Dispensationalism has recently borne the brunt of many aspersions of dangerous heresy, usually from Reformed types. New Covenant Theology has also been subject to similar aspersions in the past. Reformed types have historically been prone to label those who disagree with them as heretics, an indication of arrogance and lack of grace.
After the Council of Dordt (1618–9), Calvinists went on a witch hunt against those of Arminian persuasion, this during a lull in the Eighty Years War (1568–1648). Those of Arminian persuasion were demoted, excommunicated, exiled (i.e. Hugo Grotius), imprisoned, even executed. (I am not an Arminian and spent most of my life within Reformed Baptist circles.)
Reformed types attempted to declare Amyraldism heretical in 1675 (Helvetic Consensus). As John Frame’s essay, Machen’s Warrior Children, observes, this spirit within Reformed circles led to schisms within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) over matters, not essential to the Faith. Reformed types go beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6), with regard to what constitutes heresy, and are hence prone to schism and oppression, the latter element discernible in seminarians nowadays, who in their arrogance, lord it over their congregants.
But nothing and no one should be deemed heretical unless their notions and conduct are explicitly and incontrovertibly deemed heretical by Scriptures. Heterodoxy is a sufficient epithet. To go beyond is to invite psycho-social suffocation and sclerosis within an Assembly.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities and continue to grow in them, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
– 2 Peter 1:5–8
Scriptures expressly declares that as one’s knowledge and understanding increases, one will be increasingly productive and effective. Purification of doctrine will also lead to ontological benefit within the context of the New Covenant. “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16, 20) has also application to doctrine.
That being the case, it is in a Christian’s own self-interest to increase knowledge and purify their doctrinal understanding. Unless waywardness reaches thresholds, delineated expressly and incontrovertibly by Scriptures, external interventions are unnecessary.
God will correct error, often through the deleterious consequences which naturally result from living according to the errors that one believes. A problem arises in those who promulgate errors, but do not live according to those errors, and hence never realize their errors (Matthew 23:3–4).
While I perceive many flaws in existing theological covenantal/dispensation frameworks, I cannot nor have ever deemed subscribers to those quite complicated frameworks, as heretics.
It is quite possible that the logic of those errors may lead to heresy downstream. A Christian, usually a Dispensationalist, who subscribes to Zionism, with the expectation that God will restore ethnic Jews to their homeland in the latter days, is not a heretic.
That is unless and until he/she goes beyond merely observing, and starts justifying, even participating in, travesties and atrocities committed by the Israeli government and society, which he/she would not do if committed by anyone other. Such are hereby acting upon their own private understanding of the inscrutable Sovereign Will of God, instead of the declared Will of God. Many sins are involved in this: presumption, partiality, and the idolatry of choosing Israel over Israel’s God and the cause of Christ. But generic Christian Zionism is not heretical.
Another principle can be observed in the 2 Peter 1:5-8. One’s productiveness and profitability is dependent upon a number of elements, not merely knowledge, understanding, and doctrinal purity. I conceive these conditions within the construct of bottleneck. If one is unkind and unloving, as indicated by unjustified aspersions of dangerous heresy, all of one’s knowledge, understanding, and doctrinal purity become unprofitable.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
– 1 Corinthians 13:2