Accusing a Christian teacher of “redefining” some doctrine always sounds rather serious, and sometimes it actually is. With the rise of Modernism, it has been a recurring problem for false teachers to use Christian language to mean something else.
But in such cases what happens is that the definition of a word is entirely changed in meaning. What needs to be remembered is that “redefinition” does not only cover such cases. I can give you two differing partial definitions of dog: “a type of mammal” and “a type of warm-blooded animal.” I could be a biology teacher and, realizing that my entry-level students no longer knew what a mammal is, could start using the second of these definitions rather than the first. Then, some blogging biologist out there could accuse me of false teaching because I had “redefined” dog.
The point here is that I couldn’t simply deny the charge. I have not changed the meaning of anything but I have defined the word “dog” using different words. The equivocation would give my accuser a rhetorical advantage.
So, if you hear or read of someone being accused of “redefining” a key doctrine, be sure to ask questions to make sure what sort of redefinition is taking place, if any.
Those who accuse others of redefinition certainly may be guilty of overlooking subtle nuiances in word meaning that may have been previously(historically) overlooked. I know very few words, if any really, that have one and only one meaning or “perspective” tied to them. We need synonyms sometimes to even define a word. I agree that we should really attempt instead to discern if the newly proposed “perspective/meaning” actually changes classic interpretations altogether, or if it rather enhances those lexical definitions to give us a broader understanding.
I suppose the rejoinder might be that what has happened with justification in the NPP is less like using a different defintion for the same animal, ‘dog’, but a move from one area to analogous area.
Like someone has been worrying about God’s recipies for healthy sandwhiches, and someone says, actually, there are no such recipies, but god is interested in a program of excerizes for healthy bodies.