Either the writer of the article (which was quite vague), or someone on the BB, is showing great ignorance of the grammatical-historical method of interpretation, which allows for the correct (non-literal) interpretation of all normal figures of speech and idioms.
OK, someone may be showing some ignorance, just as another someone on the BB may be showing some arrogance, as described in the article:
“The conviction of a superior, literalistic approach to Bible interpretation can lead to a spiritual arrogance leading to a feeling of infallibility.”
You say the article was 'quite vague'. The writer was 'quite clear' in making a distinction between these two:
“
Traditionally a literal hermeneutic referred to the grammatical-historical method, that is, interpreting the Bible as it presents itself.
Nowadays, the use of the world "literal" by dispensationalists tends to mean the opposite of "figurative."”
Perhaps, if you haven't done so already, you should take a long look and see what dispensationalism, with it's grammatical-historical method of interpretation, has largely morphed into “
nowadays”; a form of Christian Zionism which is hardly distinguishable from Jewish Zionism. Here in The States (don't know about Japan), this Christian Zionism (formerly premillennial dispensationalism) largely believes that “what Israel wants God wants, and every act taken by Israel is orchestrated by God, and should be condoned, supported, and even praised”. The tendency is to believe that harnessing the wealth and power of the United States in the service of Israel is crucial to America's survival, i.e. in order to be blessed and not cursed [Gen 12:3], in other words, anything short of blind, unconditional support of physical Israel is against the will of God. The Church of Christ is temporary, a “mere parenthesis”, and the nation of Israel tends to take front stage in their theology and their politics.
In short, dispensationalism, with it's grammatical-historical method of interpretation, has evolved to the point where the line between politics and religion has, to put it lightly, blurred.
Well did Sylvester Hassell warn, “
the idea of a pre-millennial advent is Jewish in its origin, and Judaizing or materializing in its tendency; that it disparages the present, the dispensation of the Holy Ghost...”.
... Read Chapter VI of Paul Lee Tan's The Interpretation of Prophecy. Or if you want a more recent seminary text, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Klein, Blomberg and Hubbard) deals with the subject in various places.
Here's a quote from another standard text: "The literal interpretation of Scripture readily admits the very large place which figurative language has in the Scriptures, and Feinberg is correct when he writes that 'It is not true that [the literalists] require every single passage to be interpreted literally without exception'" (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, Bernard Ramm, p. 141, quoting from Feinberg, Premillennialism or Amillennialism?, p. 27).
No thank you. I left sensationalism a long time ago. If I'm going to read commentators it'll be those like were mentioned in the article:
“ Whereas certain literalists have claimed that O.T. prophecies concerning the first coming of Christ were all fulfilled literally, others have demonstrated this assertion to be false. Only 35% of such prophecies were literally fulfilled, the rest were typical or analogical fulfillments. Other inconsistencies are too numerous to mention, but have been abundantly documented by
Allis, Berkhof, Bahnsen and Gentry, Cox, Crenshaw and Gunn, Fuller, Gentry, Gerstner, Grenz, Hoekema, Hughes, LaRondelle, and others.”
