A pastor’s wife’s questionable suicide sparks suspicion and highlights the fruit of abusive theologies

Mica Miller’s body was found at 3:03 p.m. April 27 in Robeson County, N.C., with a gunshot wound to the head, an hour and a half drive away from her home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., two days after serving her husband divorce papers.

Her husband, John-Paul Miller, known as JP, is pastor of a nondenominational church, Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach.

According to police, 9 minutes before the gunshot was heard, she called 911 and said, “I’m about to kill myself and I just want my family to know where to find me.” This was after purchasing a gun earlier in the day.

Fisherman Johnnie Jacobs told WBTW he had been fishing that night when he heard the gunshot.

“As I decided that I was going to stop fishing, I came back through, stopped where they call it a slew or a lake off of the river,” he recalled. “So, I pulled in there with my little boat and, maybe 5 minutes after, and maybe 5 minutes into the slew, I heard a cry. I heard it for about 2 or 3 minutes. Then I stopped, heard a gunshot. Then, the crying stopped.”

Jacobs reflected, “If it had been a person that was crying in the open, I would have checked on them all day long. I just wish I would have gone in there and checked on her.”

Her death is a tragedy we should have seen coming. In an affidavit, Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, said, “Mica stated to me on many occasions, ‘If I end up with a bullet in my head, it was JP,” referring to her husband, John Paul Miller.

“I know my sister to have expressed the abuse and violence against her by her husband to others, including family members and members of the church congregation,” the affidavit said. “My sister also expressed to me that she was fearful that she would not make it to the divorce and that her life would be taken from her.”

Mica’s story has ignited a firestorm of responses online, especially from Christian women, calling for an investigation into Miller’s husband, despite the fact the coroner ruled her death a suicide.

While it’s important during news events like this to give space for grieving and to do our due diligence without jumping to conclusions, the reality is that there are far too many fingerprints of narcissism and patriarchy on Mica’s death for us to move on and blame her death on mental illness.

There is much we do not know yet. But sifting through the details that led to her death, it is clear people were hearing her crying but were not checking on her enough to save her life. And while Mica’s crying stopped, there are many tears from many women in abusive marriages who are continuing to call out for help.

Mica’s story is part of a larger conversation Christians need to have regarding how to respond to mental health crises and abusive marriages.

The announcement

After JP finished his Sunday sermon for the nondenominational Solid Rock Church of Myrtle Beach, S.C., he told his congregation he needed to make an announcement.

“I’m going to have you stand up. And I’m going to make an announcement. And after the announcement, I’m going to ask that you leave church quietly and don’t talk about the announcement here in the building,” he instructed. “My request to you is that you will continue to come to church and serve and give for the next, you know, little bit. I’m taking a little bit of a break, and I don’t want to have to worry about the church. My break may be a few days, a few weeks, I don’t know. I got a call late last night, my wife has passed away. And yeah, it was self-induced. And it was up in North Carolina. And we’re going to have a funeral for her next Sunday here at 3:00 p.m. … I’m going on adrenaline right now. … Y’all knew that she wasn’t well mentally and that she needed her medicine that was hard to get to her.”

Grooming Mica

Growing up with Baptist roots, JP started the nondenominational Solid Rock Church in the Socastee Library in 2006, when he was just 26 years old.

Mica filed a police report in February alleging ongoing abuse that went all the way back to the early years of the church and her childhood. She was 14 years younger than her husband, age 30 at her death.

According to the report, “The CP (complainant) stated that she has known her husband since she was 10 years old and that he ‘groomed’ her while she worked for him at Solid Rock Church until they were married six years ago.”

In a later interview with News Nation, Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, said she thinks Mica meant to say JP was grooming her since 2010, rather than since age 10. “She’s consistently said around 14, 15 years old. I’ve never heard her ever say 10 years old,” Sierra clarified.

Russel B. Long, JP’s attorney, denied the allegations in a statement: “These baseless claims and false reporting have caused immense distress and harm to Pastor Miller and his family.”

Mica is Miller’s second wife. According to DailyMail: “Miller’s first wife, Alison, filed for divorce in 2015 after discovering he was having an affair with Mica, who was 14 years his junior.” Alison also claimed that “Miller had an addiction to prostitutes and had ‘sexual encounters’ with underage girls.” She continued, “He had also confessed to me and other staff members of the church that he had sexual encounters with young females from the church, who were under the age of 16.”

JP’s mental illness

While JP has consistently claimed Mica was mentally ill, a video surfaced over the weekend of JP from around 2015 that suggests he had his own struggles with mental health.

In the video, JP is seen lying on the grass outside his open truck door. Without moving a limb except for his fingers, and breathing heavily, he claims somebody switched his medications and says, “I thought I was going to see Jesus.”

Over the next 7 minutes, JP tells the person with the camera that he has fire ants crawling all over his body, despite there being none. And while many of his words are unintelligible due to talking with a high pitched wheezing sound, he mentions his mother and seeing Jesus.

More recently, with his second marriage on the brink, JP admitted in a sermon from October 2023: “For the past four weeks, I’ve had the most horrible battle and horrible time of my entire life. I’ve never ever, ever, ever, not even close, been through what I’m going through right now in life. Not even close. Horrible, I mean, horrible. So bad I’m seeing a psychiatrist every week, I’m on 900 milligrams of lithium, I’m seeing a counselor every week, I’m going to inner healing, I’m going to deliverance three times a week with pastors in the area. I’m doing everything I can just to be able to get out of bed. I’m so depressed, I want to die. I’m battling suicidal thoughts. I have unforgiveness, hatred, demons coming out of me, horrible. I’m in such a bad place, I spent my Friday night at Kelly’s house with women over 50 years old watching them play Bunco.”

But rather than expressing deep concern, the church erupted into laughter.

The very things JP is saying today about Mica’s mental health have been true about him for at least a decade. So is he projecting? Or were both JP and Mica having similar mental health struggles?

In an interview with Baptist News Global, trauma therapist Shane Moe — who did not treat either of the Millers and is not attempting to diagnose them here — said it’s common for men with narcissistic tendencies to project their own struggles onto others. “Self-serving accusations that amount to confessions born out of projections are kind of a feature (not a bug) amongst such men. If they can’t accept the reality of their problems, weaknesses, wrongdoings and so on, their only option is to psychologically ‘split’ off and project them.”

Of course, given the nature of their marriage, JP’s abuse could have taken its toll on Mica over time as well. Whatever happened, the narrative that Mica was mentally ill and that JP is simply a grieving pastor who has it together enough to take as little as “a few days” off following the violent death of his wife is obviously false.

JP’s control of Mica’s health

Despite the fact JP admitted from the pulpit to being suicidal in October 2023, just two months later JP was able to receive a health care power of attorney from Mica signed Dec. 5.

Two months later, according to the Myrtle Beach Police Department, Mica was “involuntarily hospitalized” Feb. 8, 2024. But what makes the case even more odd is that JP’s power of attorney documents were not filed until March 20, 2024, despite having been signed and notarized three months prior.

How is a pastor who admits to being suicidal allowed to secure health care power of attorney and commit his wife involuntarily? And why would he hold onto the documents for three months before filing them?

“Women who have experienced abuse — especially chronic abuse — often look like ‘the crazy one’ in the hospitals or when police arrive to the home.”

According to Moe, this pattern reminds him of other cases of abuse. “If he was chronically abusive in any way and had his own insufficiently regulated severe mental health problems, there’s a very good chance the latter would have supercharged or intensified the former (even if not being ultimately responsible for the abuse, since it’s one’s entitlement that leads one to choose or give oneself permission to abuse — i.e., to engage in coercive efforts to irresponsibly exert, gain or maintain power and control over another person),” he told BNG. “And women who have experienced abuse — especially chronic abuse — often look like ‘the crazy one’ in the hospitals or when police arrive to the home after receiving a call about a domestic ‘disturbance.’ But really, their nervous systems are just exhibiting a very natural response to the oppressive and invasive experience of abuse. They’re not crazy. It’s the abuse and their getting away with it that’s crazy.”

Constant harassment

According to a number of police reports, Mica claimed to be constantly harassed by someone. But the name was redacted. She reported having her tires slashed with razors, having tracking devices on her vehicle and being chased.

But the name of her harasser now has been revealed to be none other than her husband. At one point, when Mica called the police over being harassed and having her tires slashed, JP showed up. Then when she began recording in front of the officer and told JP to “walk away,” JP took off, threatening to post pictures online.

In an apology email that has been released, JP admits to posting a topless photo of Mica online.

“I’m sorry for putting a picture of you on the internet,” JP admitted. Then in an effort to belittle his crime and blame her, he added, “It was for less than one hour and immediately taken down. I was hurt that you are telling everyone horrible intimate details of my past sin, and I just wanted to try and hurt you. Please forgive me. It was evil of me to do that.”

A few days later, about nine days before her death, Mica wrote to her attorney: “Since the day we became husband and wife, I have been abused in every way I can think of. Emotionally, sexually, spiritually, financially and physically. He has harassed me physically and electronically with letters, phone calls, emails and texts, hacking my emails, hacking my personal Facebook and impersonating me. Using my stolen phone to send texts and emails out to church members pretending to be me, texting friends and family saying that I am sleeping with teenagers from our church, and showing up in person at places around town … to having installed three different tracking devices on my vehicle.”

In addition to harassing Mica, JP also has been accused by a local waitress of exchanging flirty texts in the months leading up to Mica’s death. The waitress shared a receipt with NewsNation that had JP’s signature, a $20 tip, his phone number, and a happy face. According to the NewsNation report, “He repeatedly asked Christiana to send pictures of herself, including bikini pictures, and called her ‘super hot.’”

After Mica died, the waitress asked JP if anything was new. She says, “He more or less said, ‘Yes, lots new lol. I’ll text later.’”

Solid Rock Church released an email last Sunday saying they were relieving JP of his duties.

The story is developing daily, with many concerning details, and can be difficult to sort through. There’s much we may never know. Cybersecurity intern Kyler Marlowe, who is providing up-to-date media coverage and documentation about the story, said: “I’ve been able to confirm that Mica was cremated and an autopsy could not be performed.” In her summary of a NewsNation interview with Mica’s sister and the family’s lawyer, she added, “JP told the family that he wouldn’t allow the family to see the body at the funeral home unless her parents first signed a certification of cremation.”

In light of the many questions related to the case, there is currently a Change.org petition requesting the FBI to investigate.

‘My cross to bear’

In a heartbreaking video dated March 18, Mica said on Facebook: “I’m alive and well and life’s been kind of crazy the past couple weeks, months, years. I’ve kind of had to keep my circle really small for the past couple weeks just because I’m going through a lot, and it’s hard. And it’s my cross to bear. It’s the thing that God has put in my life to deal with and I don’t want to bring a lot of people into it.”

Then four days later, she released another video saying, “I’ve had a lot of women that have reached out to me about situations of abuse.” She encouraged the women to know they are the bride of Christ.

Among the examples of abuse she lists in that video, she mentions, “making you think that this is all your fault or you’re a bad mom or you’re a bad wife … or you’re not giving it your all when you know you are.” It’s hard not to imagine she’s talking about ways she’s been abused by JP, given that everything she mentions are things she’s claimed elsewhere JP did to her. But she also adds in a moment of emphasis with widened eyes and pursed lips, “Somebody forcing you to take illegal drugs.”

She continues. “God hates divorce. But why? According to everybody I’ve asked and the Scriptures that I’ve found, it’s because it hurts people. But does abuse hurt people? How do you think God feels about that?”

An abusive gospel

Many Christians who hear the story of Mica Miller will be deeply grieved by her death and the abuse she suffered. They will wish Mica would have clung to the gospel or that JP would have loved her as Christ loved the church as a picture of the gospel.

“When we hear the words of Mica herself, we begin to recognize how abuse becomes sacralized in Christian marriages.”

But when we hear the words of Mica herself, we begin to recognize how abuse becomes sacralized in Christian marriages through conservative theologies of the gospel.

In her second video, as Mica was describing marital abuse, she pointed to Jesus by saying, “He took all the abuse you could think of for you so that you didn’t have to live that life of slavery and bondage and pain. Jesus took it all for you.”

The unspoken reality of her encouragement is that penal substitutionary atonement maintains Jesus took the punishment you deserve. When Mica said Jesus took the abuse for you, she was referring to deadly violence against Jesus’ body being substitutionary. In this framework, Jesus took what you deserve. And thus, the gospel to conservative evangelicals is, in part, the revelation that you deserve to have deadly violence done to your body.

The justice of violent retribution is exactly what JP expressed when he told Mica, “I just wanted to try and hurt you.” Their justice is God the Father satisfying his wrath by hurting human bodies either in hell or on the Cross. And evangelical worship, which Mica was heavily involved with, celebrates this.

At its heart, the evangelical gospel has a fundamental problem regarding embodiment.

John MacArthur’s denial of mental illness

Unfortunately, the tragic story of Mica and JP Miller is one that goes far beyond the walls of Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Mental health is something many people struggle with. But it’s also something many conservative Christians live in denial of.

Two weeks ago, BNG reported that John MacArthur claimed, “There’s no such thing as PTSD. There’s no such thing as OCD. There’s no such thing as ADHD.” He went on to assert, “Psychiatry and psychology is finally admitting the noble lies they’ve been telling the last 100 years.” Then he concluded, “The major noble lie is there’s such a thing as mental illness.”

That wasn’t the first time MacArthur has dismissed such concerns about the body. In a dialogue on stage with MacArthur in 2007, John Piper admitted: “I remember, I was 40, sitting on the steps, halfway through vacation, sobbing. Noelle comes down the steps, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘I don’t have a clue.”

Like the Solid Rock congregation did with JP’s confession of depression and suicidal thoughts, the audience roared with laughter. So Piper went with it, comparing his experience to PMS, which made them laugh even harder.

Then he continued, “‘I don’t have a clue why I’m so sad.’ And that season lasted several years. And the grace was that I could still function.”

At this point, MacArthur interrupted. “It lasted several years?” he asked, shocked. Laughter erupted again as Piper pursed his lips.

Then Piper pointed his finger at MacArthur and said, “I’ve met people like him before. I had a church chairman named Rollin Erickson. And Rollin would ask me, ‘Define depression.’ (More audience laughter) He didn’t have a clue. It was like ‘Gazorninplat.’ So if you don’t know it, you don’t know it.” Then stretching his arm out to the giggling MacArthur, Piper said forcefully, “You’re OK. Just stay there.”

Then MacArthur shot back, “I feel like I’m missing a great experience!”

At this point, the laughter was so raucous you would think they could get their own Netflix comedy special.

John Piper’s connection of sovereignty and abuse

While it may be difficult to watch Piper being mocked by MacArthur, Piper is just as harmful as MacArthur.

According to Piper, survivors of sexual abuse must see “God’s sovereignty … at the moment of causality,” and if they don’t, “You will now be left with no God to help you deal with this … . You have just shoved him off … and in your pain you shoved him so far to the edge of the universe that for the rest of your life you are crying out to a God to do miracles yet you have pushed him away … . And so you try to say there is no sense in which the sovereign God willed that, you will lose God for the rest of your life.”

In other words, God is the ultimate cause of your abuse.

“I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, and she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.”

Then to women who are in abusive marriages, Piper said: “If it’s not requiring her to sin but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, and she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church. Every time I deal with somebody in this, I find the ultimate solution under God in the church.”

In other words, the solution to marital abuse is for women to submit to complementarian hierarchies of male headship and then seek help from their churches.

An abusive attachment

While MacArthur and Piper may be miles from Myrtle Beach, the worldwide grip of their ministries influence the hierarchical theology in broader evangelicalism that leads women like Mica Miller to feel like God has put their abusive husbands in their life in order to give them “a cross to bear.”

And now in Mica’s case, she’s dead.

That hierarchy from a self-glory obsessed God who causes men to abuse women and expects women to recognize their abuse as coming from God, celebrate a gospel of violence against human bodies and submit to the all-male leaders and God above them creates an abusive attachment.

Trauma therapist Shane Moe told BNG: “As human beings, we depend upon our primary attachment figures (e.g., our parents, partner and God as we understand God) for our basic attachment needs to feel ‘seen, safe, soothed and secure.’ Given the nature and power of our primary attachment relationships, we often learn to relate to ourselves — for example, our thoughts, emotions, bodies or needs — in the same ways our attachment figures relate to us (or to those parts of us). If a powerful attachment figure relates to us in ways that are critical and shaming, we might spend a lot of time criticizing and shaming ourselves.”

Until the church is willing to reconsider its violent gospel, its hierarchies of authority and submission, its handling of mental health and its sacralization of abuse, tragedies like this are going to continue to unfold. As Moe observed, “Women captive to his theological system and its attending family and ecclesial structures have exhibited some of the highest levels of psychological suffering I’ve ever seen in my clients.”

 

Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.