personally becoming born again through Jesus is an intimate decision that should be made between the individual and the Lord. There is plenty of Christian work to be done in every denominational pasture.

Keeping this concept in mind, the title of the book, Born-Again Mormon, should be no more shocking (and no less viable) than the hypothetical titles of Born-Again Baptist, Born-Again Catholic or even, Born-Again Jew. Contrary to the ardent beliefs most religious organizations propagate, the operative words, according to the Lord Himself, are Born-Again, not the denominational title that follows.[5]

There will certainly be members of the Church who will, to some degree or another, reject this work based on the title alone (not to mention the premise). In keeping with the LDS tradition of "allowing all men to believe how, where or what they may,"[6] I respect their right to scoff. It’s important to know, however, that I am not recommending that members of the Church abandon their memberships nor am I suggesting they join another religious institution. But I am relentlessly promoting, above everything else considered important in the Church, the inward change (or spiritual rebirth) Jesus proclaimed as necessary for anyone desiring to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever happens thereafter in terms of worship, fellowship, or membership is between the regenerated soul and the Lord.

Born-Again Mormon could not have been written if two important conditions did not exist. First, had I not experienced the miracle of spiritual rebirth myself, there is no way I could write a book that attempts to promote or describe it to my LDS brothers and sisters. I don’t mean to say that I couldn’t try and make something up about it – I probably could. But such fiction could never correctly describe the realities of this God-given event without my having personally experienced it. Anyone who has been spiritually reborn,

regardless of their religious affiliation, would immediately recognize my writings as fraudulent. But since my rebirth has been a literal and observable reality (to which my wife, children and friends can readily attest) and since my experience with spiritual rebirth is consistent with what the Bible and other multi-denominational reborn Christians describe, I am now obligated to God and His will for me to pass the experience along to those people on whom I can have the most effect. In my case, these are the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are not born again.

Occasionally, I have taken the opportunity to share my spiritual rebirth with other Latter-day Saints. It didn’t take long before I could see that I was sharing a message totally foreign to their way of thinking. I should have known this. At the same time, however, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the wonder of my spiritual rebirth with a number of people from a variety of diverse Christian denominations. Every one of them, who claimed to have had a spiritual rebirth of their own, resonated entirely to my description of the change I had experienced and how miraculously new my life has been since. This caused me to wonder why so many Latter-day Saints rejected or misunderstood my claims of rebirth by calling it man-made, self-serving, and even evil especially when all the manifestations of my experience were uplifting, wholesome, and positive.

Since being reborn, I’ve experienced greater patience, a loving and forgiving attitude, a kindness toward those who offend me, and an other-worldly strength to live as righteously as possible. Where pride and rebellion once ruled my life, submissiveness has taken over -- not in every circumstance (I’m still growing) but generally and overall.

Most of the Latter-day Saints I’ve spoken with have refused to believe that the changes I’ve exhibited were real or of God. In light of these reactions, the only reasonable explanation I could formulate was that most Latter-day Saints have no idea what spiritual rebirth actually means and therefore, having never experienced it, can only deny its reality and/or describe it as false. This leads to the second condition that needed to exist before Born-Again Mormon could be written: a universal need.

If Latter-day Saints as a whole truly understood and experienced spiritual rebirth, there would be no reason to write this book. But I have listened very closely to most members as they speak (from top leaders of the Church to the lowliest participants) and paid very close attention to the words they use to describe their relationship with the Lord. I read Church literature and attend general, stake and ward conferences, hoping to hear someone truly communicate something that echoes the sentiments of a spiritually reborn being. I’ve counted how many times Jesus, Jesus Christ, The Lord, and The Savior are used in sacrament meetings for months at a time; and for

forty-two years I’ve listened to the testimonies that Latter-day Saints bear, not only in monthly testimony meetings but in less formal settings. Most of the time messages about Jesus Christ and His true and living promise of salvation are displaced with the mundane and inconsequential fodder of religious rhetoric. Something has got to give.

In the course of writing Born-Again Mormon, I was informed by several stalwart Latter-day Saints that they already considered themselves spiritually reborn Mormons by virtue of their membership in the Church. Therefore, they explained, to read my book would open them up to nothing they hadn’t tacitly experienced through their being faithful members of the Church. My younger brother, who is a great defender of the faith, once remarked, The title of your book is redundant. To him, Born-Again is synonymous with, Mormon. Theoretically, I can understand how he believes this to be so; but in actual practice, nothing could be further from the truth. And while I’m certain there are plenty of Latter-day Saints who have genuinely been spiritually regenerated by God through their faith on Jesus Christ, in my experience, most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not possess any semblance of the true, spiritual rebirth which is universally found throughout millions of denominationally divergent Christian believers world-wide. In light of the Lord’s emphatic directive to Nicodemus that a man must be born-again, this is nothing but a gigantic (and wholly avoidable) religious and spiritual tragedy.

Born-Again Mormon first seeks to introduce all Latter-day Saints to the God-given gift of undeniable spiritual rebirth that comes through true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As Latter-day Saints relinquish themselves completely to the Lord, He will prompt them to even greater works of service and love then they have ever accomplished by their own will, ways, or dedication. Second, Born-Again Mormon hopes to serve as a support for those born-again Saints who choose to remain active in the Church while working to bring other members of the Church to the Lord. Finally, Born-Again Mormon hopes to help initiate the ultimate integration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into the existing body of Christ. Many Latter-day Saints will fight against this book, claiming that it undermines the authority and purposes of the Church. In many ways, they would be correct. Others will continue to maintain that there is no need for spiritual rebirth among the Saints; that God is in His holy temple and all is well in Zion. But look around the chapel some Sunday service and consider what you see. Listen to the speakers, the lessons, and the music. Tally what you hear. Ask Latter-day Saints if they have been spiritually born again, then carefully compare what they claim is spiritual rebirth with what other genuinely reborn Christians describe. At the end of it all, ask yourself: Why isn’t the experience of spiritual rebirth discussed more emphatically in the Church? How does a person experience this change? Why is the Church so consumed with administrative measures? How come people don’t really talk about Jesus? Why does the Jesus I read about in the Bible seem so different from the Jesus in the Church to which I belong? Why do I always feel as if I must constantly put on an act in front of other Latter-day Saints when this kind of acting was so repulsive to Jesus when He was on earth? Is my belief and faith in the Church organization and what it represents really and truly the equivalent to faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus? Born-Again Mormon hopes to answer these questions, and many more, for searching Latter-day Saints and those non-Mormons seeking to truly experience the undeniable event of spiritual rebirth in their lives.

Born-Again Mormon begins, in Chapter 1, with a brief discussion about sin. Chapter 2 provides God’s answer to sin, even Jesus Christ, who is the focal point of a Born-Again Mormon’s adoration, trust, faith, worship and joy -- an attitude that will be fully explained in the chapter. In Chapter 3, I provide a truthful expose of my spiritual history and what led me to the absolute miracle of spiritual rebirth. These first three chapters compose the Born-Again section of Born-Again Mormon.

Chapter 4 is the first chapter of five that relates to present-day Mormonism. In it I begin with a positive examination of Joseph Smith and his motives to save early Christianity. Chapter 5 reviews the Book of Mormon as a nineteenth-century Christ-centered book, and Chapter 6 presents the Bible as the definitive and authoritative Word of God. Chapter 7 presents a foundational view of presently held LDS doctrine and theology, and Chapter 8 offers some practical suggestions for Latter-day Saints who have become born-again while members of the Church. After the conclusion, "Moving Toward Christian Authenticity," two appendices contain: (1) a look at Robert J. Lifton’s characteristics of totalistic methodologies and (2), a list of frequently asked questions I have received in person or through my website at www.BornAgainMormon.com and www.hotm.tv with the answers I offer. After the bibliography, I list recommended resources (print, on-line, DVD, and radio).

Nothing on this earth - not man nor woman, not a book or a religion - has the power to transform the human spirit. Only God can do this. Born-Again Mormon does not offer the key or formula to wealth, peace, or security. Nor is it an attempt to destroy the beneficial aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or start up some offshoot sect. It is merely a call for Christian authenticity from within the LDS Church, which is always initiated by the genuine spiritual rebirth of people. It is here where Born-Again Mormon begins.

SECTION ONE

BORN-AGAIN

sin

Jesus

rebirth

SIN

Almost every religious organization throughout the world agrees that God is all good. Specifically, Christianity teaches that God is all loving, all wise, all merciful, all caring, all compassionate, all kind, all knowing, all present, and all powerful.[7] If God is to be considered all good, however, He must also be considered all fair, all righteous and all just, among other things. More often than not these latter attributes are excluded from descriptions of Him because they don’t readily accommodate humankind’s inherent weaknesses.

Because God’s all-good nature includes that He is all fair and all just, He cannot be, by definition, all accepting. When His creations do something that is contrary to His goodness, the way an All-Good God responds is by demanding perfect justice. If He were to demand anything less, He would cease to be all good, because He would fail in being all just.

As an illustration of an All-Good God’s need to be all just, imagine for a moment that you are taking an afternoon walk with a child you love very much. And suppose, to your horror, an armed man jumps from the brush and savagely murders the child right before your eyes. Shortly thereafter this vicious fiend is caught by the law and taken to jail. A trial is scheduled. From everything you have heard, the judge assigned to try the case is known for being a fair and reliable Judge. One you could trust. A good judge.

After all the facts of the case have been heard, the judge addresses the courtroom to deliver his verdict.

Now I understand that this man has done a terrible thing, he states matter-of-factly. "And I also understand that he should pay for his crimes. But I must also take into account the fact that I love this man, and reading the file on his life I understand him. Therefore there is a side of me that wants to be kind to him, to show him mercy, to forgive him. Because I believe so strongly in the good and kind things of love, I have no choice but to set him free."

Anyone hearing this verdict would certainly question this Judge’s competence and his ability to mete out justice. Wait! you might cry. "Where is Justice? My child is dead and this venomous man did it! I watched it with my own eyes! Where is the justice for this murder? Where is the justice for me and my

family? Where is the justice for my broken heart and the anger and pain I feel inside? How can you let such a beast go free in the name of love?"

Much to your chagrin, the judge replies, I am a merciful judge who is full of love; and because I am all merciful, I must let this man go free. I’m sure, if you were in this man’s shoes, you would expect the same treatment. So he sets the murderer free. And by his action you, the dead child, and civilized society are denied justice.

Several important conclusions can be drawn from this illustration. First, the judge has proved himself unfair because he did not satisfy justice with a fair or equitable verdict. Society looked to him to deliver justice for all parties involved but his love and mercy rode rough-shod over fairness and justice. Second, because he has proven himself unfair, he cannot be considered a good judge any longer. Third, because the judge is not a good judge any longer, he cannot be trusted by anyone in the future. Fourth, it becomes obvious that the characteristics of love, compassion, kindness and mercy alone do not make him a good judge. Finally, if the Judge was truly an all good judge upon whom we could consistently rely, he would have exhibited the unfailing ability to balance

the demands of one hundred percent justice with one hundred percent mercy.

People who choose to call themselves Christian must come to terms with the idea that, if God is an all good God whom we can trust completely, He must therefore be all good in every way, and not just in the ways the human mind or heart desires Him to be. There is no such thing as selective or ambiguous goodness when it comes to God – He either is All Everything Good, or He is not. This is a very important either/or, because, if God is not all good, He cannot, should not, must not be completely trusted. And since total trust in an all-good God is the basic tenet of true Christianity, it therefore follows that God must be unquestionably all-good.

With God being all good and completely worthy of every bit of our trust, we are persuaded, as a people longing to live with Him again, to reconcile anything in our lives that is contrary to His all good nature. Any attitude, action, motivation, or state of consciousness[8] that stands in opposition to God’s all-goodness is sin. [9] All Bible-believing Christian religions, denominations, or sects agree that we cannot escape from this world without committing sin somewhere along the way, if not every day of our existence. To some believers, sin is easily committed and quickly forgotten. To others, sin becomes a conscious, overwhelming burden. But whether small or great, conscious or unconscious, deliberate or accidental, all sin – of every type and size – is absolutely repugnant and repulsive to our all-good God, and must be completely consumed by the demands of His justice.

What is difficult for many people to accept, especially people who are religiously inclined, is the idea that sin is as much a part of their everyday life as flaws and blemishes are to their skin.[10] Certainly some people are blessed with relatively few disfiguring marks upon their flesh while others are peppered from head to toe with sores, acne, boils, wounds, scars, moles, freckles, and birth-marks. The point is not necessarily the quantity or type of marks people display in the flesh, but that everyone on this earth, at some point or another, will have imperfections in the skin that covers them. The sin nature existing in unregenerated humanity is a great corollary to this simple metaphor. So while some people erupt in outward acts of disgusting behavior and others work desperately to cover their spite, envy, greed or pride, the sin-nature is there, whether openly exposed for the world to see or buried beneath the ever-popular cover of sanctimonious attitudes or rites. Martin Luther understood the sin-nature in human beings to be an overall general condition. Roland Bainton

phrased Luther’s thoughts on the matter thus;

The physician does not need to probe each pustule to know the patient has smallpox, nor is the disease to be cured scab by scab. To focus on particular offenses is the counsel of despair. When Peter started to count the waves, he sank. It’s the whole nature of man that needs to be changed.[11] (italics mine)

As the father of three daughters (whom I love with all my heart) I can say with only some bias that according to the generally accepted standards of the world, they are good and accomplished young women. They have been taught the value of temperance, chastity, hard work, and kindness and have thus far made their mother and me quite proud of their personal achievements in academics, athletics, church, and the applicable social graces. Nevertheless, I readily see that they are, by nature, selfish, proud, and subject to constant failures of the flesh. More importantly, at least in the context of this discussion, these tendencies have been with them from birth. All it takes to set any one of them off is a little bit of discomfort, a sudden or unwelcome challenge, or someone attacking her personal style. Suddenly, these girls who do so much to please us as earthly parents and who seem so progressive in their personal accomplishments, become self-absorbed, impatient, rude, and at times quite vicious. The unkindness surfaces like a black shark in a peaceful blue lagoon.

Terrifying as this may sound, and hard as it is to admit, I recognize that these sinful responses originate from the same source of murder, pillage, torture, and domination in more seasoned sinners the world over. And though these still-sweet girls would certainly be repulsed by the more heinous crimes committed today, their basic sin-nature emanates from the same seed; and if left to flourish (and more importantly, if left unregenerated in their birth-heart) they forever risk committing some of the same savageries (though I doubt they will due to their environmental influences). More likely, however, and perhaps more to the point, even though these girls will never commit the more egregious acts of sin against God and others, they could very easily remain sinful in their hearts throughout their entire lives. This is one of the most important messages of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is often forgotten in the religious practices of past and present days.

Let me clarify. I am not saying that the environment of the home and the skills and dedication of parents in helping children outwardly conform do not go a long way in teaching children to be responsible and caring adults. They do. In fact, with a sin-nature present in children from birth, parental influence is vital in keeping the effects of this condition at an outward minimum. But no matter what parents do to train up a child in the ways of the Lord, their efforts cannot completely eradicate the sin-nature from a child’s heart. Neither can time, religious practice, efforts, or experience. Only God can perform such a miracle. And if He isn’t invited into a child’s heart, unregenerated children with good outward mannerisms but sinful hearts grow up to be unregenerated adults possessing the same outward goodness (whited sepulchers) but hearts filled with all manner of failings (dead men’s bones.)[12]

In an effort to keep our children (and ourselves) from becoming desensitized by sin and its numbing, cumulative effects, and as an additional means of controlling the unruly masses, organized religions have imposed a number of well-meaning measures which have proven quite effective in reducing, hiding, or even destroying some of the sin-nature found in human souls. I emphasize some.

Certain religious organizations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints included, have so perfected these modes of complicity and reform that