Gildas's inclusive approach to resolving the spiritual and political crisis in his Britannia is demonstrated in his final appeal to the proclamation of the watchman Ezekiel: that God did not desire the death of sinners, but that they should turn back and live. This inclusive attitude is reinforced by Gildas's subsequent approach to church discipline as represented by elements of his letter to Finnian, preserved as fragments within the Collectio canonum Hibernensis as well as in certain earlier versions of this hugely influential canon collection. Here, Gildas laid out his view that religious zeal and excessive censure should be eschewed in favour of moderation, that a Christian community should be tolerant and connected rather than judgmental and fragmented:

At the same time, Gildas stressed the proper structuring of a Christian community to maintain stability, recalling the model of authority put forward in his De excidio:

The acceptance of Gildas as a spiritual master on church discipline reveals an understanding that his criticisms of the secular and church leaders of Britannia in his De excidio were not polemical but constructive. It also implies that contemporaneous political and church structures may have been restored on the lines of Gildas's intervention, granting a stability that would make Columbanus's intervention on the continent both practically possible and confident in its message.