Episode #8
The Forgotten Sermons of John-Paul Miller
John-Paul Miller built Solid Rock at Market Common in Myrtle Beach and, on tape, taught wives that sex was a non-negotiable duty. One line that Netflix put back in circulation: if a wife does not meet her husband’s sexual needs, “Satan will put 20 different options before his eyes before the day is over.” Another: “When your husband wants sex, God doesn’t send an angel from heaven to take care of that.” A fantastic marriage, he told the room, is “my needs are being met. Today.” Friends, family, and Mica’s own record say that doctrine did not stay in the sanctuary. Mica was a teenage parishioner, then his assistant, then his wife. People close to her describe bedtimes, medication, money, and movement controlled in the name of submission. The New York Times put it plainly after the documentary: he used her faith as the method of control. Christianity Today noted the bylaws gave him, by his own account, 100 percent decision-making authority. No elder board could pull him off that stage. We walk the old sermons in order. Authority and “obey those over you.” The sexual-obligation teaching. How a private marriage got preached as church doctrine, and how the congregation was trained to hear criticism of the pastor as criticism of God.
