80 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
New Testament! Webb carries it beyond the New Testament. To attempt
to go beyond the New Testament documents and derive our authority from
“where the New Testament was heading” is to reject the very documents
God gave us to govern our life under the new covenant until Christ returns.
Like many egalitarian books, Webb’s book is published by
InterVarsity Press.^32 Because Webb provides a new argument for abol-
ishing any significant male leadership roles in the home and the church,
it is not surprising that Webb’s book is promoted by the evangelical fem-
inist organization Christians for Biblical Equality and is sold on their
website (www.cbeinternational.org).
But it is somewhat surprising to me that Webb’s book has endorse-
ments on the back cover by such recognized evangelicals as Darrell
Bock, New Testament professor at Dallas Seminary (who wrote the fore-
word to Webb’s book), Stephen Spencer (formerly a theology professor
at Dallas Seminary but now teaching at Wheaton College), Craig Keener
(of Palmer Seminary, formerly Eastern Baptist Seminary), and Craig
Evans (of Trinity Western University). In addition to this, Sarah Sumner,
a theology professor at Azusa Pacific University, says that Webb’s book
is “the most helpful book I know” on discerning which passages are cul-
turally bound and which are transcultural.^33
William Webb’s book has become a major influence supporting evan-
gelical feminism. But Webb’s “redemptive-movement hermeneutic”
undermines Scripture’s authority just as do the trajectory hermeneutic
positions of France and Thompson critiqued in the previous chapter. And
Webb’s system is more harmful because he applies it more systematically
to the whole of the New Testament. Webb’s redemptive-movement
hermeneutic nullifies in principle the moral authority of the entire New
Testament. And in that way it undermines the authority of the Bible.
Therefore, William Webb’s attempt to support evangelical feminism
with his “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” is a huge step down the
path toward liberalism.
(^32) InterVarsity Press–USA has a policy of promoting evangelical feminist books: see Jeff
Robinson, “IVP Casts Egalitarian Vision Within Publishing Mission” at gender-news.com
(www.gender-news.com/article.php?id=72, accessed 4-19-05). InterVarsity Press–UK is a sep-
arate company, and several egalitarian books that have been published by IVP-USA have not
been published by IVP-UK, due to a different set of criteria used in publishing decisions.
(^33) Sarah Sumner, Men and Women in the Church (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press,
2003), 213.