Doug Wilson Instructs Wives To Disobey Husbands Over Right-Wing Views

The so-called No Quarter November came and went with a bang. Throughout their marketing scheme, Moscow engaged in constant internecine warfare against their own audience. During the week leading up to the election, the since-retracted Eschatology Matters video featuring slander against Joel Webbon made hot a conflict that had been brewing behind the scenes between Moscow and Apologia versus Joel Webbon. Rather than use No Quarter November as a means to wage the Culture War against the leftist institutions which suffered a massive defeat by way of Donald Trump, Doug Wilson and Company spent the entire month targeting Right-Wing Christians for “Noticing.”

Rather than acknowledge the loss they took in backing Tobias Riemenschneider’s slander, Wilson has continued to lob grenades against many who were his own audience. Concluding NQN with a bang, Wilson took to his Mr. Rogers set for their Thanksgiving episode not to unite families on the holiday but to introduce further division.

The episode features his daughters Rebekah Merkle and Rachel Jankovic and ultimately sounds a lot closer to having Aimee Byrd, Jen Wilkins, or Janet Mefferd.

At an hour and thirteen minutes in, the daughter then introduces a question in which she asks, “What would you say to a woman who’s married to a man who is going this way, because it’s something that I know of more than one circumstance of a woman who seems to be walking with the Lord, seems to be trying to do her Duty, and her husband is going off the deep end?”

Just prior to this, Wilson made the claim that anytime society is falling apart, the Jews get blamed, so there is no ambiguity that they are referring to the trend of Noticing that has exploded since October 7^th. The question presupposes that noticing the Jews is tantamount to going off the “deep end.” Otherwise, there are no specifics to what they are even referring to. Doug Wilson then answers:

I’ve said a number of times over the years, and this would be another occasion to say it again, is that in a world where some men can go the Nabal route, yeah I have wished for more Abigail’s…I would say tell them to say to their husband ‘Honey wherever you’re going I’m not okay I’m not going there and if you don’t stop going there I’m sending up a flare we’re talking to the elders, we’re not going to go off silently sadly into the night.’

Immediately after this, one of the daughters then claims that these men are unhinged and have “lost their grip” on reality while his son proceeds to insult anonymous accounts (anons).

Essentially, Wilson’s advice is for a wife to subvert her husband for Noticing and to involve the Church Elders if the husband is perceived, by Wilson’s standard, as going off the “deep end.”

There are numerous problems with the Nabal-Abigail comparison. First, Doug Wilson is the guy many churches would chastise a man for even listening to. Within American Christianity, Wilson was largely perceived as a pariah and a contentious figure in church circles, whose detractors would accuse any member of their congregation of “going off the deep end” for daring to listen to or read his works. After all, Wilson’s co-authored essay Southern Slavery: As It Was is why he has born the accusation of being a Neo-confederate. How many of Wilson’s own audience would volunteer to their pastors that they regularly listen to Wilson? Probably not a majority. He is applying a sliding scale of application which could easily be interpreted against his own person.

Second, the reason Nabal was a fool was because he was irreverent towards God’s anointed, who was David, both in denying him hospitality and through serious insult. Nabal knew that David was the son of Jesse, so his refusal of succor to his men was both out of irreverence to the Lord and his greed, for he was a wealthy man. So, just as David did not strike the Lord’s anointed, Abigail rendered aid, or perhaps tribute, to the Lord’s anointed. Moreover, David was legitimately wronged by Nabal, and Abigail, through a submissive posture, tempered his rage to allow the Lord to avenge Nabal’s transgression rather than for David to murder Nabal.

A more accurate comparison would have the husbands as “David” being averted from going off the deep end because of the Jewish Nabal’s, whose greed and irreverence debase society. This would recognize that the grievances are legitimate, but the response needs to be tempered from devolving into nihilism, which is a real danger for Noticing. Rather than acknowledge that the Lord is sovereign, the nihilist devolves into hopelessness against Jewish control, which is especially misguided when such control is falling apart. Contrary to Wilson, men like Joel Webbon and Andrew Isker are adequately able to counsel men against despair and sinful anger, which begins with acknowledging that certain patterns exist, that the Church historically recognized them, and that they are not in sin for noticing.

In summary, Wilson is instructing wives to subvert their husbands by reporting them to their church for being Noticers. In a society filled with feminism, many women want to believe they are Abigail, but as John Gill’s commentary records, “no doubt she was directed by the Spirit of God to do what she did; and this being an extraordinary case, is not to be drawn into an example.” Because of David’s standing as the Lord’s anointed and the sin Nabal had committed, Abigail’s actions were without moral ambiguity. Everything discussed by Wilson and his progeny is rife with ambiguity. If a woman has to ask whether she should “be an Abigail” and disobey her husband, then the answer is “no.”

Submission to the husband is an extension of the 5^th Commandment, just as submission to the State, so the standard for a woman to justify her disobedience is high. A hasty call to the local church pastor because the husband has engaged in “wrongthink” as defined by Doug Wilson, does not meet this burden. Because of Doug Wilson’s reputation, the very “Abigail’s” he is promoting would have the exact same rationale as disobedient wives who call up their local church because their husbands read materials by Doug Wilson. Thus, this advice, if followed, unnecessarily introduces division into the home. There are real consequences that could arise from Wilson’s interpretation, especially in the CREC which could (and has) punished dissenters to their proposed memorial on so-called antisemitism.

Wilson’s Response Playbook

Courtesy of The Jolly Brawler, Wilson has responded with his usual playbook to the viral criticism of this clip. Wilson has three tactics: First, “We weren’t talking about you,” which is where he says that the advice does not apply to Christians who disagree with him; Second, the “Alinsky Frame Job,” which is where he brands his opposition as “Woke Right” or “Side B Nazi’s;” Third, Word Salad, where he writes an article longer than the Pauline Epistles over a single issue in a grand display of sophistry.

Already, Wilson has resorted to the first tactic; however, this is disingenuous because Wilson has long ascribed sinful motivations to Noticing. With Andrew Iskar, he said that those who notice the news do so out of envy. More recently, he made a tweet thread in which he said that noticing the Jews is done out of anger and fatherlessness. Both are what CS Lewis called Bulverism, where he is psychologizing his opponents rather than explaining why they are incorrect. Wilson is ascribing sinful motivations to those who question the Post War Consensus or notice Jewish behavior, and since he is attributing sin, that would by default make the husbands Nabals and call for the wives to be Abigails, and thus introduce strife into marriages via the local church.

Conclusion

Doug Wilson should not be allowed to dodge accountability for this poor interpretation of Abigail and Nabal found in 1 Samuel 25, all so he could chastise men who disagree with him over Jews. Doug Wilson and James White spent the better part of a year targeting Joel Webbon over a meme that a member of his church shared. He spent the summer bashing White Boy Summer as gay, when WBS created the vibe which won Trump the election through meme warfare and making Springfield, Ohio a national story. The hypocrisy is self-evident when the Moscow LARPer dresses as Mr. Rogers and records podcasts in a parody set for his No Quarter November, which was inferior and less impactful than WBS in every facet—except sewing discord. He wrote a faith declaration that would anathematize most theologians in Church history. Now, he wants to divide marriages and households.

Doug Wilson spent his 2024 sowing division and declaring war within the Church. His efforts have been pathetic and rightfully mocked. He has lost narrative control and much of the credibility with his own audience he cultivated despite his numerous controversies. Nevertheless, Moscow and Apologia continue to lob grenades against their would-be allies, who want to move on from their slanderous October surprise, yet the longer they persist in Woke Wars II, the more they lose.

In a year that has been cause for much optimism, Moscow decided to wage a war within the church instead.