This post will close out my current thoughts on institutional purity. I have made it a point that institutional purity has done some grievous harm to the Body of Christ. I am therefore saying that we cannot insist that there are certain things you must believe in order to call yourself a Christian? In my mind yes there are some things that are fundamental but they are very few in number. Everything outside of this short list is small stuff.

Here is a list of those essential things that I personally am very much attuned to. It is from a book by Jack L. Willcuts .

1. We come to Jesus in faith for forgiveness of sins to be made new persons. Christ becomes our Savior, our Lord.
   
2. We are baptized in Christ with the Holy Spirit and are cleansed, sanctified, directed, and empowered.
   
3. The process starts of learning, of nurture, witnessing, teaching others (beginning with ourselves), our loved ones, our neighbors, and our world the word of peace and truth as revealed by Scripture and the Spirit.

I am not going to pretend that is list is all inclusive to everyone who reads it. I realize there are differences of opinion on this topic. But we must all remember that our lists of the foundational things of God should be as limited as possible. None of us has excusive rights to claim what is absolutely on this list. But we should all realize that our current lists that we use to enforce our idea of institutional purity are certainly bloated with items that should not be there.

All glory goes to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.