Heresy of the Last 40 Years: Hermeneutic of “Love”

[Berean]

Heresy of the Last 40 Years: Hermeneutic of “Love”

By

GREG SMITH

-



DECEMBER 2, 2021


Heresy: Hermeneutic of “Love”



This will be, as always, a highly abbreviated summation of a much larger topic for the sake awareness and information. It’s impossible to do more than give a general sense in an article of this kind.



For the Christian, “hermeneutics” is the science by which we arrive at the meaning and application of the Bible as intended by God Himself. In a nutshell.



This requires actual study and intellectual engagement. (2nd Timothy 2:15)



There are three basic steps in this process. Three Basie questions we ask.





1. What does the text say? What do the words, sentences and phrases say.



2. What does the text mean? Once we’re sure of what the text says, lexically, grammatically and syntactically, we must determine what was being said to the original hearers to which it was originally written.



3. How does it apply to us? What are the universal principles being conveyed to all believers in all ages. There is the cultural form, in which a given book and or passage originally came to be, and the trans-cultural principle which is binding upon all cultures throughout all time.



The hermeneutic of “love” pretty much dispenses with all of this. Instead, it begins with a subjective and very postmodern, unbiblical definition of what “love” is and then proceeds to subject every single syllable of scripture to that definition.



The results will range from grotesquely mangling foundational biblical truths that have been universally held throughout the whole of church history, to simply dismissing others altogether. This of course precludes, by definition, any vaguely orthodox view of the inspiration, authority and sufficiency of scripture.



This, in their minds, allows them to embrace historically unheard of theological and moral heresies all in the name “love.” Because after all, God IS love right? Their definition of “love,” drawn, not from scripture, but directly from their own emotionally driven moral preferences, necessitates that they re-create God in their own image.



There is a historical evolution here dating back to the enlightenment and 19th century theological liberalism after that, up through the 20th century through the rise and fall of modernism, and now postmodernism that is beyond the scope of this piece.





Key tenets include:



The apriori denial of the inspiration, authority and sufficiency of scripture.

A rank perversion of biblical love along with an equally rank perversion of what God being that love means.

This leads to a list of damnable heresies from the denial of substitutionary atonement to the overt celebration of all manner of sexual immorality.

Anyone daring to preach the biblical truths of the Christian faith as historically held by the Christian church is ipso facto unloving and a danger to human well being.

This entire mindset is centered squarely on the preeminence and autonomy of man rather than the honor and glory of almighty God.

You will find that an incessant barrage of emotional stories and humanistic illustrations rather than sound biblical reverence and scholarship characterizes their “preaching.”

Modern-Day Proponents:

Continued at link