This past month, a documentary about Mica Miller brought renewed attention to a difficult subject: spiritual manipulation within the church. As I watched her story unfold, I kept thinking about how easily faith, something meant to provide hope, guidance, and refuge, can be used as a tool for control.
Spiritual manipulation is not new. What is changing is our willingness to recognize it, name it, and question the beliefs and systems that can allow it to thrive.
Why can this type of manipulation be so difficult to recognize? Perhaps part of the answer lies in beliefs many of us have heard for generations: a Godly woman should be submissive. A wife should honor her husband. Marriage should be preserved at almost any cost. Forgiveness is expected. Church leadership should be respected. And questioning spiritual authority can sometimes be portrayed as questioning God Himself.
Growing up in the church gives me my own perspective on these messages and how deeply they can become embedded in the way we understand faith, marriage, and obedience. Having a deep relationship with God also meant that my desire to honor Him could be used against me. When you genuinely want to live according to your faith, it can be difficult to recognize when someone is using that faith not to bring you closer to God, but to gain control over you.
For years, I was taught that submitting, forgiving, enduring, and trying harder were ways of honoring God. That sincere desire can create a vulnerable place where spiritual manipulation disguises itself as spiritual guidance.
But history tells us this conversation is much older than any one church, marriage, or generation.
While watching Mica’s story, I found myself thinking about The Woman They Could Not Silence, the story of Elizabeth Packard, whose husband a Calvinist minister, had her committed to an insane asylum in 1860 after she began challenging his beliefs and authority. More than 160 years separate these women’s stories, and their circumstances are very different. Yet they raise an unsettling question worth examining:
What happens when faith, authority, and mental health are used as tools to control a woman?
When Submission Becomes Control: Where Did These Beliefs Come From?
I have heard it my entire life. It has been repeated from pulpits, taught in Bible studies, and emphasized in conversations about what it means to be a godly wife:
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”
Ephesian 5:22
It is a verse that carries tremendous weight. If some husbands could tattoo it onto their wives, I imagine they would.
For a woman who genuinely desires to honor God, those words can feel absolute. If God commands me to submit, then resisting my husband must mean resisting God. Questioning him can begin to feel like disobedience. Setting boundaries can feel selfish. Leaving harmful circumstances can even feel sinful.
But is that actually what this passage means?
Christians across denominations read the same Bible yet sometimes arrive at very different conclusions about marriage, gender roles, leadership, and submission. Why? Because reading the words is only part of understanding Scripture. Translation, historical setting, surrounding passages, culture, and context all matter.
So before we decide what a submissive wife is supposed to look like, perhaps we need to ask a more basic question:
What does biblical submission actually mean?
To really understand this verse, we first have to understand the word submit and the context in which it was written. The Greek word translated as submit is hypotassō, a word used throughout the New Testament. At its core, it carries the idea of placing or arranging oneself under another. But this is where context becomes so important. In Ephesians, Paul is not giving husbands permission to demand submission, force obedience, or control their wives. In fact, the passage begins with a call to “submit to one another” (Ephesians 5:21).
That matters, because there is a significant difference between choosing to honor someone within a relationship and being forced into obedience. Somewhere along the way, those lines have become blurred. A teaching intended to exist alongside love, sacrifice, and mutual respect can become something entirely different when one person uses it to gain power over another. And that is where biblical teaching can cross into spiritual manipulation.
But What About Mutual Submission?
Here is the part of this passage that often gets much less attention. Before Paul ever tells wives to submit to their husbands, Ephesians 5:21 says:
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” To one another.
Those words matter. Submission was never meant to be a tool that one person holds over another. Within a Christian marriage, there should be humility, sacrifice, respect, and a willingness from both people to consider the needs of the other.
Yet somehow, “wives, submit to your husbands” became the verse many of us can quote from memory, while “submit to one another” rarely seems to carry the same weight.
And that is where we have to be careful.
When someone continually demands submission from another person while refusing to show humility, sacrifice, or accountability themselves, we are no longer talking about a healthy biblical relationship. We are talking about power. A scripture meant to guide how we love and serve one another can become something entirely different when it is used to justify control.
But What About the Husband’s Role?
If we are going to take verse 22 seriously, then we also have to take verse 25 just as seriously:
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Ephesians 5:25
That part seems to get a lot less attention.
In the ancient Roman world, men held significant legal and social authority within their households. Against that backdrop, Paul tells husbands something very different from simply exercising that authority: love your wife the way Christ loved the church.
Think about what that actually means. Christ’s love was sacrificial. He served. He showed compassion. He washed feet. Ultimately, He was willing to give His life for those He loved.
So how can we take that example of love and turn it into permission to dominate another person?
A husband’s role in this passage isn’t simply to demand that his wife submit because “the Bible says so.” He is given his own responsibility: to love sacrificially, to put aside selfishness and ego, and to care for his wife in a way that reflects the character of Christ.
When a man uses Scripture to demand control while ignoring the command requiring sacrifice and love from him, he isn’t upholding the entire passage. He is choosing the part that gives him authority while overlooking the part that holds him accountable.
When Biblical Submission Becomes Spiritual Manipulation
So why does understanding all of this matter when we talk about women like Mica Miller and the tragic outcome of her life?
Throughout her story, we see Mica deeply committed to her faith and, for many years, committed to her marriage. We see her love for God and her desire to honor Him. We also see moments that are difficult to watch, such as public humiliation, silence, and even a public apology to the church after she had a relationship with a married man.
What struck me was how easily shame, submission, forgiveness, and faith seemed to become intertwined.
When a woman has been taught that being a Godly wife means submitting, forgiving, enduring, and preserving her marriage, where does she draw the line? At what point does she recognize that what she is experiencing is no longer biblical submission, but control?
Mica later described allegations of intimate, financial, emotional, and psychological abuse within her marriage. Her story forces us to confront an uncomfortable reality: a sincere desire to honor God can become a vulnerability when another person uses that desire to justify harmful behavior. It is important to know the signs of abuse to take the next step to get out of that relationship.
This does not mean faith caused the abuse, nor does it mean Mica chose to be abused. It means the language of faith can become incredibly powerful in the hands of someone who knows how to use it to control another person.
But What Happens When She Tries to Leave?
Eventually, Mica began reaching out for help and taking steps toward leaving her marriage. And this is where another deeply rooted religious belief entered the picture: divorce is a sin.
For someone whose relationship with God is central to her life, those words carry tremendous weight. Leaving is no longer simply a decision about whether a marriage is healthy or safe. It can become a decision that feels as though it places your relationship with God at risk. Divorce can already be one of the hardest and most painful decisions a person makes. When faith and the fear of disappointing God are added to that decision, the emotional burden can become even heavier.
According to accounts presented in the documentary, when Mica attempted to separate from JP and pursue divorce, religious language continued to surround their conflict. The message was no longer simply about saving a marriage; it became tied to what God expected from her.
Imagine the internal conflict that can create for someone who sincerely wants to honor God. You may recognize that something is wrong. You may finally find the courage to ask for help. You may even decide that you need to leave. But then you are confronted with another fear:
What if leaving him means I am disobeying God?
This is where spiritual manipulation can become incredibly powerful. Scripture does not have to be shouted or threatened to become a means of control. Sometimes all it takes is convincing someone that the decision they are making for themselves is actually a decision against God.
Mica’s desire to leave did not mean that she had abandoned her faith. Seeking help did not mean she had failed as a Christian wife. Yet when divorce is presented simply as sinful—without acknowledging abuse, coercion, safety, or the circumstances occurring inside the marriage—it can create tremendous guilt and fear for someone already struggling to find a way out.
What is especially powerful is that Mica eventually began questioning the very teaching that had carried so much weight in her life.
In the documentary, she reflects on the familiar message that “God hates divorce.” In her own reasoning, she begins to look beyond those words and consider why God would hate divorce, because divorce brings pain and suffering. But she also recognizes something important: abuse causes suffering too.
That realization changes the question.
Instead of asking, “Will God be angry with me if I leave my marriage?” the question becomes, “Would a loving God expect His child to remain in a situation where she is being harmed?”
For someone experiencing spiritual manipulation, that shift can be profound. Mica was beginning to separate her relationship with God from the interpretation of God that had been presented to her. She could still love God, honor her faith, and recognize that protecting herself did not mean abandoning either one.
And perhaps that is one of the most dangerous moments for a person who uses faith as a means of control: when the person being controlled realizes that you do not get to speak for God.
Faith Should Never Require You to Lose Yourself
Mica’s story is heartbreaking for many reasons, but one of the lessons I took from it is the importance of separating our relationship with God from the people who claim to speak for Him.
I am exhausted and disgusted by watching biblical teachings about marriage repeatedly used as weapons against women. We may have watched this unfold in a documentary, but this is not something that exists only on our television screens. It happens every day, behind closed doors, to women who sincerely love God and are trying desperately to do what they believe is right.
Using someone’s love for God to control, intimidate, shame, or keep them in a harmful situation is not biblical leadership. It is spiritual manipulation. And I believe that behavior, in and of itself, is sinful.
We have to become vigilant about recognizing it. Submission should never mean surrendering your voice. Forgiveness does not require tolerating repeated harm. Honoring your marriage does not mean protecting someone else’s harmful behavior at the expense of your own well-being. And seeking safety does not mean you have failed God.
A man who truly loves his wife should not need to repeatedly use Scripture to remind her that she is supposed to submit to him. When a marriage reflects the love described in Scripture- mutual respect, sacrifice, humility, protection, and care, submission does not have to be demanded. It happens within the safety of that love, the way I believe it was intended.
Healthy faith should draw us closer to God, not make us fearful of another person’s authority. No husband, pastor, church leader, or other person should have so much spiritual authority over us that questioning them begins to feel like questioning God.
Perhaps the question we should be asking is not simply, “Am I being submissive enough?”
Perhaps we should also ask:
“Does what I am being asked to submit to reflect the character of the God I am trying so desperately to honor?”
Scripture should lead us closer to God. It should never be used as a weapon to place another human being under someone’s control.
