It seems that one way or another we need to talk about different kinds, or different levels of heresy. What I have been calling heresy vs. heterodoxy, others call heresy on fundamental doctrines vs. heresy on less fundamental doctrines. In other words, Heresy with a capital H (over fundamental doctrines like the Trinity and christology) are the kinds of heresies that move one outside the boundaries of what Christianity is, and that's because the very definition of Christianity is defined according to these fundamental doctrines. To refuse to sign the Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325, or the Council of Constantinople in 381 - and indeed to reject any of the contents of the Creed today - means that a person is NOT a Christian.

So are the non-chalcedonians, such as the miaphysites (including St. Gregory of Narek, and today's Coptic Christians) - are they heretics? Well, like it is with a lot of things, that depends on your definition of heresy. If you include in your definition of heresy things like not submitting to the Pope, then they would be heretics. But the reason I like my definition of heresy better is that I reserve the word "heretic" for those who are actually not Christian. So a "Christian heretic" would be an oxymoron. And most of the heresies I surveyed in the Podcast series on The Heresies are this kind of heresy with a capital H (the exceptions being Iconoclasm, Rigorism/Novatian, and possibly re-baptism). But that brings up the point that for the likes of Novatian and his followers, we saw that for the first time in history it was possible to be Christian, but not Catholic. And with the schism after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, that situation became permanent, with the non-chalcedonians.

So I prefer to say that there are no "Christian heretics;" there are Christians and there are heretics - and that way we don't have to call our brothers and sisters in Christ (like the Coptics, or the Protestants) heretics and thereby damage relationships with them. But what that means is that it IS possible to be a Christian, but be in schism, as with our "separated brethren" of the Protestant denominations and the other ancient communions like Eastern Orthodox, Assyrian, and Oriental Orthodox.

Then this brings us to the next question, the question of the Universal Church. What IS the Universal Church? What IS the Body of Christ, as compared to, say, the Catholic Church? Feel free to weigh in, and I'll have some more behind the scenes conversation coming, including an exclusive peek at a chunk of my original script for the next episode, and what it was changed to...