A Word on "Biblicism"

When I created this blog several years ago, I had to decide on a term or phrase to be forever etched into its url, i.e., "[something].blogspot.com." I could change the header/title of "Semper Reformanda" and anything else about the blog whenever I wanted, but the [something], once chosen, would be unalterable. At that time, I had often described myself as a "Biblicist," a term which I thought I cleverly invented. I did so to distinguish my views on God's sovereignty, election, and predestination from those of "Calvinists" and "Arminians." Placing the historical doctrines of each system side by side, (the "Five Articles of Remonstrance" of the followers of Jacob Arminius and the "Contra-remonstrants" of the followers of John Calvin), I found my own beliefs to fall somewhere in the middle. So when asked, "Are you Calvinist or Arminian," I would somewhat arrogantly respond, "Neither, I'm a Biblicist," [not-so-] subtly implying that my view was fully biblical, while the others were not.

Over time, and with the patient help of several brothers who continually pointed me to Scripture, I came to see that the "contra-remonstrants" - a.k.a. "the five points of Calvinism" a.k.a. "the doctrines of grace" - are fully biblical, though none of those titles are very helpful. But this post isn't actually about the doctrine of election...

So the term "Biblicism" no longer means the same thing to me that it once did. But I still like the term, because in my mind it suggests a high view of Scripture as the all-sufficient, authoritative, inspired, inerrant Word of God. Obviously, I'm infusing my own definition into the term-- but I can do that, right? After all, I "made it up..."

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the word is used by a wide variety of people to mean a wide variety of things. If you do a google search for "Biblicism," you'll find quite a spectrum of definitions. One dictionary defines a biblicist as "a person who takes the words of the Bible literally," while a fellow blogger defines biblicism as "an attitude to the Bible that downplays the witness of the Spirit, sidelines the theological inheritance of the church, denies that truth may be rightly deduced from Scripture, and tends to a wooden, literalistic interpretation of God's Word."

It looks like I'm not the only one infusing personal beliefs into the definition of words... Obviously "biblicism" as a term doesn't always convey the meaning I intend by it. So this post is written to give clarification for potentially confused readers who may view the word in a negative light. What are your thoughts?