Meet Josh Gehly, Bickertonite Evangelist (1 of 6)

Josh Gehly is an evangelist from the Church of Jesus Christ. His church dates back to the days of Sidney Rigdon and is sometimes called the Bickertonite Church. Josh has written a new book "Witnessing Miracles" that provides evidence for both the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. We'll get acquainted with Josh and his book. Check out our conversation...   https://youtu.be/93dvoCQIwk0 Don’t miss our other conversations with Josh: https://gospeltangents.com/people/josh-gehly   Copyright © 2024 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission GT  00:45  Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I'm excited to have a second member of the Church of Jesus Christ, based in Monongahela, Pennsylvania [on the show.] Sometimes we call them the Bickertonites. Could you go ahead and tell us who you are and what your calling in your church is?  Josh  01:00  Hi, everybody. My name is Josh Gehly. I'm an ordained evangelist in the Church of Jesus Christ.   GT  01:05  All right. Well, that's exciting. Daniel Stone was my previous member of your church. [He] wrote a book about William Bickerton. I will encourage you guys to check that out. He's a historian. Josh is not, but he's written an amazing book, "Witnessing Miracles: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection and the Book of Mormon." One of the interesting things, and I did warn Josh [that] I was going to ask him about this. I think it's the only book about the Book of Mormon that quoted Hugh Hefner.  Josh  01:37  Right off the bat! {both laughing}  GT  01:40  And so it was a fantastic book. Why would you put Hugh Hefner in a book about the Book of Mormon?  Josh  01:47  Yeah, absolutely. Well, Hugh should have read the Book of Mormon a little bit better. Maybe it would have helped him in the end. {Rick laughing} But I would just say my passion for this started, obviously the whole book is in the title there. Right? We're comparing the two greatest miracles from all of human history: the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and overlaying that with the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. That ties to Hugh Hefner, because there was a time when Hugh was being interviewed on, of all things, that exact topic. And he basically said, well, I hope it's true. I would hope it's true. Because if Christ really rose from the dead, that would open up a marvelous set of possibilities. But he was implying in that interview that there wasn't any actual evidence. I read that in context, from a book. I believe the interview at that time was Lee Strobel.  GT  02:42  Okay.  Josh  02:42  He's a researcher on the Resurrection. Lee was basically using that interview that he did to demonstrate that Hugh, while he had all this ability to look at the evidence that had already been done, his argument was, well, he really hadn't looked into the details. When I saw that, it just jumped out at me, because the same can be said for those that are the actual researchers, whom I adore and passionately follow. People like Professor Gary Habermas at Liberty University, William Lane Craig and others, that defend the resurrection. They've staked their claims and their career, on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, and they lay out their historical boundaries as to why that's the case. They go, and they do debates, and they print their books, and they do all this stuff. And then when it comes to other miracles, and they encourage that. They say, oh. They'll literally write in some of their text. "Well, people could use this same criteria to evaluate other miracles." But when it comes to the Book of Mormon, they weren't willing to fill that gap, would be my point, my argument. So just like Hugh Hefner wasn't willing to take the step on the evidence for the historical resurrection of Christ, I would argue, so many people that believe in the historical resurrection of Jesus haven't taken the ...