This Dude Sucks

Things are not going well for Mr. John Paul Miller, the pastor of The Pastor’s Wife. I couldn’t be more thrilled about it. The dude deserves it all and worse. He now preaches, per The Daily Mail, in a former nail salon wedged between a dog groomer and a Colombian barbershop in a strip mall outside Myrtle Beach. That visual alone — flanked by businesses called Golf Knickers and Bare Wax and Beyond (ha!)— tells you everything you need to know about how far he’s fallen.

Once upon a time, Miller ran Solid Rock Church, a full-fledged megachurch with hundreds in the congregation, arena-level production values, the whole shebang. He had the lighting rigs, the sound system, the power. He had people who believed in him. Then he drove Mica to death (or worse) and his world collapsed. Shame.

The congregation that once packed the house now fits in 1,120 square feet that is so cramped they can only arrange chairs in rows of seven. Early videos showed maybe twenty elderly people with thinning hair. He’s apparently managed to build it up to forty or fifty, which is somehow sadder than if he’d just given up. He’s rebranded the operation as Mercy Church (ironic given how little mercy he gave Mica Miller).

The best part? He’s terrified. Good. There’s a six-foot wooden fence blocking the entrance. Thick blinds on the windows. An armed security guard shuttling him to and from his home 1.1 miles away. A uniformed police officer standing watch outside on Sundays. It’s all there. He needs all of this because dozens of protesters show up every single week with pictures of Mica and signs that read “church walls won’t hide your crimes.” At one point, he claimed someone made a death threat from a golf cart. A golf cart. Even his persecution has become ridiculous.

The protesters are doing the work, showing up with Mica’s face while he’s inside trying to convince his remaining flock that he’s the victim. It’s almost comic — except it’s not, because this is a man credibly accused of systematically abusing his wife into her grave. Sexual coercion. Control. Humiliation. There are civil suits pending from women alleging he sexually abused them when he was in his late teens and early twenties. He’s facing federal cyberstalking charges. A trial is scheduled for October.

So yes, the imagery is darkly satisfying. The nail salon. The security fence. The elderly congregation arranged like they’re sitting in someone’s living room. But the satisfaction is only there because underneath it all is the reminder that a woman who was devout and faithful and young got trapped by a man who weaponized her faith against her, abused her, harassed her, and drove her to take her own life. He’s not suffering in a strip mall because he’s unpopular. He’s suffering because he’s a predator.

Turns out the architecture of your church building and your certainty in your own righteousness won’t actually save you. Turns out you end up preaching to two dozen elderly people in a former nail salon while outside, every Sunday, people hold up pictures of the wife you destroyed.

That’s just good consequences.