I recently reread a presidential address by Millard Erickson, delivered at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Entitled Evangelical Theological Scholarship in the Twenty-First Century, it contains a great deal of wisdom, especially directed at the younger generation of evangelicals. Here is a good quote on the practice of redefining terms:
"My concern extends to increasing precision in the use of language. The same professor who insisted on evidence used to refer to the “coefficient of elasticity of words.” By this he meant the tendency to stretch the use of words to cover broader and broader denotations. Eventually, they come to refer to so much that very little is excluded, and thus very little is actually being expressed by them. Remember, after all, that the word 'definition' involves giving a finite meaning to a term. I am not trying to argue that an idea must continue to be held simply because it is old. I am, however, suggesting that, for the sake of communication, it would be desirable that, when the usage of a term has changed greatly from its original denotation, a different word be used, a modifying adjective be added, or that by some other means the revised meaning be clearly identified. Failure to do so is like moving from one house to a different one some distance away, but continuing to use the original address."
