That one led to Anselm of Canterbury and his rather harsh model of the Atonement, a model that has come to dominate in the West and that makes God look like an overbearing grandfather yelling at kids to stay off his lawn. Rome may consider him a “Doctor of the Church” but to me he’s the one who screwed up theology in a way that cripples evangelism.
The Nicene Creed for certain. I used to add the Chalcedonian Definition, but after reading several thousand pages about that council I’m convinced that it doesn’t count because the outcome was essentially established by the Emperor when he cut the discussions short and told them to come to a decision; that led to dropping efforts to find language that both sides could affirm, so a decision was made not on the merits of the theology – on which both sides were actually in agreement – but on the basis of vocabulary.
So all must be Trinitarian?
Richard
Yes – the Creed sets down the basics of the faith. A deity described contrary to what the Creed tells us is a different god with a different Christ and thus a different Gospel.
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Aren’t you being a little pedantic? Christ is still the means of salvation whether He is looked on as God in human form, or just a devoted servant and/or adopted. There may well be devoted and genuine followers of God wh just cannot accept the Trinitarian viewpoint.
Do we have the right to judge?
Richard
One can be saved by Jesus and a follower of Christ without a care in the world for theology. One can also follow Jesus with mistaken beliefs. If you couldn’t all of us are screwed. A lot of Christians probably never heard of the Nicene creed or if they have, pay it very little mind. Those of us arguing over theology on the internet are probably in the Christian minority.
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I agree 100%, and with the rest of your post. It started me thinking about how different cultures have experienced fights over Christian doctrine. Some of the original colonizers of the Americas were fleeing religious persecution in Europe, and that experience shaped how the US government and constitution formed. The US is far from perfect when it comes to religious tolerance, but our history is different from that in Europe. If I remember correctly, you are from the UK. You probably have strong memories of The Troubles and other issues relating to conflict between religious groups.
So along with encouraging tolerance, I would also suggest that everyone should be prudent when it comes to the interplay between religion and politics.
That is a good question. There were major schisms early in the Christian Church (e.g. Arianism), but the Nicene Creed seemed to settle things for the ensuing 1600 years. I would offer the Nicene Creed as the gold standard for Christian doctrine, and that leaves a lot of wiggle room for different worldviews.
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If Chalcedon is left out, there’s a LOT of wiggle room.
But I think that the “four withouts” of Chalcedon count as well: two natures without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation.
I would separate the indvidual Christian and Christian teaching.
Being saved has been tied to faith, not knowing. Even a person that knows very little and has some wrong beliefs can be a Christian, if he is ‘on the Jesus road’: believes in Jesus as the Lord and Savior, confesses it (more or less publicly), and follows Jesus (or at least tries to follow - we are anything but perfect).
As I use this kind of criteria, I do not count all nominal members of Christian churches as Christians.
Teaching should follow the Nicene Creed, otherwise it is not Christian. That leaves much space for various interpretations but I can tolerate that some Christians have different interpretations than me 
.
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I am Trinitarian. It works for me, but, I do not think that the nature or personage of Christ can be a barrier. Then again, I do not see identifying Christ, or not, to be a barrier to God. From my understanding of God, it is not doctrine or specific beliefs that God is interested in. If you look at what Christ taught, it was about social behaviour and reverence to God. Biblically, the prophets often criticised faith against behaviour. Rituals and homage are useless if people are ignored. Personal salvation is all very well but if the net result does not benefit humanity or the world at large it is nothing more than a selfish retirement plan. Faith cannot divorce itself from practical living. Faith without works is dead.
Ultimately what Christ wants is for people to live Christian lives. The beliefs that support it are secondary.
Richard
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Doctrine in itself does not save but doctrine is not either something we can just skip. The creeds are not important as such but they tell about important and crucial matters of faith - we do not need to believe in any creed but we need to believe in the God the Nicene Creed tries to describe.
Personally, I can accept that Christians are confused and do not know what to believe about ‘trinity’. I could not myself give a full description of what ‘trinity’ is - however you try to visualize it, there seems to be a high risk of leaning towards something that has been doomed as a heresy. For that reason, I do not like to speak about ‘trinity’ or describe myself as a ‘trinitarian’, although I accept what the Nicene Creed tells. Rather, I speak about our Father, and the Son of God, Jesus Christ (Yeshua Hamashiach), and the Holy Spirit.
We cannot be Christians if we do not believe in one God.
We cannot be Christians if we do not believe in the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.
We cannot be truly Christians if we do not believe that the Son of God, Jesus, died and resurrected so that we can be forgiven and have peace with God.
We can try to live a good life but without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our good attempts are not enough. Without the sacrifice of the innocent son of God, Jesus, we are dependent on our own attempts to earn the favor of God, dependent on managing to live a blameless life. Therefore, it matters who Jesus Christ is.
Faith without works is dead. Works without faith do not save. We need living faith in God, the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit.
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Works demonstrate faith. God saves.
Richard
For a believing Christian, yes.
There are many who do good works without following or believing in Jesus as their personal savior. Some do it because of religious reasons, others without. Good works are not a sufficient demonstaration of faith in Jesus, although without acts of faith there are reasons to believe that the supposed faith is dead.
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I was just reading The God of Monkey Science, and one quote from it that applies is:
Do you know what you get when you mix religion and politics?
Politics.
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Does the religion dissipate or become corrupted in the process, I wonder.
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I was going to say that should be “bad politics” but that really isn’t the case; some very good politics has come from that mix as well as some extremely bad politics.
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