I’d just come home from Target. Unloading the car, I looped grocery bags up my arms. Doing it in one trip made it look like I bought less.

My husband sat at the computer, his back to the door, and startled when I stepped inside.

A flash caught my eye out the family room window. I counted the blond heads of my children. One, two, three —

“They’re all outside,” he said.

I stood as though wearing concrete shoes, eyes now locked on his computer screen.

A woman hung trussed like poultry, mouth gagged, eyes blindfolded, vulva bare and open.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

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I set the bags down. My body felt as hollow and fragile as a cicada shell clinging to a pine tree. I heard the tick of a metal snap in the dryer, the low rumble of a Navy cargo plane overhead.

He doesn’t watch porn, I thought. What was going on?

“It’s art. Don’t worry about it.”

I blinked, hoping this was true.

He pushed back the wheeled desk chair.

“I’ve something to discuss from Wilson’s book. But, first, let me help you with the groceries.”

He was talking about Doug Wilson, an influential author, pastor and publisher in Idaho. We’d bought his books on marriage at our annual homeschooling convention.

The conflation of porn with theology confused me, but I knew that whatever I was about to find out, our God said it should be so. Chillingly, I was yet to learn that the most important question anyone can ask when a Christian pastor teaches that women should submit to their husbands is, “What happens if she disagrees or refuses to obey?”

Wilson is a Christian patriarch who teaches, among other puritanical and high-control doctrines regarding family government, that women are to submit to their husbands and shouldn’t be allowed to vote. My family was part of Wilson’s congregation, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), until 2007, when I narrowly escaped what I now call church-sanctioned domestic abuse. The scene above is an excerpt from my bestselling memoir about that life and escape, “A Well-Trained Wife.”

My husband believed Wilson’s teaching held the key to the Christian Golden Age, a shining millennium where Christian ethics and white men rule without resistance or room for anyone else. It goes by several names. Dominion theology. Federalism. Calvinism. New Calvinism. Fundamentalism.

If this sounds familiar to you, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is part of the same denomination and supports a new Christian Crusade, or Holy War. These ideologies are rising in the podcast “manosphere” and the popular trad-wife movement, which offer a refuge of control for men who feel sidelined by feminism.

Wilson himself was recently interviewed on CNN, where he said, “Women are the kind of people that people come out of.” Wilson went on to say there’s no special talent in biological breeding.

In Wilson’s world, motherhood, or “being the CEO in charge of little souls,” is a special calling that women accept through self-subjugation to men. We submit, and this makes us better than feminist, man-hating women who have babies, rights and careers. CNN also noted that in Wilson’s “vision of a Christian society, women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.” Instead, the husband’s vote should be for the entire “household.”

That day, trying to make sense of bondage with theology, I’d looked at the spines on our desk, where Wilson’s books, “Federal Husband” and “Reforming Marriage,” and Michael Pearl’s “To Train Up a Child” series sat stacked.

Mostly everyone we knew in our Reformed Presbyterian and Baptist circles owned these crudely self-published books. Both Wilson and Pearl, bearded like sinister Santas, were hell-bent on patriarchal dominance, but presented the power dynamic as Biblical and rational, like good-natured grandpas. Cheap publishing and an appearance of poverty were part of the schtick. Buying them felt like we’d discovered a secret.

But what did they have to do with bondage porn?

I was about to learn another lesson in how pastoral teaching passes like a baton from one man to another. And how men in forums and at retreats swapped ideas like women swapped recipes. “How do you get your wife to obey?” has an answer in Christian Patriarchy.

Wilson said federal headship meant men were responsible for everything in their homes. This included the wife’s spending habits, entertainment, weight, rebellion, housekeeping, and responsiveness to sex.

Michael Pearl focused on spanking, presumably for infants and children. His instructions included what to use and how many slaps it took to get the point across.

As a good Baptist girl, I expected to be a servant-hearted wife. I soon learned there’s no endpoint to dominion and submission. And 20 years later, my body still braces when I hear Wilson’s name.

In 2021, Vice published an exposé of Doug Wilson. Writer Sarah Stankorb worked with 12 abuse survivors to bring readers into the “Church That Preaches Wives Need To Be Led With a Firm Hand.” Stankorb later released a book on the resistance to Wilson, “Disobedient Women.”

The Vice article explored whether Moscow, Idaho, was a theological utopia or patriarchal cult. Most readers didn’t realize dominionism was bleeding into the conservative mainstream. There’s danger in relegating federalism to a “cult.”

When Hegseth recently affirmed Wilson’s CNN interview, these doctrines went viral. But this is not the quiet part out loud. This is secular awareness of what’s gone on for decades, as Christian Nationalism rises. In 2004, in the scene where my book introduces marital discipline, I wasn’t allowed to vote.

Over the past 20 years, Calvinism has infiltrated the Southern Baptist Convention and its seminaries, permeating mainline denominations. Wilson has enjoyed cross-denominational platforms with John Piper, Mark Driscoll, The Gospel Coalition and Ligonier Ministries, among others, which have helped normalize his extreme views by providing access to more mainstream congregations.

Today, Wilson has authored over a hundred books and championed a hundred churches. He wields his influence on YouTube, discussing everything from vaccine mandates to doomsday prepping, which, for Wilson, aren’t unrelated.

In my view, Calvinism and Federalism are far beyond “cult” status. Their thirst for dominion is unquenched. Christian Patriarchy wants to govern the country, and the world, the way they govern their homes, which is why these once-private abuses and practices matter to mainstream America. Lordship begins in the home. It won’t stay there.

I thought about all of this when a Wilson congregant (called a “Kirker”) in the CNN interview said there’d be a “discussion” if his wife disagreed with him over their household vote. To me, discussion is a dog whistle for discipline.

“Oh c’mon,” my husband had said that day, unpacking the grocery bags without counting. “Correcting wives for bad behavior is hardly a new concept.”

Helping wasn’t his habit, but he wanted something.

“Think about it,” he said.

Think about what? Correction?

I tore off a sheet of Saran wrap to seal the rest of the morning’s bread. I thought correction meant reminders. Discussions. Timeout or additional devotional time spent in prayer. Maybe a visit to the pastor, at worst.

I didn’t know what idea my husband was lubing up for, but I knew I couldn’t say no.

“A man can’t haul his wife to the elders every time she’s in rebellion,” he said. “It’s impractical. The solution is Christian discipline. I’m on a forum for Heads of Households. There’s one for women, too.”

I kept my eyes down, per his rule not to challenge him. I wiped the already clean, bleach-scented counter again. Then, I reached for the broom and swept the squares of golden sunlight on the wood floors. The bottoms of my feet searched for the cold stability of our foundation. My eyes darted for the door.

When your church and God both say this is how marriage should be, where could I go?

Over the next several weeks, I sat at the computer and obeyed his command to learn more about being Taken In Hand. He directed me to membership forums and even a handbook. I’d learn about Christian Domestic Discipline, and how patriarchal men believe the power to correct their disobedient wives maintains order and structure, as part of their responsible dominion.

I wanted a nonviolent life. And I’d already given up pants, voting and my opinions because of his theology. But still, we had our problems. I could see how my husband was attempting to solve those problems. As the patriarchal pastors often preached, their dominion was benevolent.

I deliberated how much I could take. What if there was wisdom in violent appointments of discipline over sudden bursts? It could mean an end to fights where he sat on my head or slammed me into the wall. This way I’d know exactly when the pain was coming, and I’d hide it better from my parents and the kids. In between, we’d be happy.

Like a teabag steeped in hot water, the elements came together. I’d never held a cup so hot. I walked through our home on my tiptoes.

“I need you to write the contract today,” he said a few days later, referring to the contract wives needed to sign, agreeing to channeled violence.

The floors gleamed with lemon Pledge. The yeasty scent of fresh bread hung in the air. Steve from “Blue’s Clues” entertained the kids. ”Mailtime, Mailtime.”

As my husband told me this, I never slowed the stroke of my mop. But it felt like the screws on me tightened.

“There’s a script on the forum,” he said.

“Can’t you print it?” I said. Sometimes he gave up on ideas when they required extra effort.

“No, it has to be your handwriting. It has to look like this came from you.”

In federalist marriage, there is no level of submission that’s “enough.” At least a cage is static. In a cage, a tiger can circle. She can pace. She can determine the bounds of her freedom and move her will within them.

But submission is not a cage. It’s a vacuum. As you give, the container squeezes harder, removing all air.

He warned me we’d begin the disciplining soon, “over something small, to get used to it.”

A week later, I stood in the kitchen, sliding a metal spatula beneath fresh, hot cookies to frost with the kids.

“You overspent,” he said.

“Just a dollar eighteen,” I said.

“Go to our room,” he said.

I wondered if he’d use a timeout or a switch to correct me.

“They’re outside,” he said when we passed the kids’ rooms. I felt on par with them, unadult and small. Looking at their made beds and stuffed bears, I realized I wasn’t the only one trying to hide this from them.

He motioned for me to get on the bed on all fours, then started to pray.

His leather belt hissed as he removed it.

I buried my face in the pillow as he struck me and silently screamed into the feathered down. Like submissive women in a vacuum, I made no sound.

Tia Levings is the New York Times Bestselling author of “A Well-Trained Wife,” her memoir of escape from Christian Patriarchy. She writes about the realities of religious trauma and the trad-wife life, decoding the fundamentalist influences in our news and culture. Her work and quotes have appeared in Teen Vogue, Salon, Newsweek, and HuffPost. She also appeared in the hit Amazon docu-series “Shiny Happy People.” Based in North Carolina, she is mom to four incredible adults and likes to travel, hike, paint, and daydream. Find her on social media @TiaLevingsWriter and TiaLevings.Substack.com. Her second book will be released by St. Martin’s Essentials on May 5, 2026.

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