re definition of christianity in article may athos rutgers edu clh writes often we get into discussions about who is christian unfortunately there are a number of possible definitions starting from the broadest commonly used definitions are the next level is an attempt to give a broad doctrinal definition which includes all of the major strands of christianity but excludes groups that are felt to be outside historic christianity this is of course a slippery enterprise since catholics could argue that protestants are outside historic christianity etc but i think the most commonly accepted definition would be based on something like the nicene creed and the formula of chalcedon are you sure you want to include chalcedon here i presume that you mean the description of jesus as fully human and fully devine almost everyone would consider the majority of copts and armenians and the jacobites as christians yet for centuries it has been maintained that they disagree with the formula of chalcedon those that wouldn t consider them christians are most likely to object that these communities don t require a personal commitment to jesus which is only tangentially related to the formula of chalcedon thanks john kolassa kolassa bio bst rochester edu as i understand the recent discussion here the copts for all practical purposes accept chalcedon they talk about one nature rather than two but the issue seems to be one of terminology rather than substance clh
