How to Use doctrinal in a Sentence

doctrinal

adjective
  • And the Bible alone was the sole source of doctrinal truth (sola scriptura).
    — Jamie Quatro, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2019
  • Pearson is soon in the throes of a crisis of faith, which is only resolved by his doctrinal change of heart.
    — Sarah Jones, The New Republic, 24 Apr. 2018
  • Many people didn’t join the movement because of its doctrinal appeal alone.
    — John Blake, CNN Money, 20 Apr. 2025
  • Reformed is a lot more entertaining than this doctrinal back-and-forth would suggest.
    — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 1 June 2025
  • The more conciliatory rhetoric has stopped short of doctrinal changes.
    — Washington Post, 16 Mar. 2021
  • Some see him as Francis’ heir, while others see signs of doctrinal conservatism.
    — Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune, 11 May 2025
  • Thomas’s argument against substantive due process is more than doctrinal.
    — Corey Robin, The New Yorker, 9 July 2022
  • Necessary for doctrinal shifts—but needs to be grounded to avoid utopian overreach.
    — Big Think, 27 Oct. 2025
  • For many, the core doctrinal beliefs weren’t enough to ignore the jarring differences.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 2 May 2021
  • Most of the rest of the portfolio fits the doctrinal analysis laid out earlier.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 4 Feb. 2025
  • Never has a judge been impeached over doctrinal differences—in other words, for doing their jobs.
    — Anna Commander, MSNBC Newsweek, 7 May 2025
  • For its part, the Ilse house demonstrates that the Bauhaus could inspire mash-ups as well as doctrinal purity.
    — The Economist, 1 Aug. 2019
  • But to critics, these bureaucratic changes were a slippery slope to doctrinal erosion.
    — Liam Adams, USA Today, 23 Apr. 2025
  • This air-to-sea command transfer represents a doctrinal advance.
    — Munis Raza, Interesting Engineering, 23 Mar. 2026
  • This doctrinal stance shaped Beijing’s early response.
    — John Calabrese, The Conversation, 6 Mar. 2026
  • In a big breach of doctrinal correctness, El Greco borrowed from all four Gospels.
    — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 15 Aug. 2020
  • The church’s doctrinal office is led by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, who was handpicked by the pope and is seen as in lock step with him.
    — Jason Horowitz, New York Times, 27 June 2021
  • This document would become the key doctrinal basis for the emerging fellowship of churches.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Mar. 2026
  • In these situations, ordinary folk, not the priestly class, were the guardians of doctrinal correctness.
    — The Economist, 17 Dec. 2019
  • What are its doctrinal objectives if not colorblindness?
    — Bruce Fein, Baltimore Sun, 5 Mar. 2026
  • He had been baptized a Christian, even if doctrinal affinity put him in the heretical Arian camp.
    — Cullen Murphy, The Atlantic, 9 June 2020
  • This isn’t the doctrinal Wright, warning us of the disasters that capitalism creates.
    — Imani Perry, The Atlantic, 7 May 2021
  • And so in addition to a doctrinal division, a visual schism between the north and the south, the Protestant and the Catholic, opened.
    — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 8 May 2018
  • The decree, issued by the Vatican’s doctrinal body, leaned on language that gay Catholics have long found alienating.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 10 May 2021
  • But, as the Pope, Francis has full authority over the doctrinal office and plenty of ways to exercise it.
    — Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2021
  • Francis’s merely airing these questions — as well as the place of homosexuals in the church — represents to him a look into the abyss of doctrinal chaos.
    — Andrew Sullivan, Daily Intelligencer, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Was their decision a worthy trade-off—or should judges be doctrinal absolutists in the tradition of Ginsburg and Scalia?
    — Michael O’Donnell, The Atlantic, 29 Mar. 2020
  • Much later, in the 20th and 21st centuries, came a third doctrinal category, how the parties should act once war has ended.
    — Keith Tidman, Baltimore Sun, 15 June 2026
  • This could be a doctrinal hook for union-busting antitrust lawyers who may argue that striking independent contractors are seeking to raise the price of goods and services, not their wages.
    — Sandeep Vaheesan, The New Republic, 2 May 2022
  • But the decree also comes amid a rise of polyamory in Western countries, which has generated pastoral and doctrinal questions for clergy and the faithful.
    — Jordan King, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Nov. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'doctrinal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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