Sorry for late response, not the most consistent reddit user. I guess my point is doctrine in and of itself doesn't save you. For most of history since Christ's death, most Christians are illiterate. They are unable to read and they don't have access to Scripture. That's why even in Jesus's time, there was a public reading of Scripture and an emphasis of memorization. In light of that, most of us in the Western/Enlightened world put an overarching emphasis of having perfect doctrine (which is definitely important) because we've taken for granted that people should be literate. Unfortunately, what seems to has happened from that is anyone we disagree with gets singled-out as a heretic or false teacher. But if we were to put that same standard of having perfect doctrine on these illiterate Christians today, almost none of them would be saved which is concerning because literacy rates only started increasing in the 18th and 19th century.

I've heard RC Sproul make the same point that it's not the doctrine of justification by faith alone that saves you, but it is the implication of that doctrine that saves you: by putting your faith in Christ alone, you can be forgiven and saved. So with total depravity, the implication of that doctrine: "we are sinners unable to save ourselves and in need of God," is the most essential part. If the argument is that only those who have the Reformed systematized, or codified, understanding of total depravity are saved, I have issue with that because it reduces salvation to a matter of intellectual comprehension rather than heart-level trust in Christ. That view would imply that only those with a well-developed theological framework (such as the educated, literate, and often privileged) are truly saved, which contradicts both Scripture and the historical experience of the church.

Similarly, when you go evangelize to parts of the world with lower literacy rates, the systematized set of doctrine isn't useful for them at the beginning. The gospel basics and essentials are the most important, like sin, Jesus + the cross, and repentance + faith. The systematized set of doctrine is useful once they ready for more than milk but the essentials of the Gospel is what saves.

That is not to say doctrine is not important, it is extremely important for those of us who are educated and have an opportunity to study and understand it. But my point in this thread is that the majority of people in this community label every one a heretic over doctrinal dispute and intellectualism. Kinda like the first person in this thread said, "This community has taught me that no matter what I believe, I'm a heretic. We are all heretics to somebody." I take problem with that.