Have you watched Death of the Pastor’s Wife?
If you watched it then, I’m sure you were like me, having a range of emotions running through you as you watched it. Even after it finished, I found myself thinking about this Netflix documentary and reflecting on how the greedy need for power and then the pursuit for feeding the desires of the flesh led to tragedy. When I watched it, it made me think that this wasn’t a once off, sadly people are experiencing things like this in their churches all over the world. It breaks my heart and makes me so angry for innocent people who just want to have a relationship with the Lord.
Here are the eight main takeaways that I got from the documentary:
Grooming opens doors to adultery
It was claimed that during her marriage to the pastor, Mica was diagnosed with bipolar and psychotic episodes, as a result she was mandatorily placed into psychiatric hospitals for short periods.
Mental health charity Mind, claims that some experts say that childhood trauma, such as neglect, sexual, physical or emotional abuse, traumatic events and losing someone very close to you, such as a parent or carer can cause bipolar disorder. Mind also claims that trauma can induce psychosis.
The Netflix documentary also details the horrific alleged sexual abuse she went through as an adult, within her marriage, such as alleged incidences of being forced into sexual encounters with homeless men. This trauma could’ve easily played a part in triggering her mental health illness.
As well as the alleged sexual abuse, there was another form of childhood trauma that was discussed that could have also triggered her mental ill health and also opened up spiritual doors to the adultery that took place.
The documentary explains that Mica met the pastor when she joined the church at 13 years old and the pastor was 15 years older than her. The pastor was married to someone else at the time and had children. News articles state she met him when she was 10 years old1. They began their affair when she was 20 and he was 35. When the affair was exposed, his first wife divorced him. Mica and her first husband also got divorced because of the affair. Then she and the pastor got married when she was 23.
An ABC news report states that Mica told police that she was groomed by the pastor while she was at his church, up until the point that she married him1.
Now we know both parties were guilty of adultery because they were both married to other people when they started their affair and we know that the Bible says that adultery is a sinful act (Exodus 20:14). However, Mica’s claims of being groomed can’t be ignored in the context of their adultery. The definition of grooming according to the Oxford dictionary is “the process in which an adult develops a friendship with a child, particularly through the internet, with the intention of having an illegal sexual relationship”2. Grooming is a type of childhood trauma.
Satan loves nothing better than to create trauma in our lives. This is because traumatic acts or events can create within us unresolved anger, bitterness, dishonestly, makes you believe lies, creates idols in abusers and makes you doubt the love God has for you. All these behaviours, reactions to trauma and abuse allows Satan to open up a spiritual door within us, to allow us to be influenced by his schemes and give in to sinful temptations he places in our path.
Grooming does exactly this; it creates a soul tie with the perpetrator, because the perpetrator becomes the child’s or teenager’s idol, a false idol. This is exactly what the devil needs for the spiritual door to open. The open spiritual door allows Satan’s demons to enter and tell the victim the lie, that is her going along with a groomer’s, their false idol, abnormal plans is ok. Because the grooming takes place over many years the devil can still convince, the now mature adult victim, that sinning with their abuser (their manufactured idol) is ok. This can include committing adultery in adulthood.
“And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work” - Ephesians 4:26-28
Children are never to blame for the abuse that they are on the receiving end of. That's why it’s so important for parents, adult family members and adult members of the church to not ignore behaviours of grooming and deal with it to stop it straight away. Doing this will protect children from further trauma and protect them from the devil getting a foothold on them as they grow up.
Sadly it seems in this case, based on the information provided to the public, the adults weren’t protecting an innocent child in the church. Which eventually led to the mental ill health of a young woman and the destruction of more than one marriage.
Enablers
All the craziness, affairs, toxic behaviour, abuse and the sad ending of Mica’s life were allowed to happen, not only because of the toxic behaviour of the pastor but also because of people in the church enabling his behaviour.
People in the church turned a blind eye to the pastor's many questionable sermons about sex. They ignored the pastor's affairs and rumours of other affairs. They ignored the red flags of their marriage.
One of the ways I think the pastor did this was by creating Flying Monkeys. Flying Monkeys is a term from the film the Wizard of Oz. In the film, the wicked witch sent her winged monkeys to do her evil work.
Flying Monkeys' roles are to listen to the toxic person’s lies about the victim and spread those lies, gaslight the victim, defend the toxic person and gather information to pass on to the toxic person.
In this church, Flying Monkeys were created so they blindly believed all the pastor’s updates about Mica’s health condition, without actually checking with her on what was happening.
When Mica finally moved away, the pastor always managed to get her new phone number. Therefore someone, an enabler to the pastor, was gaining new information, i.e. the phone number, with the sole intention of giving it to the pastor, so the unwanted contact could continue.
Toxic leaders
In the documentary the pastor said during his sermons that he always gets what he wants. This is unfortunately the mindset of toxic leaders in some churches. Their only goal is to make it to the top of church leadership and once there, their pride and selfishness makes them want to stay there by any means necessary. Therefore the manipulation, lies, desires of the flesh and division in the church become more important than sharing the gospel and helping bring people to Christ.
In doing this they leave a path of destruction and a pile of innocent victims in their wake.
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" - James 4:1-6
The elders did nothing
One of the pastors, at the church, unwittingly gained evidence of the lead pastor’s (Mica’s now husband) alleged affairs. This pastor acted in a biblically correct way and approached the lead pastor about the issue of alleged adultery and told him to go to the church elders about it.
For those who don’t know church hierarchy, church elders have spiritual and administrative authority over a church. They are there to set the spiritual direction of the church for its members. They are also there to make sure the pastors are held accountable for their decisions and actions.
In the case of this documentary, this didn’t happen. When the lead pastor didn’t confess his alleged sins to the elders. The other pastor again did the biblically correct thing and took it to the other members of the church, the elders, because the lead pastor had not listened to her. However, they didn’t act in a biblically correct way because they didn’t do anything about the evidence that was presented to them. They didn’t even speak to the lead pastor to find out if the allegations were true!
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector - Matthew 18:15-17
With churches like these (and unfortunately there are other churches like this), they become cult-like because everyone including people in authority become too scared or “star-struck” by their lead pastor. As a result, they let toxic behaviour continue and in some cases they penalise the victims and drive the victims out of the church in order to protect their toxic leader, all in the name of “protecting the integrity of their church”.
If the Elders had done something, then maybe things may have ended differently. You can’t help someone overcome their sin if you aren’t even willing to speak to them about it!
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted” - Galatians 6:1
“But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler - not even to eat with such a one” - 1 Corinthians 5:11
Hidden in plain sight: Churches can be full of people in darkness pretending to be in the light
“They are demonic spirits who work miracles and go out to all the rulers of the world to gather them for battle against the Lord on that great judgement day of God the Almighty” - Revelation 16:14
Some rulers, including church leaders who are toxic, inhabit demonic spirits that enable them to act in their unrepentant sinful ways. This is mentioned in Isaiah 14, the Babylonian king told people he was equal to God because he had divine status… Does this sound familiar? This is Satan’s pride acting out in Babylonian king. Toxic church leaders believe and sometimes actually have the audacity to say out loud to their congregation that they are divine like God! Therefore the church members are conditioned to treat these leaders like God, who can do no wrong, even when they know they have done a lot of wrong.
Isaiah 14 shows how God put a stop to the King's warped thoughts that he was equal to God, by sending him to Shoal to sleep with the maggots as a bed and worms as a blanket. God describes his falls like “Day Star, son of Dawn”, just like Lucifer's (Satan’s) fall when he got kicked out of heaven by God. God is showing us that this king inhabited a demonic spirit that made him think he was equal to God.
I believe that unrepentant toxic and evil church leaders will meet the same fate because of their choice to let themselves be used by Satan to bring sin and evilness into God’s house, in order to bring harm, disorder and confusion to God’s children.
The many victims involved
To me Mica wasn’t the only victim in all this. Yes it was sad that from a young age she experienced grooming, mental health illness and then an abusive second marriage which involved alleged sexual abuse and alleged stalking. All leading to her death.
However, the lead pastor’s first wife with whom he cheated on with Mica was also a victim. Mica’s first husband, with whom Mica cheated on with the lead pastor, was also a victim.
The third victim was the first husband of the woman who the lead pastor had his next affair with, while married to Mica. She went on to be his third wife after Mica died. This woman's first husband was found dead at the bottom of the pool. It was alleged that he died shortly after discovering their affair.
Things like this are happening in many churches around the world.
I say this because after I watched it, I looked on social media to see what others thought about it. Amongst the comments of shock, there were a lot of the comments from women who weren’t surprised by the events that took place, the church elders or the church members' reactions to it. Other women said they were triggered watching it because it reminded them of their experiences of going to church and their leader’s unrepentant sins and toxic behaviour going unchallenged.
Now I know that not all churches are like this, there are churches that look after their members and the pastor isn’t treated like they are God. However, the churches that do display these toxic behaviours and traits have to do better because they are playing a dangerous game with their church members' salvation. The changes come from the top, the elders and church council members have to grow back bones and hold the church leader accountable, at the very least they should be temporarily removed from leadership duties while they repent and use the time to get deliverance from their actions and have therapy with a qualified therapist if needed. If they are unrepentant, not willing to change and take responsibility then they need to be permanently removed from leadership and serving duties. If crimes are committed then the church elders and church council members have a duty to tell the police, so the innocent in the church are protected.
Basically they need to actually start acting like Jesus who they claim to follow. I say this because how they act now, if Jesus walked into their church and told them their behaviour is wrong and sinful, then their pride, idolatry and at times fear of their church leader wouldn’t even allow them to recognise it was Jesus speaking to them. They would ignore Him and plan to make Him feel so uncomfortable in the hope that Jesus would eventually leave that church, rather than deal with their real idol, who is the toxic person leading the church.
“Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!” - Matthew 21:12-13
However, even if the church leaders, elders and church council members of these toxic churches, no longer recognise Jesus Christ and his teaching, Jesus sure does recognise them and He will have the final say, regardless of what their prideful spirit tells them!
“But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!” - Revelation 3:16
Something to remember
Please don’t get too carried away by Christian leaders and Christian influencers, whether they are in the physical church buildings or on social media. Don’t let them become your idol. At best they are just humans who can make mistakes too and at the very worst they are being used by Satan to infiltrate churches and Christian spaces to bring chaos, confusion and ultimately lead people away from God. The only Idol you should have is the one and only triune God- The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.
Remember, no matter how much Jesus glitter a person can put on something, people can let you down but God never will.
Prayer for women who have been hurt by leaders of a church:
If you have experienced church hurt, or suffered abuse at the hands of toxic church leaders or you have been emotionally hurt by members of a church and the church leaders did nothing to support you. Then you are welcome to say the following prayer I’ve written, as a first step on your healing journey:
Father God, thank you for never abandoning me when people who are meant to be protecting your flock did. God, even though I understandably feel angry and hurt by their actions, I pray that you help me to find peace in my heart, so I don’t start to blame you for their sinful actions.
Father God, Jesus Christ said to pray for my enemies, so I pray for the deliverance of their sinful actions before it’s too late for them. I pray that you help me to learn how to forgive them, to forgive the person you created but to rebuke the ungodly spirit that made them act in the way they did towards me. Then I hand them over to you Father God because you say vengeance is yours and not mine.
Father God, I pray you continue to watch over me and help me strengthen my relationship with you through Jesus Christ, which no man or toxic church leaders can interfere with.
I pray this in Jesus’ name.
Amen
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