I have a little elasticity. I get along with people who are very straitlaced about those things but I also get along with people who question them. As a great advocate of the primitive Christianity of James, which was more closely connected with the Essenes than people realize because Essene is from Oseh, James's word for being a Doer, I see bridges between what the creeds are attempting to convey and the concerns of antitrinitarians and upholders of original Christianity. Between James and the formal creeds we have many steps, not only Paul, then gnostic influence, then Roman hegemony, then the very significant Lapsi controversy of 251, and finally the Constantinian revisions, so it's essential to distinguish the problems at each step when we talk about the creeds.
If we were to say all doctrine must be taken from the portion of the Bible excluding Pauline Christianity, I'd be very happy to agree, and aspects of your perceived "Christian core" are naturally a bit removed from that source. First, the connection of God's nature to the words "trinity", "three", and "person" is tenuous and not very Biblical. "Dying for sins" has in America gone quite far removed from the Mosaic teaching of animals dying for sins, or from Peter's view "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18); would you accept Peter on this or are we to exclude him too? "Second coming" and "final judgment" are also poor and unbiblical summary phrases; "coming again" is Johannine (14) but doesn't mean what people think, "final judgment" is in the NLT but not the Greek, and in my experience Christians are least united about eschatology, which your core framing has several elements of. In particular Christians often fail to realize that "heaven" and "hell" are not the names of the final states, which are more rightly called new heaven-earth and fire lake.
So what I actually believe is taken from the Bible alone (which is holistic enough to permit the removal of all Pauline books and Hebrews): if you wish to excise anything else, feel free and I will compensate. (1) We are to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28:19). (2) Father and Son bear witness (John 8:18). (3) Spirit bears record (1 John 5:7a, 8b; excluding the disputed portion that might have been written by Tertullian). (4) A matter is established by three witnesses (Deut. 19:15; but don't infer anything the text doesn't actually state). (5) Christ suffered for sins and was put to death (1 Peter 3:18). (6) Jesus will come in like manner as the apostles saw him go into heaven (Acts 1:11). (7) The dead will be judged every man according to their works (Rev. 20:12-13). (8) Jesus was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead (Acts 10:42). (9) The Son of Man will separate all nations as sheep from goats (Matt. 25:32). (10) The goats shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal (Matt. 25:46).
Ebionites and Essenes revered all these Scriptures if I'm not mistaken. Is there a problem with any of them?
(Add: I should've expressed concern also about your including Mormons (the COJCOLDS) as a denomination or as Christian, because neither Christendom nor Mormons include the other, and they don't agree on this core. Instead of a corporate trinity in unity they have a tritheist language of "three personages"; instead of dying for sin they have modeling all the godhood that we are to "become"; instead of heaven and hell they have three destinies, "celestial, telestial, and terrestrial", which don't overlay heaven and hell. But that's tangential.)
I have a little elasticity. I get along with people who are very straitlaced about those things but I also get along with people who question them. As a great advocate of the primitive Christianity of James, which was more closely connected with the Essenes than people realize because Essene is from Oseh, James's word for being a Doer, I see bridges between what the creeds are attempting to convey and the concerns of antitrinitarians and upholders of original Christianity. Between James and the formal creeds we have many steps, not only Paul, then gnostic influence, then Roman hegemony, then the very significant Lapsi controversy of 251, and finally the Constantinian revisions, so it's essential to distinguish the problems at each step when we talk about the creeds.
If we were to say all doctrine must be taken from the portion of the Bible excluding Pauline Christianity, I'd be very happy to agree, and aspects of your perceived "Christian core" are naturally a bit removed from that source. First, the connection of God's nature to the words "trinity", "three", and "person" is tenuous and not very Biblical. "Dying for sins" has in America gone quite far removed from the Mosaic teaching of animals dying for sins, or from Peter's view "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18); would you accept Peter on this or are we to exclude him too? "Second coming" and "final judgment" are also poor and unbiblical summary phrases; "coming again" is Johannine (14) but doesn't mean what people think, "final judgment" is in the NLT but not the Greek, and in my experience Christians are least united about eschatology, which your core framing has several elements of. In particular Christians often fail to realize that "heaven" and "hell" are not the names of the final states, which are more rightly called new heaven-earth and fire lake.
So what I actually believe is taken from the Bible alone (which is holistic enough to permit the removal of all Pauline books and Hebrews): if you wish to excise anything else, feel free and I will compensate. (1) We are to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28:19). (2) Father and Son bear witness (John 8:18). (3) Spirit bears record (1 John 5:7a, 8b; excluding the disputed portion that might have been written by Tertullian). (4) A matter is established by three witnesses (Deut. 19:15; but don't infer anything the text doesn't actually state). (5) Christ suffered for sins and was put to death (1 Peter 3:18). (6) Jesus will come in like manner as the apostles saw him go into heaven (Acts 1:11). (7) The dead will be judged every man according to their works (Rev. 20:12-13). (8) Jesus was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead (Acts 10:42). (9) The Son of Man will separate all nations as sheep from goats (Matt. 25:32). (10) The goats shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal (Matt. 25:46).
Ebionites and Essenes revered all these Scriptures if I'm not mistaken. Is there a problem with any of them?