- 3 hours ago
John and Pia discuss the Mica Miller case and the intersection of domestic abuse, coercive control, spiritual authority, and church accountability. Pia draws from her own experience in an abusive marriage and nearly four decades within the New Apostolic Reformation while examining how religious hierarchy can intensify a person's sense of being trapped.
Their conversation explores complementarianism and egalitarianism, the dangers of unchecked pastoral authority, allegations described in lawsuits involving JP Miller and his father, and the ways religion and the Bible can be weaponized against vulnerable people. They also discuss Micah's Law, Regina Ward's efforts regarding coercive control, and why churches need meaningful accountability when people report abuse.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
03:35 Micah Miller’s Story and Pia’s Personal Parallels
09:00 Spiritual Abuse, Feeling Trapped, and the Need for Accountability
14:59 Complementarianism vs. Egalitarianism
20:26 When Headship Becomes Control
25:35 Allegations Against JP Miller and Cathedral Hall Academy
30:28 Unchecked Abuse and Church Accountability
35:33 Psychological and Spiritual Abuse
40:06 Why Abuse Continues Without Accountability
43:05 Coercive Control in Marriage and Church
45:05 Micah’s Law and Weaponized Religion
49:23 Helping People Escape Abuse
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
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– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
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Their conversation explores complementarianism and egalitarianism, the dangers of unchecked pastoral authority, allegations described in lawsuits involving JP Miller and his father, and the ways religion and the Bible can be weaponized against vulnerable people. They also discuss Micah's Law, Regina Ward's efforts regarding coercive control, and why churches need meaningful accountability when people report abuse.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
03:35 Micah Miller’s Story and Pia’s Personal Parallels
09:00 Spiritual Abuse, Feeling Trapped, and the Need for Accountability
14:59 Complementarianism vs. Egalitarianism
20:26 When Headship Becomes Control
25:35 Allegations Against JP Miller and Cathedral Hall Academy
30:28 Unchecked Abuse and Church Accountability
35:33 Psychological and Spiritual Abuse
40:06 Why Abuse Continues Without Accountability
43:05 Coercive Control in Marriage and Church
45:05 Micah’s Law and Weaponized Religion
49:23 Helping People Escape Abuse
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Pia Hugo, former member
00:46of the New Apostolic Reformation.
00:48Pia, it's good to be back and to see you on shore.
00:51I know that you're in the Philippines forever, and we're now catching up to everybody who
00:56doesn't know, we had this long gap in the schedule, but because we had recorded so many, nobody
01:02knows that we missed a beat.
01:05But anyway, well, things have been very busy here.
01:08I'm certain busy with you, and you wanted me to research for this episode, Micah Miller,
01:15and there's apparently a Netflix documentary that's making everybody go wild over the episode.
01:22It's Death of a Pastor's Wife, I think it's called, and if people knew how little time
01:27I have to watch TV, they would laugh at me because I actually didn't have time to watch
01:32it.
01:32But I did spend some time this afternoon going through and researching some of the history.
01:38So it's not that I'm unfamiliar.
01:39I do know some of the history.
01:41But anyway, I wanted to talk through your perspective of this, because this is something
01:46that really, really involves the way that you are bringing all of this together in ways
01:54that make people understand what is going on in the New Apostolic Reformation charismatic
01:59movement.
02:00So let's talk death of a pastor's wife.
02:03Let's do that.
02:05So, yeah, it's great to be back in the U.S. of A.
02:10I'm in my living room, so no more beach behind me.
02:16And it is good to be back here with you, John.
02:21I was supposed to talk about another topic.
02:25You know, it was supposed to be a continuation of where we were going.
02:29But then I watched this docu-series.
02:34It's called Death of a Pastor's Wife.
02:38And I just, I had to make an episode about it with you.
02:44Because like you said, you have many guests on your show.
02:50And I love watching it because you get different people's perspectives on different topics.
02:56I mean, there's so much to cover.
02:58I feel like what I can bring to the table is my own personal experience.
03:08Almost 40 years with NAR.
03:11And for the first 10 years as a wife who was domestically abused.
03:19So, it's a hard topic.
03:24And it is definitely something, though, near and dear to my heart.
03:29So, yeah, let's just dive in.
03:33So, for those who may not know much about Micah Miller's story,
03:38this is how I'm going to, you know, preface our discussion.
03:42So, Micah Miller was a teenager when she met her husband-to-be at that time, J.P. Miller.
03:55And J.P. Miller was her pastor.
03:59And he was in his 20s.
04:04I'm not sure how much older he was, but he was quite older and he was in a position of
04:11authority.
04:11Let's just put it that way.
04:13And she was babysitting his kids.
04:15I'm sorry.
04:16She was babysitting his kids.
04:19And then I also was a teenager when I met my husband-to-be.
04:25And even though he wasn't a pastor, he kind of tried to portray himself as being so much more spiritually
04:37mature.
04:39And, you know, he definitely was older than me.
04:42He was also in his 20s, late 20s.
04:46So, that is already something that Micah and I had in common.
04:51The difference is that my pastor, who was also spiritually abusive, was my former brother-in-law, Chae An, as
05:04most of your audience knows by now, the super apostle of NAR.
05:11When Micah was 30 years old, she was finally done with all the emotional, mental, spiritual, and sexual.
05:27I don't know if she was actually physically abused, but, you know, it was just very, very toxic.
05:36And so, she needed to get out of there.
05:39And so, at 30 years old, she left him, filed for divorce, and filed for a restraining order.
05:49And coincidentally, I was also 30 years old.
05:52When I finally decided to leave my husband, I had filed for divorce.
05:58I had already filed for a restraining order at this point.
06:03And the only difference, I guess, is that I had three kids with me, and she didn't have kids with
06:11JP.
06:12The biggest difference, of course, is that, by God's grace, John, I made it out alive, right?
06:19Here I am, 30 years later.
06:24I'm living a good, happy life with my current husband.
06:32And I now go wherever God takes me to talk about my story.
06:40I now have a testimony that there is life after domestic abuse.
06:46That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
06:50Unfortunately for Micah, two days after she served him divorce papers, she was found dead.
07:02Okay?
07:03So, I'm going to give you some facts here.
07:05On April 27, 2024, 30-year-old Micah Miller was found dead in Lumber River State Park in North Carolina.
07:16In South Carolina, authorities subsequently ruled her death a suicide.
07:21But if you watch the whole docu-series, I've actually been following this story from the very beginning.
07:30I actually was in South Carolina a week after she died.
07:37You know, I'm from California, but my son was getting married in North Carolina.
07:45I think I told you, he worked for Rick Joyner.
07:48So, he was with Morningstar Ministries back then.
07:55So, he was getting married in North Carolina.
08:02So, I was visiting, and this whole story was just very explosive.
08:10And, of course, being somebody who's an advocate for DV, domestic violence victims, I was very, very interested.
08:20So, here we are two years later, and because of the Netflix series, everybody's just talking about it.
08:28And it is such an important story.
08:30When you think about just the podcasts that you and I have done on all of the different aspects of
08:36not only your personal life,
08:38but the New Apostolic Reformation, charismatic movement, and then think about this church.
08:42This was a charismatic style, I'll say it like that, a charismatic style, independent evangelical church.
08:50I've not dug into the histories yet to know, was it connected to Branhamism?
08:54I put that off to the side because that's actually a different story than the one we're talking about here.
08:58The story here is actually more important because we're talking about a person who is involved in a situation
09:06that matches so many stories that we have of people who are giving their testimonies every Friday,
09:12talking about the things that the pastor is doing that should have raised a thousand red flags.
09:18And every elder should have stood up and said, no, we've got to put a stop to this.
09:22The people should have walked back and said, no, you can't talk about those things from behind the pulpit.
09:27I'll get into some of those in a minute.
09:29But it is very, very important.
09:30Now bring into it what you're bringing and the connection that you have, the domestic abuse.
09:37When you factor this in to the spiritual abuse, you have a person who feels trapped.
09:44And this is, for me, this is the really the worst case scenario.
09:48Whenever a human gets into a position where they can't find a way to move forward,
09:54it's really, really sad because some people can't survive that.
09:58And I know there's some controversy over what happened with Micah Miller.
10:03But in the end, it really comes down to that.
10:05For me, she was in a position where she was trapped in a corner that she could not get out
10:09of.
10:10I think I mentioned this to you in one of the podcasts that I did.
10:13I know I've mentioned it in the podcast before.
10:16I left the Branham movement, which was a high demand, high control group in 2012.
10:23And just a few months after that, I had somebody who contacted me in one of the forms, I believe
10:29it was.
10:30And this was a person who had attempted several times.
10:33And they said, I just want to thank you.
10:35I came across your research and I realized why I felt so trapped.
10:39And at that time, you know, I was glad that I helped the person, but I really didn't yet make
10:44that connection that when you put a person into that position,
10:48it can actually be devastating to their life and it can, in fact, end their life.
10:54As the case we have here, this is a person who felt trapped, who's in a marital situation that was
11:00chaotic and chaotic at least, I'll say.
11:04And this is the worst case scenario.
11:07I know people who have been trapped, who left the movement.
11:11In fact, I just went on a vacation and I came back.
11:13I found out that a very, very close friend of mine, he had left the movement.
11:18He felt trapped.
11:19And then sadly, he also did not survive.
11:22When you put somebody into this position, you're actually putting their lives at risk.
11:27Now, here's the question that I'm driving at with all of this.
11:30We're talking about a Christian church.
11:33How is it the place for a Christian church to allow people to get to this position where it can
11:39actually not only destroy lives, but also take lives?
11:43Where is God in this type of movement?
11:45Well, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend, John.
11:48That's terrible.
11:50And that is, again, why I do these, you know, podcast interviews.
11:58I mean, we could all just be enjoying the beaches of Hawaii, right, or the beaches of the Philippines.
12:07But I am driven by this need to tell others who feel trapped, whether it's a religious environment, religiously toxic
12:20environment, or in a marriage, right, where they feel trapped because they're in a coercively controlling marriage.
12:29And I'll talk about what coercive control is later, you know, and they just feel that there's no hope.
12:37So even if I reach one woman out there who is currently, you know, maybe she's watched Death of a
12:47Pastor's Wife, and she's thinking, huh, you know, maybe not to the extreme that J.P. Miller, you know, Micah's
12:56husband, has abused his wife.
12:58But I kind of feel like I can relate to Micah.
13:04So if I can reach even just one woman who desperately wants to get out, that's why we're doing this,
13:14John.
13:15You know, we want to give them hope, right?
13:18We want to make sure that people know there are options.
13:22You are never trapped.
13:26So, yeah, so my question, very similar to what you just said, what happens when extreme coercive control or domestic
13:36abuse inside a marriage becomes intertwined with excessive spiritual abuse?
13:44So in Micah's case and in my case, we both dealt with that simultaneously, you know, it's like an ugly
13:56dance that, you know, that we were in.
14:03We're dancing with a wolf who is our husband, but we're also, you know, the wolf that is our pastor
14:13is also cutting in and wanting to dance with us.
14:17And meanwhile, you know, we're just confused and we're just getting our critical thinking skills just diminished every time, right?
14:31Like over, for me, it was a slow process.
14:34But year after year after year after year, I just found myself not being able to think straight anymore.
14:42So before I continue about what is coercive control, I wanted to bring up kind of a controversial term.
14:57Uh, but knowing your audience, it shouldn't be too controversial.
15:02So it's the term complementarianism versus egalitarianism.
15:09So I know that you've probably done some work on these terms.
15:15Um, what, how would you define those, those two things?
15:20I'm actually glad that you went there and just a little bit scared because we're going to see this, this
15:26battle take place in the comment feeds that I'll be honest.
15:29I'm just going to get some popcorn.
15:30I'm going to eat and watch as it unfolds in the comment feeds.
15:33But egalitarianism, men and women, they're equal.
15:38They have, they hold the same roles.
15:40Basically, it's in both, both the man and the woman have the same rights and status.
15:46Complementarianism, on the other hand, the man is at the top, the women, you might say they're equal in worth,
15:52but they have different God-given roles.
15:54And the fundamentalist churches choose this.
15:57They're passages that I grew up with that, that talk about this.
16:00The man is the head of the house and the women are subordinate, essentially.
16:04This is part of the problem, in my opinion.
16:06And I know this is another subject for another day to talk and debate the two.
16:13Maybe you could do this with me.
16:14We could talk about these.
16:15But when you're in this type of mindset where it is being dictated to you that you are to be
16:23subordinate to the husband, think about this.
16:26There are women who feel trapped because the person that they are subordinate to is either not a good match
16:33for them or, B, is simply abusive to them.
16:36I know situations like this.
16:39We were taught in Branhamism, and remember, Branhamism is what began the Lateran movement, which is a huge milestone towards
16:48coming into the charismatic movement, New Apostolic Reformation.
16:51They were teaching the complementarian view, but they were teaching a very authoritarian model of this.
16:57You had the prophet who's at the top.
17:00You had the pastor who's under the prophet.
17:02You had the husband who's in this chain.
17:05And then the husband was to be the king of the household, and the woman were to be his servants.
17:10We joked, and I'm embarrassed to say that we joked, that the women should be barefoot pregnant and chained to
17:17the stove.
17:18That's how bad this was.
17:20We had that mindset of that hierarchy.
17:23And, yes, you can read one passage in Corinthians where it talks about the hierarchy, but it does not support
17:31all of the other passages of text in the Bible, which I'll get into that a little bit later.
17:36But the point I'm trying to make here is when you have this diverse of an opinion, think about this.
17:43The situation that she was in, had she been in a household where things were equal, it might have saved
17:50her life because she could have said, no, you can't be like this to me.
17:54And she may not have felt trapped.
17:55On the flip side, there are people who get in that authoritarian structure that I just described, well, they're trapped.
18:03They're trapped in their marriage.
18:04They're trapped in their religion.
18:05And, again, it's okay if the person who you're being subordinate to is good, but what if they're not?
18:13Yeah, so I tend to agree with you there about what complementarianism is, at least for most traditional churches.
18:23There is definitely not an equality, right?
18:29I mean, they're equal in the eyes of God, but they function differently.
18:34And versus egalitarianism, which has more to do with, you know, you function in whatever gifting God has given you.
18:46So if you're the wife, but you're the one with the financial background, like in my case, you know,
18:56I graduated with a degree in economics and finances.
19:01So in my marriage, I pretty much hold the purse.
19:05I mean, he earns it, but you know what?
19:07I do the budget.
19:09I take care of the financial aspects of our marriage, and it works great.
19:14But, again, that's in an egalitarian type of marriage.
19:19Now, I really don't, you know, I wouldn't say I am totally against complementarianism, okay?
19:30I think if we were to actually take it in its purest form, I'm going to put it this way.
19:37In a healthy Christian complementarian marriage, godly headship actually means sacrificial, like, responsibility, not domination, right?
19:52So the husband is, you know, just like it says in the Bible, sacrificing and laying his life down in
20:02servanthood towards his wife.
20:05So I can, you know, I can go with that.
20:10But unfortunately, that is not how many husbands understand complementarianism in many traditional churches.
20:22Let's just put it that way.
20:23So this is what I wrote down.
20:26Headship usually equals supreme authority.
20:30Submission equals absolute obedience.
20:37Disagreement, even questioning your husband, is like tantamount to rebellion, right?
20:46Setting boundaries is like insubordination.
20:51And seeking outside help equals betrayal.
20:57But the worst, I think, is when you say that, oh, if you leave your marriage, if you leave your
21:03husband, that's like leaving God.
21:07Which, going back to your point, that's what we're told in a cult.
21:11You leave our, you know, of course, they're not calling themselves a cult.
21:16You're leaving your family, right?
21:19Your spiritual family.
21:20If you leave us, then, you know what, we can't be responsible for what goes on outside these walls.
21:29This is the only safe place.
21:31So you leave us, you leave God.
21:35So I think, you know, the greatest weapon, really, that these types of husbands and types of spiritually abusive leaders
21:50have, the greatest weapon they have is the Bible.
21:56And they're definitely not using it in the way it's supposed to be used.
22:02They're using it as a weapon.
22:03They're using it, you know, to, like, pound you, your head over, you know, with a Bible.
22:11And they basically have to keep you in this very controlled, and I'm going to be getting into what is
22:22coercive control.
22:24Very controlled environment where they can just mold you and make you into the kind of godly wife and godly
22:39Christian member of the church.
22:41So poor Micah, right?
22:44Like you said, she got it from both sides.
22:47One of the things that surprised me, and, you know, I don't usually talk theology, and I actually hesitated before
22:53I do this, but whenever we left, I was wrapped up in that mindset.
22:58And it was interesting to me because I still struggle sometimes with the fact that there's a women's rights movement,
23:07and women's rights are really powerful until you tell them,
23:12I'd like for you to change the oil in my car, too, because that's one of the jobs that we
23:15can both do.
23:16And they'll say, no.
23:17And so in my head, I'm like, well, yes, but we're still separating it.
23:22I struggled with this for a long time.
23:24It was really hard for me.
23:26And it took years of reading the Bible.
23:29I've mentioned it to you.
23:30I read it over and over and over.
23:31And each time I was reading it through from a different perspective than I had before.
23:37And then I got off into tangents.
23:40Like I would read something that I just never really thought of it that way.
23:44But when you read it in context, it sounds entirely different.
23:48One of the tangents that I got off into is, okay, what's the woman's role in both the church and
23:53in the household?
23:54I was very surprised to see how much equality the Bible actually does support for women.
24:00And I found this one website.
24:02I'll never find it again, so don't ask me in the comment feeds.
24:06But I found this one website that actually walked you through the Bible talking about the powerful roles of the
24:12women, where they actually did have authority, all the way back to Deborah, who was a judge over all of
24:17Israel.
24:18So Israel did not have this thing that we claimed that they had, where the men were all powerful.
24:24And it makes sense because they came out of Egypt and there were female pharaohs, which also shocked me.
24:30I had no idea until I got into the mythologies in ancient Egypt.
24:33But you can find these studies online.
24:36I'm certain Bible Gateway or Bible Hub has something like this.
24:40It was very surprising to me to learn that.
24:43And then when I did learn it, it changed me in a way that hurt because suddenly I had to
24:50do some self-examination.
24:52Am I in the wrong?
24:53And that's hard to do.
24:55Now, whenever you're in a situation where it's a pastor and they're a little bit headstrong, in Micah's case, and
25:00I'm trying not to read too much into it because I don't know his personality.
25:03I've actually not watched the series.
25:05But coming from the lineage of a pastor, my grandfather was the pastor, and knowing how the men were in
25:13that hierarchy, I can tell you that the things that I had to change, I'm certain that there were pastors
25:19who have to work on this, who were in that model that we're talking about.
25:23I'm going to share with you a story about J.P. Miller and his father.
25:27And this maybe will give you more insight into his character.
25:33Can I do that?
25:34Yeah.
25:34All right.
25:35So this is from a lawsuit.
25:39J.P. Miller is right now facing two lawsuits from two young women that he sexually abused when they were
25:49teenagers.
25:51Okay?
25:52So I'm reading straight from the lawsuit.
25:56For years, J.P. Miller, John Paul, J.P. for short, J.P. Miller and his father, Reginald Wayne Miller,
26:07have presented themselves as devout religious leaders.
26:10They built their reputations in the Myrtle Beach community and beyond as men of faith, dedicating to spreading God's word
26:20and training future church leaders.
26:23But this image was a lie.
26:26Behind the religious facade, J.P. Miller and Reginald Wayne Miller engaged in sexual abuse and predatory conduct, often targeting
26:37minors.
26:38They use their positions of power to manipulate and exploit vulnerable victims while concealing their actions from the public.
26:47So I hope YouTube doesn't flag you down, but I'm trying to keep it PG.
26:57PG, Jane Doe, number two.
27:01Okay?
27:01So this is from the lawsuit.
27:03There's two of them.
27:04So one is Jane Doe, number one.
27:06This one is from Jane Doe, number two.
27:09She was 14 years old at the time of the alleged assaults.
27:16And she said that it was when the Micah Miller case came out, right, when she died, that she started
27:30to remember the memories of these assaults against her, which occurred between 1999 and 2001.
27:42So at this point, he was, you know, J.P. Miller, I think, was in his early 20s.
27:50The plaintiff says she enrolled at Cathedral Hall Academy in the fall of 1999.
27:56Her parents believed that the private Christian school in Myrtle Beach was the best education, best place for her education.
28:06The school was run by Pastor Wayne Miller.
28:09So that's the father of J.P.
28:11J.P. was a teacher.
28:15So, again, you know, they fooled the whole community.
28:18They opened up the school.
28:20Now, this is how they describe the school.
28:22We've had this discussion before.
28:24Remember, I'm a 23-year, you know, veteran of education.
28:32You know, I was a teacher.
28:34We run a school in the Philippines.
28:36So when I read this, I was just aghast.
28:40So this is how the school, you know, this is how they describe the school.
28:45It was a repurposed bowling alley.
28:48Their walls were incomplete.
28:51Their floors were slick and uneven.
28:54The staff were just members of the Miller's churches.
29:00They had no credentials.
29:03How can you teach without having any teaching credentials?
29:07They had no oversight.
29:09Basically, these teachers could just teach whatever they wanted.
29:13And in some cases, they had deeply questionable backgrounds.
29:21So what would have been a place of learning was actually a place of control, fear, and unchecked abuse.
29:29Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
29:38reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
29:43You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
29:50On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
29:58John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
30:04You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
30:11If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
30:17top.
30:18And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
30:23watching.
30:24On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
30:29The thing that really stands out to me as I listen to what you're saying and I look at this
30:34document is the unchecked abuse.
30:37That is such a huge, significant thing.
30:39Think about every single story that we have on Friday of all of the people who come out of IHOPKC,
30:46Branhamism, all of these different groups that we have on the podcast.
30:49There's one thing that they all have in common.
30:52Every single escapee, every single victim of the groups have this one thing in common.
30:57They were in an environment where they had unchecked abuse.
31:00Now, it may not have all been sexual abuse, but sometimes it's unchecked spiritual abuse.
31:05Sometimes it's unchecked physical abuse, but they all have that in common.
31:10It is unchecked abuse.
31:11Think of this.
31:12Whenever you're sitting in a group of people and the minister is ridiculing the crowd.
31:17I've had multiple people who have said this on the podcast.
31:20The minister stood from behind the pulpit and he pointed fingers at so-and-so, or he said something that
31:26everybody in the room, everybody in the congregation knew.
31:29He's talking about that family.
31:30That's spiritual abuse, pure, plain, and simple.
31:33Who stands up and says, you can't do this, pastor?
31:36We're not going to put up with this.
31:37Who's the one who checks that abuse?
31:40Because it is spiritual abuse.
31:41When you allow this, what you're doing is you're sending a message to the man behind the pulpit that that
31:47is okay.
31:48It's okay that you abuse the people.
31:50Yes, it's verbally.
31:51But what it does to a person who is unstable, has mental issues, or has something that they really, really
32:00need, should not be a pastor because of the things that they have inward sin.
32:04When they're allowed to abuse people and they know that the congregation don't care, well, what happens when they go
32:10to the next level?
32:11For me, that's the problem here.
32:13When you allow somebody to stand up and have their way with your minds in the congregation, well, what about
32:20the bodies?
32:22That's where this becomes problematic.
32:24And in this case, you can see it's clearly documented by the court case.
32:27This is what is happening.
32:31J. Doe number two says, one day in the fall of 1999, I'm not going to go into the whole
32:36story, but J.P. Miller is a musician.
32:39So he was tinkering in the piano, and he said, hey, do you want to learn how to play piano?
32:45And so she comes over.
32:48She's very innocent.
32:49She's 14 years old, and he basically touched her inappropriately at that point.
32:56So she was in shock.
32:57So she goes and tells a teacher, another teacher at the school, and guess what this other teacher tells her
33:03to do?
33:05Go to the principal's office.
33:07Well, who's the principal?
33:09It's J.P.'s father, right?
33:12Wayne Miller.
33:14So when she arrived at the office, Reginald Wayne, the principal, demanded that she repeat her accusations while the son
33:27was standing right there.
33:32So picture this.
33:33It's the father and the son, who's the principal and the teacher, and this poor 14-year-old who's traumatized,
33:42right?
33:42So she has to repeat the story, and Reginald shouted at her, saying, you will not lie about my son.
33:54And he punished her.
33:56Do you want to know what the punishment is?
33:58He made her write out 5,000 times, I will not lie about John Paul Miller, 5,000 times.
34:12So not only is this poor girl sexually traumatized, now she's being re-traumatized, right?
34:20By this father, and the son, of course, who was there.
34:24And I want to pause right there because this is significant, and this is something that Jed and I talked
34:29about frequently when we were doing the podcast together.
34:31It's not just that you have one single individual behind the pulpit who's spiritually abusing the people, and in this
34:39case, sexually abusing the people.
34:40It's not just one person.
34:42If it was one person, it would be very easy for everybody to rise up and say, no, you can't
34:47do this.
34:48But when you have a support tier underneath that one person who does not care, who is not holding them
34:57accountable.
34:57In other words, you have a church, you have a pastor, you have a board of elders that is not
35:02holding the pastor accountable.
35:04Well, the pastor is unchecked, and things like this are going to happen.
35:09Jed mentioned several cases that he knew of that this kind of thing happened.
35:13I mentioned several things that, in my past, I watched ministers who just abused the crowd because the elders didn't
35:19hold them accountable for what they said or did.
35:22This is a problem, and this is what it leads to.
35:25Whenever you do not have accountability in your church, you're going to have problems because somebody's going to spin out
35:31of control.
35:32So the lawsuit states the horrors of Cathedral Hall Academy were not just physical and sexual.
35:39They were psychological.
35:41Now, this is the part where I am sharing the story with you because of this part.
35:49J-Doe number two says, she brought a Harry Potter book to school.
35:57She was called into the office again.
36:01She was berated again.
36:04And she was called a servant of Satan.
36:09And she was told that if she continued down this path, she would be raped by demons just because she's
36:19reading Harry Potter.
36:21Then right in front of her, he sets the book on fire.
36:27He sets the book on fire.
36:29And then they literally beat her with a Bible.
36:33Like, I was joking about beating, you know, somebody, a wife with the Bible over her head.
36:40But they actually did it.
36:41And then they poured water over her head.
36:44And at this point, she was 16 years old.
36:46I mean, why she even stayed after the molestation?
36:50I don't know why.
36:51I'll remind people who are new to the podcast and haven't heard the entire series.
36:55Years ago, long before even this YouTube channel existed, it was actually my original was taken down by the cult.
37:02I had a series of episodes that I did on what we called, quote, unquote, the park.
37:08And back in latter rain, whenever you think of all of this that you see today in the charismatic movement,
37:14new apostolic reformation, when you read God's generals and they're talking about William Branham.
37:18Well, it wasn't just William Branham.
37:20Branham had a campaign team.
37:22And all of these figures like Benny Hinn, who's referencing William Branham, he's also referencing their campaign team because they
37:30went from city to city to city.
37:32And you can find pictures of these guys.
37:34They're all on the platform with him.
37:36You've got famous figure Jim Jones of People's Temple.
37:39The infamous Jim Jones was on the platform with William Branham.
37:42You have very, very key figures in Pentecostal, charismatic, word of faith, the prosperity gospel.
37:51You've got all of these figures who were with these people who were with William Branham.
37:56Well, with William Branham traveled his scribes is how you'd call it in biblical terms.
38:02They were Branham called him them his tape boys.
38:04And what these guys did was they would record the message, the William Branham sermons, because that was the spoken
38:11word for the day.
38:13Or Kenneth Hagin would call it the rhema.
38:15Kenneth Hagin is also part of this if you study all of this history.
38:20Well, these two guys, they were in a religion that was unchecked.
38:24And like I said about, you know, the tier below the guy at the top, these guys were in that
38:30tier.
38:30And they were supporting Branham and all of the things that he said that was literally spiritual abuse to the
38:35people.
38:36Well, they realized that they can do it, too.
38:38So these two guys move out to Prescott, Arizona.
38:42Interesting side story.
38:43This is where Paul Cain went and hid out for a period of time in Prescott, Arizona.
38:47Also interesting.
38:48This is where Chuck Smith had his church in Prescott, Arizona.
38:51You can find that these guys, you can read actually the California Supreme Court has a court record of this.
38:59These guys, they were unchecked as well.
39:02And they were doing things like you're describing here.
39:05And they even went further.
39:06They talked about the abuse, both spiritual, sexual, physical abuse.
39:12They were doing, they were using fire.
39:14You can read that in the story.
39:15I'm not going to go too deep because YouTube actually would block this.
39:19There were men who were going far above and beyond and abusing the child to keep them in line.
39:26I'll just say it like that.
39:27You can go look it up.
39:28There's a book out there.
39:30And I did two podcasts with Deborah Thibodeau.
39:33You can go back in the series and you can find this.
39:35It's horrific what these guys did.
39:37It's all because they were unchecked.
39:39And while the Harry Potter references is funny to me, the entire thing makes me angry because these people are
39:48abusing in the name of God, in the church, where people are shutting off critical thinking because they think they're
39:55coming to be fed manna from God.
39:58Well, what they're getting instead is a dangerous wolf who's not only destroying lives, but in this case, taking lives.
40:05Yeah, no, it made me so mad.
40:09I mean, like I said, I've been following the case since 2024 when it first happened.
40:13But watching the Netflix series and then doing additional research, you know, I just can't believe that this guy continued
40:26to preach afterwards.
40:28I mean, it's shut down now, but, you know, there were still some members of his church that continued to,
40:35you know, be loyal to him.
40:38I mean, like, I don't know if you heard this, but the day after she died, he did a whole
40:43sermon before saying, oh, kind of like, by the way, my husband, I mean, my wife died yesterday of suicide.
40:54And of course, he blamed mental health.
40:56But, you know, some people reject that notion.
41:05So we're not going to get into that.
41:07Well, in this case, that's both an excuse and a confession.
41:11Think about that.
41:13Whenever you are a leader and you're spiritually abusing the people, you're taking people who might otherwise live happy, healthy
41:20lives and you're abusing them spiritually.
41:23You're mentally wreaking havoc in their minds.
41:26So their minds actually go into a mental place where some of them, they struggle for decades to come out
41:32of it.
41:32You're actually giving them mental health issues.
41:35This is a problem.
41:36This is and this is not just a problem in this church.
41:39This is I know this is an extreme example.
41:42Don't get me wrong.
41:42But this is a problem that is widespread throughout the movement.
41:46And I have to ask again, where is God in that?
41:49If you are in a movement that is abusing your people and think about this, the accountability thing.
41:57I know I'm hounding on that.
41:59But think about that.
42:00You're in a movement that has built a framework that allows for lack of accountability.
42:05How can you keep going like this?
42:07This is an I understand this is an independent charismatic style church.
42:12They're not part of, as far as I know, they're not part of the charismatic movement, Pentecostal movement, but they're
42:17mimicking those that are.
42:19If you look at the structure of their church pretty well, everything that you've described in that document, I have
42:26experienced in one way, shape or form in other churches that I have came through as my family migrated throughout
42:32the country.
42:33I've had other people, you can listen to the podcast on Friday, they have the same issue.
42:38They're experiencing the very same things.
42:41Why?
42:41This looks so similar because there is a lack of accountability.
42:45And it's back to I hate to throw the Chuck Smith name out in this, but this is the Moses
42:51model that got Chuck Smith into trouble.
42:54You can go back and look at some of that history.
42:55When you have a Moses model where the pastor is your untouchable leader and they're spiritually abusing people, this is
43:03a problem.
43:04You need accountability.
43:05I'm glad that these two young women have now stepped forward and he's facing these lawsuits.
43:12So I just want to talk about complementarianism again, just in general.
43:17So like I said, I'm not a theologian.
43:20Um, I cannot tell you, you know, what's right and what's wrong, like, like where I lean.
43:30Um, like it's just, that would just be my opinion.
43:34All I can tell you is that, um, complementarianism can go seriously wrong in a coercively controlling marriage.
43:47So let me just define that for you.
43:50So coercive control isn't just one isolated act.
43:55It's a pattern of domination.
43:57Okay.
43:57So it's a pattern of behaviors where the husband progressively, like I said, it's, it's slowly like, like that frog
44:06in hot water.
44:08Right.
44:08Slowly, um, husband progressively restricts.
44:12His wife's autonomy, controlling the finances, her friendships, her communication with others, her movement, her sexuality, her parenting decisions, her
44:26employment, clothing, social media, access to outside help, et cetera, et cetera.
44:31So you've had, you have this, this husband, this JP Miller doing that to his wife.
44:38And then you put that husband over her spiritually as her pastor, that poor girl didn't stand a chance.
44:48You know what I mean?
44:50She was just surrounded by a coercively controlling environment in the house and in the church.
44:58Quite similar to mine and, and others, I'm sure many others.
45:04So, um, I wanted to end by saying that there is a good thing that has come out and, uh,
45:13the divorce lawyer of Micah Miller, her name is Regina Ward.
45:17And she is fighting for this thing called Micah's law and Micah's law is going to make coercive control, um,
45:30a, a crime.
45:32And, um, and, you know, you don't have to have physical, like bruises all over your body to charge your
45:41husband for abuse.
45:43Um, because here is the truth about domestic violence.
45:46This is what I wrote.
45:47It doesn't happen when a husband doesn't just happen when a husband hits his wife.
45:52It doesn't happen when the husband takes a gun to his wife's head, right?
45:58Violence can start when the weapon of shame and humiliation is used, right?
46:04Like calling her fat and she should, she should lose weight.
46:08Otherwise it's not his fault.
46:11If he starts looking at other women, right?
46:14Or, um, there's also the weapon of financial dependency, you know, where he controls the person, the purse, and she
46:22has to ask him for an allowance, the weapon of sexual gratification, which we've been talking about, right?
46:28Like you gotta, you live to satisfy his needs and the weapon of isolation, brainwashing her into believing that he
46:39is the only safe person.
46:41You know, their home is the only safe place.
46:44You can't trust anybody out there.
46:46And like I said, the worst weapon is the Bible.
46:51And that's why I titled the books weaponize religion, because that's truly what this is.
46:55They have weaponized the religion.
46:57They have weaponized the Bible against the people.
47:00And sadly, there are many people in the movement that have just been defeated.
47:04And when you get defeated and you're trapped in a corner and you can't get out, you feel like you
47:09can't break free.
47:11Because everything is stacked against you.
47:13Everybody has joined into this weapon that is charged against you.
47:18You feel defeated and there's no place to go.
47:20Well, there are people who just simply can't bear that burden.
47:24And that's what, you know, I know there's some controversy over what happened.
47:28I did read through that.
47:29But in the end, it doesn't matter.
47:32Even if there was no controversy here, I know people who are in the same situation.
47:38In fact, I have a cousin who is in the same situation and he's no longer with us.
47:43Because this religion has been weaponized against him in such a way, he had no escape.
47:48He had no way out.
47:49It saddens me to think through the people that felt like that they had no way out.
47:54And simply, all you have to do is open up the Bible and realize this is not a weapon in
48:00the way that they're using it.
48:02And they don't even know how to handle this thing.
48:04They don't even, in fact, I don't think many of them have actually read it.
48:08Because in the way that they're abusing the people with it, you can't really find any substance that gives them
48:14the power that they have in the Bible.
48:16You have to go outside of the Bible.
48:18And sadly, if you've studied the ancient mythologies, what they're matching is actually the ancient mythologies, the false gods, rather
48:26than the God that's in the Bible.
48:28How can you do this?
48:29How can you allow people to do this if you're sitting in the pews?
48:32You need accountability.
48:34I can't stress it enough.
48:35You need accountability.
48:37You know, I'm glad that Regina Ward is pushing for this law, Micah's law.
48:44I hope it gets established in all 50 states because, yeah, women really need to have something that they can
49:00use to protect themselves, to protect their kids, and to keep themselves safe.
49:10Not just, like, getting away.
49:12That's only part of it.
49:13But Micah tried to get away, and J.P. Miller just continued to harass her and, you know, go after
49:20her.
49:23And the last thing I'm going to say, you know, if, again, you're listening to this and you're a woman
49:31who feels trapped, there is help, right?
49:35There is help.
49:38They can go to my website.
49:40I know you always say what my website is at the end.
49:43You know, they can, there's a lot of places now where they can take you in, no questions asked.
49:51And if you're a pastor, and if you're a pastor, and a woman goes to you and says, hey, I
49:57am inferior for my life, you know, my husband is abusive, you know, the question should not be, how can
50:07we preserve your marriage, right?
50:09How can we bring about reconciliation?
50:12How can I help you forgive your husband?
50:15Those should not be the questions.
50:17The two questions should be, are you safe?
50:21And how can we help?
50:23And I'd like to say this to those of you who have shared your stories on the podcast, you're aware
50:29because I share with you some of the feedback that I get from people who are truly getting help.
50:33When you share a story, you're empowering somebody else to come out of that trap space that they're in.
50:38So, I would invite anybody who's willing and able to come share their story on the podcast, their story of
50:45overcoming the things that we're talking about here, spiritual abuse, sexual abuse, all of the abuse from a weaponized religion,
50:53from men who don't know how to handle the Bible but are behind the pulpit, sadly.
50:57Share your story.
50:59Empower somebody else to overcome this because there are people, once they get to the point of being trapped and
51:05they can't get out, there are people that you actually could save their lives.
51:08Just simply by sharing your story.
51:11So, thanks for allowing me to stand up my little soapbox.
51:16I hope that for at least one person out there, it's been helpful.
51:22Absolutely.
51:22Thank you so much for doing this.
51:24You're welcome.
51:25Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us
51:29out on the web.
51:29You can find us at william-branham.org and piahugoministries.com.
51:34For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to
51:40the NAR.
51:41Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
51:43You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
51:58You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
51:59You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
52:00You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
52:01You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
52:03You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
52:04You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
52:05You can find us at william-branham.org and piahuginistries.com.
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