Editor’s Note: Pastor Jones and others have explained that they believe I misrepresented Doug Wilson’s comments on 1 Thess. 4:4-5. I’ve updated this article with additional context from Wilson’s blog.

---

When I wrote Beyond Authority and Submission, I knew that not everyone would agree with me. As I mentioned in the last post, I expected some people to disagree with what I believe about women and men in marriage, church, and society. A handful of men have written critical reviews, and I will address some of their concerns in the near future.

In an Amazon review, Pastor Mark Jones questions the accuracy of my research and accuses me of misquoting Doug Wilson and not citing the original sources correctly:

“She also displays a failure to properly read those she is disagreeing with. In some cases the citations do not even make any sense when you check the original sources. It is one thing to think Doug Wilson has bad theology, but you cannot misquote him and attribute things to him that he did not say. She does this a number of times, which shows it perhaps isn’t a mistake”

Mark Jones

These are serious charges to make. I took considerable care in my research to quote and cite sources accurately. In addition to my own checking and double checking of my sources, the editors at P&R Publishing also made sure that the citations were accurate. Mistakes can be made, and it’s always possible that some error wasn’t caught. That’s why I’ve gone back through my book and compared each Doug Wilson citation with the original source.

I apologize in advance for the length of this article. Since Pastor Jones didn’t indicate which quotations or citations he found problems with, I can’t be certain which concerned him. What follows are every quote and citation of Doug Wilson in my book with the original source for comparison.

In this first citation, I cite Doug Wilson as an example of someone who defines masculinity as having authority and taking initiative.

In the original source, Doug Wilson writes:

Next, I cite Wilson as defining masculine men as assertive, confident, and not afraid of taking risks.

In the original source, Wilson wrote:

I cite Wilson here as saying that women have a certain weakness as part of God’s design.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

Here is a direct quote from Wilson in my book.

And in the original source Wilson says:

In this quote from my book, I cite Wilson as an example of teaching that if women leave the protection of their fathers and husbands, they put themselves at risk of being assaulted or raped. I use Dinah here as an example of a woman who was raped.

In the original blog post, Wilson wrote:

In this next selection from my book I quote Wilson as saying men should be “resident theologians” in their homes.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

It is possible that this citation is slightly off in the page numbering. I think this is a matter of different page numbers in different editions or versions of the book. If it is an error, I’ll happily ask the publisher to make a correction. But the quote does appear in the book as shown above.

The next quote I used at the beginning of a chapter. It’s a direct quote.

The original source:

Here I cite Wilson as saying men were created to be dominant leaders.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

In this selection, I cite Wilson as one who writes about the significance of the length of women’s hair.

Wilson writes in the original source:

For additional context, Wilson has written about the importance of women having hair longer than their husbands in several places. For example:

This selection is another direct quote from Wilson. In the editing process, while rearranging this paragraph from paraphrase to direct quotation, the word “most” was added. I apologize for the error. I’ve asked the publisher to correct it however possible.

The original source with the surrounding context:

Here I cite Wilson as teaching that a man has authority to overrule promises or decisions his wife or daughters make.

After a lengthy discussion on Numbers 30 and other passages, Wilson writes:

To give greater context for his whole discussion, here is another brief excerpt from the same chapter:

In this selection, I cite Wilson as an example of teaching that women are called to help men in the work God gives to men.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

Here I cite Wilson for teaching that men should control the finances in a marriage, because women will spend too much if allowed to.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

Next is a direct quotation from Wilson.

As the original source shows:

This selection includes another direct quotation from Wilson.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

In this excerpt, I cite Wilson as teaching that women weren’t created to be in authority over men.

In the cited blog post, Wilson writes:

This selection is another direct quote from Wilson.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

Another direct Wilson quote:

As the original source shows:

In this selection, I cite Wilson as teaching husbands to instruct and correct their wives.

In the original source, Wilson writes:

For additional context, Wilson gives similar advice in other books and blog posts. Here is a quote from Wilson’s book, Federal Husband:

The last quote from Wilson in my book is another direct quote from his book, Reforming Marriage.

As the original source shows:

For further context, I’m adding an excerpt from Wilson’s blog where he discusses the meaning of “his vessel.”

These are all of the Doug Wilson citations and quotations in my book. I also cited Pastor Jones once in my book. Apparently he’s said elsewhere that I didn’t accurately represent what he wrote. Here is the citation in question.

I cited Pastor Jones’ blog post as an example of someone who considers friendship or companionship in marriage to be a downgrade, a diminishment of the marriage relationship. Here are the relevant sections of Pastor Jones’ post:

It certainly was not my intention to misrepresent Pastor Jones or his beliefs. I believe my use of his post was a fair representation of what he wrote.

As for the Doug Wilson citations, did I “misquote him and attribute things to him that he did not say”? You can see in these comparisons that I have accurately quoted, cited, and represented what he’s written.

It’s one thing to disagree with an author. It’s quite another to accuse her of mishandling original sources. Perhaps Pastor Jones should retract his public accusations.