A) ANY standards which can be enforced
(whether your list of essentials is ten things or a hundred things), and
B) NO standards which can be enforced.
The liberals/radicals of today have no fixed standards at all. The honest ones will even tell you so. They can't commit to any final statement on anything today, because tomorrow they might receive some new "truth" which will make today's "truth" outmoded.
In other words, the liberals/radicals (which include the leadership of all the mainline denominations) do not see doctrine as a matter of balance, where you seek to find the right fulcrum between openness on the one hand and fixity on the other. Rather, they see doctrine as a moving point on a unidirectional vector, going from where we used to be to where we will end up.
The conservatives/traditionalists argue among themselves, of course, and their disputes can get nasty. But they all share among themselves this one idea that some things are settled, and while they are open to further discussion, are not open to further revision. Period.
All this means that my friends who are personally evangelical but unable to say, "thus far, and no farther" are simply drifting on the swell without an anchor. As the risen Christ said to Peter, they will be picked up and carried whither they would not have chosen to go. The only question is whether they will, like Peter, offer their witness and be crucified for what they believe, or whether they will "go along to get along" and bow the knee to Baal when the day comes.
And am I any better? Is my desire to retire before that awful day comes any more than Hezekiah's cowardice that says, "at least it won't come in my day?" Sigh. I don't know. I just know that I will NOT say what I know is not so, nor bow the knee to what I know is unholy. If it so works out that I am never put to the test, then fine. But if I must, I will say my piece, nor go quietly when asked to apostasize.
Lord, save us from the time of trial.
EDIT: This bit of pessimism was inspired by the billboard in Detroit that read, "God is MOTHER; I am an Episcopalian." In commenting on that post to
detroitfather, I realized that these loons are everywhere. And that good people often choose not to know what they know when confronted with the loons.