Doug Wilson's Daughters

Yeah, I wish we weren't talking about this too.

Pastor Doug Wilson (Religion News Service Illustration)

Unfortunately, we have to talk about Doug Wilson.

If you haven’t been online this past week, I’m happy for you. CNN ran a feature on self-described Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and New Saint Andrews College, and author of books like Southern Slavery As It Was. In the feature, reporter Pamela Brown visits Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, where he pastors Christ Church. An interview ensues in which Wilson plays his hits: he defends Christian nationalism (“I’d like [Washington, D.C.] to be a Christian town, I’d like to see the state be a Christian state, I’d like to see the nation be a Christian nation”), describes women as “the kind of people whom people come out of,” and advocates for the repeal of the 19th amendment (though he admits it isn’t a top “priority” of his, which I guess is something.) Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth then retweeted CNN’s feature and cited Christ Church’s slogan: All of Christ for All of Life. Discourse ensued.

Honestly? I am feeling (probably unreasonably) irritated that we have to talk about Doug Wilson at all. I am frustrated by the kind of discourse that gapes at Wilson as if the ideas he’s espousing are particularly new (they also aren’t as ancient as Wilson would like us to think, but that’s another matter). I am frustrated by the way in which Wilson and his “kirkers” are put forward as some kind of marvel at which to gawk, as if the theology they preach hasn’t seeped into the near-mainstream of the American Christian Right over the last several decades.

What more exactly is there to say about Doug Wilson that hasn’t already been said? He is an avowed Christian nationalist, advocating for a theocratic and theonomic society. He is a Reformed postmillennialist deeply influenced by the work of R.J. Rushdoony, who is always at the scene of the crime for Christian nationalism (“we’re all Rushdoony-ites now,” Wilson said earlier this year.) Like Rushdoony before him, Wilson cites Confederate army chaplain and Presbyterian theologian R.L. Dabney as an inspiration for his writings defending slavery. He is a staunch patriarch, his views of the differing roles of men and women at the basis of his theology: “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts,” Wilson once wrote in a blog post all too explicitly sympathetic to male rape fantasies. He deals in racist, misogynistic rhetoric and attracts the kinds of theobros who take his extremes to new heights. He is nearly a cartoon villain of a pastor, but somehow his reputation is perpetually laundered for mainstream Christian consumption by men like John Piper.

Kaeley Triller Harms has an excellent breakdown here on Substack of the facts of Wilson’s positions, allegations, and controversies. Ian Ward wrote a fascinating portrait of Wilson for Politico after spending some time with the pastor earlier this year in Moscow, Idaho, which is well worth your attention. Abbi Nye has a recent piece in Religion Dispatches noting that Wilson’s call for the repeal of the 19th amendment, which stems from Wilson’s notion of the “household vote,” is both reflected in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” policy plan and an idea that’s been bandied about in the world of Christian fundamentalism and biblical patriarchy for years (I remember Doug Phillips and Voddie Baucham ranting about the consequences of women’s suffrage at homeschooling conferences I attended as a child two decades ago — incidentally, Baucham is the speaker for New Saint Andrews College’s upcoming academic lectureship series).

I think regular readers of this newsletter will know without my saying so that I find Doug Wilson’s positions on virtually everything both despicable and terrifying. Just this week on his blog, in response to the fury stirred up around his CNN appearance, he posited that in the kind of Christian nation he would like to see, non-Christians would be permitted to be “residents in limited numbers, but not citizens, and all public offices and functions [would be] open only to citizens.” But those of us who grew up and out of the world of Christian fundamentalism know that Wilson’s ideology didn’t take root overnight. There have been survivors shouting from the rooftops for years about Doug Wilson and the grave harm he’s inflicted upon the people of God. For now, I am not that interested in talking about Doug Wilson.

I would rather talk about Doug Wilson’s daughters.

Doug Wilson holds to a strict interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:4-5 as a qualification for church leadership (“He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”). “If a man’s children fall away from the faith (either doctrinally or morally), he is at that point disqualified from formal ministry in the church,” Wilson once wrote. This, I imagine, must place a good deal of pressure on Wilson’s son and two daughters. If they leave Wilson’s church (which would be tantamount to leaving the faith), then they functionally remove their father from his place of leadership.

Both of Wilson’s married daughters are writers in addition to their God (and Wilson)-ordained roles as wives and mothers. Rebekah Merkle is the author of books dealing with “the restoration of femininity” like Eve in Exile, and sells colorful home goods and decor online. Rachel Jankovic writes for popular Reformed online publications like Desiring God and recently published her sixth book, No Time to be Dumb: Letters to Teenage Girls. I read Jankovic’s book this week, which is the main reason I’m writing about the Wilson empire at all.

I have been thinking about what it must be like to be a young girl growing into a young woman in the world of Moscow, Idaho, or in the world of any one of the 130+ churches belonging to Wilson’s CREC denomination. Christian fundamentalist communities ask for your entire self and soul, promising much but seldom delivering. I don’t have any reason to think the world of Wilson’s Christ Church is any different. Of course, I don’t think Rebekah Merkle and Rachel Jankovic are all that interested in my pity or empathy — but then again, I’m not exactly offering it at the moment. What I have instead is a question: what must it be like to grow into a woman in a world in which Doug Wilson is your patriarch?

Rachel Jankovic gives us some insight into this question. Her father’s world, which she inhabits, holds fundamental contempt for girls and women even as it claims to elevate them. In No Time to be Dumb, she writes letters in the voice of “Aunt Lizzie” to a group of imagined teenage girls (I do personally think we should have a moratorium on books written as letters to advice-seekers who just so happen to be asking the exact right questions, but I digress). Even the title has a baked-in assumption about its audience: teenage girls are first and foremost dumb. There is something innate about their nature that needs correcting.

No Time to be Dumb intersperses the cut-and-dry patriarchy of the Vision Forum days between recipes for chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon rolls. “If you are a Christian and you are a woman, modesty is not optional,” Jankovic tells her girls. “What you should want your clothing to say about you is that you are a woman who fears the Lord. It should say that you are clothed in strength and dignity. It should say that you are pure and faithful, that you will make a wonderful wife and mother,” she writes. It goes without saying that being a wife and mother is the end goal for which these girls are expected to aim.

Though Jankovic says she would like to shape girls who are “terrible,” fearsome beacons for the Lord, she presents a fundamentally reductive vision of femininity. For example, interior design is a “uniquely feminine job, and it should be a delight for women to know more about it than their husbands.” A hard-working husband who is providing for his family is somehow stopped from “expressing his love to his family” and is limited in the “contribution that his household can make in building the kingdom” if his wife “doesn’t know how to set a table or make a meal.” What a terribly small kingdom if it can be hampered in such fashion (God forbid a girl likes to DoorDash dinner).

In keeping with that reductive vision, the daughters of Wilson’s world have a binary choice to make: they can be whores or virgins. Jankovic writes to her young readership, “At the center of the entire world and all of history is this: a whore made into a virgin bride. It’s very important we understand that. The church is the whore, restored from great unfaithfulness. Individual Christian women have been through the same transformation.”

I’m hardly what you would call prudish, but I will admit to raising my eyebrow at Jankovic so casually throwing around the term “whore” to her very young and presumably rather sheltered audience. I shouldn’t be surprised, of course: Doug Wilson has a long history of speaking disparagingly about women, to put things mildly. To Wilson, women are not just “people whom people come out of.” They are sexpots, harpies, bitchy, cunts. They tacitly accept “the propriety of rape” when they reject the so-called protection of so-called good men. They must be led with a “firm hand.” “Whore” is relatively tame, all things considered.

In the same binary fashion, Jankovic’s Aunt Lizzie instructs her spiritual nieces in the ways of men. “When a man shows interest in a woman, he is either trying to get her into bed honorably (after making vows before God and witnesses to stay with her for the rest of his life), or he is trying to get her into bed dishonorably (for some short-term pleasure, with no worries about the consequences),” she writes. “These are the only two paths.” I’ve written before about how fundamentalism pathologizes normal, healthy relationships, and it’s hard to think of a better example than this. A girl in this world is presented with a vision of men that exposes her own worth — someone to be brought to bed, an object for sex in the most literal fashion.

Yet it is (of course) the responsibility of these girls to referee their relationships with these same men. “Young women need to practice saying no and sticking to it,” Jankovic admonishes, as if the men of Wilson’s world are not being simultaneously told that women are theirs to conquer in the pursuit of sex, whether honorably or dishonorably. “Say something like, ‘No thank you, I am not interested,’ and try to do it without hastening to look away or feeling panicky (or at the very least without looking panicky),” Jankovic instructs her girls. But if the girls of Wilson’s world have any “funny interactions” with these same men, they are to “be careful to not be gossipy or belittle them to one another.”

Jankovic further pathologizes the relationships of her young readers by extending her warnings of caution to the relationships these girls have with each other. In a chapter entitled “Handsiness,” Jankvoic admonishes the teenage girls of her world that “snuggling with each other, touching each other’s hair for no reason, holding hands, sitting on each other’s laps, sitting between each other’s legs, giving each other rubs, hugging each other when you have been apart for twelve minutes — none of these things are wise or acceptable.” Why, you ask? Because, Jankovic explains, “just because everyone involved does not intend to be a lesbian does not mean you aren’t behaving sexually with one another.” Putting aside the obvious homophobia (a given here), it strikes me as incredibly sad that even the most innocent of relationships are supposed to be so terrifying to the girls of Wilson’s world. Growing up in this world is to constantly second-guess yourself, wondering if you’ve committed sin by doing something as normal as giving your friend a hug.

In classic fundamentalist form, Jankovic ultimately primes her young readers to harbor mistrust for their very selves. “Our feelings are very easy to manipulate,” she warns. “Structuring your life on the foundation of how you feel makes you incredibly easy to sabotage.” For a girl in Wilson’s world, listening to yourself and trusting your own feelings is highly suspect, sinful even: “It is not a sin to have a feeling that does not accord with reality, but it is sin to keep it there in your heart and mind and let it grow.”

In Doug Wilson’s world, daughters are weak. So is God.

Every time I think we might have left some portion of the patriarchal fundamentalist version of Christianity behind, something like this pops up to remind me that there is a long way to go. I don’t have a particularly new point to make with this piece, except to say that it makes me unbelievably sad that this small and contained understanding of girlhood and consequently of God persists in the fundamentalist circles that continually exert influence over the broader world of American Christianity.

Doug Wilson’s disdain for women is palpable and, as I’ve noted to (my own) exhaustion here, well-documented. When he tells Pamela Brown that women are not exercising any talent by engaging in their main purpose of reproduction, he is telling us exactly what he thinks of his daughters, of everyone’s daughters. I had a baby in December of last year. I’ve written a bit about that experience here, and when I think about the last eight months of my life (and the nine months of pregnancy before that), I stand in complete and total gobsmacked awe of every woman who has ever given birth. This is the kind of strength that Doug Wilson doesn’t know anything about.

In 2021, Sarah Stankorb for Vice reported on the cover-up of sexual abuse inside the world of Wilson’s Christ Church. One former kirker and student of New Saint Andrews College, a young woman named Jean (a pseudonym), told Stankorb about how her husband sexually assaulted her after their first baby was born. He continued to assault her every week for the next decade. When she finally told some pastors at a Moscow Christ Church plant what had been happening, they told her not to go to the police specifically because her husband’s father was an elder who could be disciplined if his son’s sin was brought to light. “These pastors told me a wife is not allowed to tell her husband no,” she said. Doug Wilson had officiated their wedding.

To be a daughter of the world of Doug Wilson is to know that you will always come second. Your worth is tied to the kind of wife you will become and the men who will want to have sex with you. If what you endure jeopardizes a man’s position of leadership, then you simply must continue to endure. When we talk about Doug Wilson and his frighteningly nationalistic theology, we must talk too about those who bear the real-world brunt of his ideas.

Did you grow up with Doug Wilson’s teachings? When did you first encounter his work? Tell me about it in the comments.