Netflix’s Death of the Pastor’s Wife docuseries is out, and a lot of you have already watched it. If you came away thinking you finally had the full picture of what happened to Mica Miller, though, you really don’t.

A typical con man works to win your confidence so he can exploit you financially. He builds trust, charms, makes you feel special and seen, and then he takes your money. The con man's entire operation depends on one thing: getting you to trust him before you understand what he actually is. A con man in a high-control, authoritarian church often runs his own predatory operation that I like to call the "con of confession," which draws from Robert Lifton's ideas on the "cult of confession." The...

Gaslighting in the church is particularly insidious because it often comes from pastors and ministry leaders who claim spiritual authority and wrap it in biblical language, which makes it feel like correction and loving guidance, rather than abuse, manipulation, and deception. When an abusive church leader is confronted or called out for abusive, inappropriate, disqualifying, or otherwise unacceptable behavior, gaslighting is a surprisingly common tactic used to avoid accountability while...