The word ‘liberal’ means ‘free’, but it also has a sense of ‘loose’ or ‘open’. A common use of this term refers to a broad theological approach that does not hold to the doctrines of the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. Liberal theology says that the Bible details how people thought when it was written, but that we cannot take it literally today. This became popular in the Western world during the 18th and 19th centuries. This kind of teaching is clearly heretical error, as the Bible does not define itself in such terms (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and warns us against people who would seek to distort the word of God in this way (Acts 20:30, 2 Peter 3:16).
