Stephen Webb

Stephen H. Webb (March 13, 1961 – March 5, 2016) was a theologian and philosopher of religion. Webb graduated from Wabash College in 1983, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and taught at Wabash College as a Professor of Religion and Philosophy from 1988 to 2012. (He was on leave from Wabash College during 2012-13 and retired early to pursue writing opportunities full-time.) 

Born in 1961 and reared in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church in the Restoration Movement. He recounts his experiences there in Taking Religion to School (Brazos Press, 2000) and in an essay, "Recalling: A Theologian Remembers His Church," in Falling Toward Grace: Images of Religion and Culture from the Heartland, ed. 

Kent Calder and Susan Neville (Indiana University Press, 1998). He joined the Disciples of Christ during graduate school but soon became disenchanted with their theological direction. He was briefly a Lutheran, and on Easter Sunday, 2007, he officially became a member of the Catholic Church, which he remained for the rest of his life.

Webb is also known for his work in what he called the acoustics, or theology of sound. He wrote a comprehensive history of Christianity and sound in The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound (Brazos Press, 2004). This book, which was named the Religious Communication Association's Book of the Year for 2005 and a Christianity Today Top Ten Book of 2004, is divided into three parts. 

The first part surveys the biblical tradition on the importance of the human voice as a medium of revelation in the Bible. The second part focuses on the Protestant Reformation as the revival of that tradition. The third part discusses the transformations of that tradition in contemporary culture, which is increasingly oriented toward the visual over the auditory. He also discusses the role of deafness in Christian history and various theological debates over the question of how God created the world through sound. 

In this discussion, he reveals his battle with hearing loss and how that has affected his theological work. He ends that book talking about wordless music and the decline of authentic vocalization in rock and roll, so it was a natural progression to turn to Bob Dylan in his next book, Dylan Redeemed: From Highway 61 to Saved (Continuum, 2006). This book, which has been written about in many Dylan blogs, is a reassessment of Bob Dylan's musical career that focuses on Dylan's mid-life conversion to Christianity.