Heresy? ‘Heretic’? Really?

I have long believed that significant care must be taken when using the word ‘heresy’.

It is causally thrown around with, it appears to me, little reflection on the implications of its assignation. If I say someone is teaching heresy, then I am calling that person a heretic. And heresy is a damnable sin (see 2 Peter 2:1; cf. 1 Timothy 4:1-5).

In recent days, I have read on Facebook of the heresy of ‘continuationism’ – the possibility of the ongoing existence of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit – with regard to John Piper’s embrace of it, and that John Piper was, by extension, a heretic. This view, of course, would damn all Pentecostals and charismatics!