Death of a Pastor’s Wife

I was thinking we should discuss a show everyone’s been talking about, including my husband. Of course, that is Death of a Pastor’s wife on Netflix. I have only seen little bits because I can’t handle it. But I could take a wild guess that this didn’t happen in an egalitarian church environment where women are treated as valuable treasures and resources. I could probably have told you exactly what that church environment was like because it mimics other dangerous church environments that we are seeing run rampant right now. Church environments I have been a part of. Turns out, when I researched that church, the answer came flooding in.

The question I keep seeing is How did this happen? How did he get away with so much? These are perhaps “non denominational churches” but like many, they are baptist rooted. These pastors and preachers are not required to have any kind of seminary training or serious accountability from an overseer. They are simply charismatic, smooth talkers. This is the qualification and THAT IS partly WHY. If you come from a system of all male elders, a system extremely male centered, where males can only be the definitive mouthpiece of God, he can essentially do no wrong. Everyone sort of look’s away when weird things happen. No one knows the extent of his horrendous behavior, though he did even leave a paper trail with a past wife: prostitute addiction, adultery, accusations of rape from several women decades earlier. But alas, look, he has become magically repentant! We could also ask how many evangelicals rallied around a president who is sexually promiscuous, a serial adulterer, with a shady financial background and constant abuse and slander of others. Answer: it’s the air they breathe.

These aren’t just people doing bad things, they are SYSTEMS that let them. Both this “pastor” and his father are now defendants in civil cases alleging a much older pattern of sexual misconduct and institutional concealment in the 90’s. Surpriiiii…..oh wait, not surprising. These systems perpetuate the same behaviors we see everywhere in America right now and it would be good to ask yourself if you are going to be a part of these baptist-rooted systems or if it’s time to say, NO MORE. I know, I know, not my church. But I said that too. I thought I found one that did complimentarianism right. A traumatizing decade + later, it has been wrought with scandal that still rears its head with many often. What is my old disgraced pastor doing now? Oh don’t worry, he went a state over and is now preaching to a new flock in Oklahoma. Even though they know that he left in scandal. If not from a simple google search but because I contacted them directly. Nary a response. And so we wait until the next scandal he produces.

This baptist-rooted system breeds abuse over and over in the Boy’s Club For Jesus (BCFJ)™️ and the Women Who Participate to Survive & Manipulated to Believe they’re Subjugated for Jesus (WWPSMBSJ)™️. There is no way to break this cycle unless you start building systems on the blessing (Gen 1: no gendered tasks) instead of the curse (Gen 3: hierarchy and power). Women and men must be working together at all of the tables. Unless you stop building systems on ancient roman household codes found in the NT (Paul), which stated that women, children, and slaves were men’s property, there is no hope for change. We can see how slavery was wrong in that equation and not meant for all people of all time, but seeing women and children as property? Heck yes, for all Christians for all time. But don’t worry, the men will be nice, we promise. This still allows them to have power, which they don’t want to give up. However, what if we built the household of Christianity on what the kingdom of God looks like in revelation: A kingdom of priests, who are not married, btw. They function as siblings and there is no hierarchy. That’s right, spouses and children and parents and grandparents will all be siblings.

This is a documentary is about what this religious system of men owning women can produce. Its capabilities when a woman being subjugated and used as a literal “penis home,” as Driscoll likes to call it. If Doug Wilson says that “sex is not some sort of egalitarian pleasure party, but a place where men conquer a woman,” then the pastor(JP) in this docu series making his wife take testosterone so she can have sex 6 times per day, isn’t crazy. He owns her body. So he can make her get a boob job too, which he did. in fact, Mica got his signature tattooed on her side, as if signing a deed.

And we’re not even talking about how he groomed her since she was an early teen. Another problem in the evangelical church! As a side note, JP has married yet another woman (his third marriage), who he cheated on Micah with. And this new woman’s husband magically died in 2021 also of suicide 2 weeks after he confronted JP for cheating with his wife? MY WORD.

This guy’s sermons were filled with teachings on why women need to have sex with their husbands constantly or they’ll go find someone who will (spoiler, he still found others to have sex with), are iterations of what evangelicals have always taught: when a husband has an affair, the wife should consider her contribution through insufficient sex.1 Yes, any system can produce abuse but we need to look at which systems overwhelmingly produce scandal and abuse. It is those places in which men are at the top of the hierarchy. We can see this in both Catholicism and evangelicalism, as well as politics and in corporate America. They produce the same fruit because they are all systematically built on a horrendous curse of power, domination, and lovelessness. The dehumanization of women and using them as objects to fulfill a man’s desire is as clear in the Bible as it is in this Document series. And just like David’s story, it procured more sexual abuse and death among other consequences.

It can be depressing.

But, the good news is: We aren’t called to live like we belong to this kingdom. We are to actively believe the kingdom of heaven has broken in and pray, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” Whenever it is up to you, boycott Gen 3 systems and build Gen 1 and Revelation systems based on mutual love and interdependence. That’s all I’m finding I’m able to do to not lose heart. And may many disgusting clergy in wolves’s clothing be exposed every single hour of every single day. May their stories be exposed and may they be brought to justice.

We honor you, Mica Miller.

Thanks for reading,

Jami

PS: There is a database that shows Protestant clergy who have been convicted or alleged in misconduct if you’d like to check your clergy. Of course so many of these crimes go underreported, anyway.

https://protestantaccountability.org

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