7: “REDEMPTIVE MOVEMENT” TRUMPS SCRIPTURE 67Therefore, Webb discovers a number of points where “our con-
temporary culture” has a better ethic than what is found in the Bible.
Our culture has a better ethic today “where it happens to reflect a bet-
ter social ethic—one closer to an ultimate ethic (Z) than to the ethic
revealed in the isolated words of the biblical text.”
With regard to the Bible’s teachings about women, therefore,
Webb admits that the Old and New Testaments improved the treat-
ment of women when compared with their surrounding cultures, but
he says,
If one adopts a redemptive-movement hermeneutic, the softening of
patriarchy (which Scripture itself initiates) can be taken a consider-
able distance further. Carrying the redemptive movement within
Scripture to a more improved expression for gender relationships...
[today] ends in either ultra-soft patriarchy or complementary
egalitarianism.^6So what is Webb’s position on women’s roles in marriage and the
church? Later in the book, Webb defines “ultra-soft patriarchy” as
a position in which there are no unique leadership roles for men in
marriage or in the church, but men are given “a certain level of sym-
bolic honor.”^7 He defines “complementary egalitarianism” as a sys-
tem in which there are full interdependence and “mutual
submission” within marriage, and the only differences in roles are
“based upon biological differences between men and women,” so
that, for instance, Webb would favor “a greater participation of
women in the early stages of child rearing.”^8 Thus, Webb’s “ultra-
soft patriarchy” differs from his “complementary egalitarianism”
only in the slight bit of “symbolic honor” that ultra-soft patriarchy
would still give to men. For all practical purposes, Webb is an evan-
gelical feminist, and that explains why his book has been so eagerly
welcomed and promoted by the evangelical feminist organization
Christians for Biblical Equality.
(^6) Ibid., 39.
(^7) Ibid., 243.
(^8) Ibid., 241.