Gary Miller: How the Book of Mormon Changed a Baptist Pastor's Life

In 2020, Gary Miller was an independent fundamental Baptist pastor in Texas. He had studied theology at Liberty Theological Seminary, preached from a King James Bible, and built a congregation from 15 folding chairs in a living room. Then he hit play on an audio recording of the Book of Mormon during a long drive across Houston, intending to tear it apart. Instead, he found himself ordering a used quad from eBay, hiding it from his congregation, and secretly chatting with missionaries online. Six years later, Miller is a stake high counselor in the Katy Texas stake, and he still describes himself as feeling like a visitor about 40 to 50 percent of the time. His conversion was not a straight line, and he insists that the real story is messier than most people want to tell.

What the Book of Mormon Did to a Preacher's Brain

Miller’s first encounter with the Book of Mormon was not mystical. It was analytical. He placed his Cambridge preaching King James Bible on his left and the Book of Mormon on his right, then started comparing them. What he found surprised him: the two books worked together. "I can preach some of this stuff," he remembers thinking. "If I didn't tell people that this was in Third Nephi or this was in Mosiah, I can preach the house down with these verses right now at my church."