Pastor Douglas Wilson is calling on Christian husbands to repent of what he calls "the sin of servant leadership." In a June 4, 2025, blog post titled "The Sin of Servant Leadership," which ChurchLeaders reported on this week, Wilson argued that the popular phrase has become a cover for husbands who simply do whatever their wives want, instead of leading their households as Scripture instructs.

Wilson sketched the marriage he had in mind: a husband who keeps trying to meet his wife's needs, only to watch her grow more frustrated the harder he tries, until he loses his temper and starts the cycle over again. His remedy began with repentance. "The husband should repent to God for his attempts to be a 'servant leader,' and she should repent to God for expecting that from him," Wilson wrote. "Both of them confess this to God as a sin, and they confess it to one another."

"This is not a rant against sacrifice and service," Wilson wrote. "It is a case against selfishness and cowardice disguised as servanthood." He called the problem "a black mold kind of sin" - hard to spot and destructive, the kind no fresh coat of paint will fix once it gets deep into the walls.

Wilson said he accepts the "servant" half of the phrase and objects to the "leadership" half. In its place he proposed "servant lordship," arguing that Scripture describes husbands with nouns like head, ruler, and lord, while "leadership" is a loose term that people fill with their own meaning. "Modern evangelical husbands have been taught that they are to be servant leaders, and that they are to lead by serving," Wilson wrote. "But to the extent we use the word 'lead' at all, why should it not be that men are to serve by leading? And doing so the way a ruler, or a head, or a lord might do?"

He grounded the claim in several passages: Peter's portrait of Sarah honoring Abraham as her lord (1 Peter 3:6), Paul's call for elders to manage their own households well (1 Timothy 3:4-5), Paul's teaching that the husband is the head of the wife (Ephesians 5:23), his command that husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25), and the instruction that older women train younger wives to be subject to their husbands (Titus 2:5). Wilson also leaned on C.S. Lewis, who observed that nations once spoke of their rulers and now speak of their leaders - and argued the same shift in vocabulary has reached the home.

Wilson anticipated the charge that his view invites a domineering or bullying husband. His answer, he said, was built into the phrase: "servant ruler." He added that he has long defined masculinity as a man gladly taking on sacrificial responsibility.

Other Christian teachers define headship in terms closer to the phrase Wilson criticizes. In a 2007 sermon, Pastor John Piper described headship as a husband's divine calling to take primary responsibility for Christlike, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. The Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Faith and Message asks a wife to submit graciously to "the servant leadership of her husband." Wilson's post challenges both formulations, according to ChurchLeaders' Dale Chamberlain, without naming either one.

Not everyone finds Wilson's framing convincing. A response on the Faithroots blog argued that the "servant leadership" taught in most churches never meant handing a wife whatever she wants, and that the adjective "servant" is precisely what tells a husband which kind of leadership to practice - since any ruler can claim to serve by leading. The writer also noted that Jesus used "lording over" language as a negative example, and that Paul's instruction to husbands as heads is to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

Wilson's second step for the frustrated couple was a book: he recommended that the husband read his 1995 book Reforming Marriage aloud to his wife, one chapter a night, with no discussion during the reading - each praying over the chapter separately - followed by a dinner conversation once they finish. Wilson said he described the same problem thirty years ago in that book, calling it the Nice Guy Syndrome.