68 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
I have written a far more detailed analysis of Webb’s book else-
where,^9 but I can summarize several points in this chapter.
WEBB’S SYSTEM NULLIFIES IN PRINCIPLE THE MORAL COMMANDS
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
What gives Webb’s system some plausibility at first glance is that he
agrees that homosexual conduct is morally wrong, and that the New
Testament condemnations of homosexual conduct are transcultural.^10
He also affirms that the New Testament admonitions for children to be
subject to their parents are transcultural.^11 So evangelicals may think his
system has no dangers for Christians today. But that is an analysis sim-
ply based on looking at his conclusions on homosexuality and on chil-
dren, not at the basis he used to reach those conclusions.
The important point to realize is that the basis on which Webb
affirms that these commands are transcultural is not the teaching of the
New Testament itself but Webb’s own system, which has filtered those
teachings and given them approval. There is a monumental difference
in how Webb reaches his conclusions about Scripture and how tradi-
tional evangelicals would reach their conclusions.
Most evangelicals read a text such as, “Children, obey your parents
in the Lord, for this is right” (Eph. 6:1), and conclude that children
today are to obey their parents because the New Testament was written
for Christians in the new covenant age (the time between Christ’s death
and his return). The teaching is there in the New Testament and there-
fore it applies to us. Most evangelicals reason the same way about the
New Testament texts concerning homosexual conduct (see, for exam-
ple, Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9), concluding that these texts are morally
binding on us today because we are part of the new covenant age and
these texts were written to new covenant Christians.
(^9) For a more detailed critique of Webb’s book, see Wayne Grudem, “Should We Move Beyond
the New Testament to a Better Ethic? An Analysis of William J. Webb, Slaves, Women and
Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis,” Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society 47/2 (June 2004): 299-347; also reprinted as an appendix in Wayne Grudem,
Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2004), 600-645. For another
analysis of Webb, see Thomas R. Schreiner, “Review of Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals,”
Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 7/1 (Spring 2002): 41-51. (His review was orig-
inally published in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 6/1 [2002]: 46-64.)
(^10) Webb, Slaves, Woman, and Homosexuals, 39-41, 250-252, and many other places in the book.
(^11) Ibid., 212.