On the contrary, religion isn't formalised at all*. People can say and believe any combination of possible beliefs at all, and are entitled to use any label they want to describe themselves. SciFiBoy is recording what label people use on themselves, not what groupings some academic or religious leader declares. In this respect, people who use the term "Lutheran" may consider themselves Christian or not, and it's impossible to place them except with the words they themselves use.

So, you can't say there is no such religion as "X". Some people will consider "X" a seperate religion, and, by definition, it then is.

*This doesn't mean some religions aren't formal, it means you can not be a member of e.g. the Catholic church and still consider yourself a Catholic just as much as a member.

Soleron, they're called denominations.

You know, like a $1, $5, $20, $50 or $100. They're still all of the same stuff. If your combining Sunni and Shi'ite, might as well do it for the Christians denominations.

Well, you're right - it's a subjective thing.

But it's extremeley rare that people regard themselves as "catholic but not christian", "lutheran but not christian" and so on. It's the squabble between the different christian churches that has caused people to identify themselves externally (is that the right word?) with a label of a sub-group of christianity, but 99.9% of them also identify themselves as christian.
(Jehova's Witnesses and hormones I'm not entirely sure of, but about Catholics, orthodox, lutherans, baptists I know that they also claim to be christians. I even feel stupid to have to tell this because it's a no-brainer)

Slime is correct. It's very rare for a Christian to squabble with another denomination to the point of considering them heretical.

I've grown up in Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Non-Denom, and Pentecostal churches. 0 of them ever identified others as not being Christians. Heck, I'm a credentialed Pentecostal minister (Ordained Minister in the Church of God) working at a United Methodist Church as a youth pastor.

What?? lol...mormons don't worship Joseph Smith........I sure as hell wouldn't be one if they did...

If you need to know what we fit under, just look at the church's full name.

I know.

@Everyone

The beliefs of each denomination do contradict the others,so it's probably still best to list people under the labels they give. Even if you're certain they would be OK with being listed under Christian, you'd otherwise still be deciding their group for them.

Atheist

That's like saying it would be bad to call someone "human" because they might not belong to a specific race.  None of them will say "I'm not a Christian".

Good point. It's settled then. Since even you as a mormon (no offence) are so clear about it, we can all agree that these christian sub-groups (orthodox, pentecostal, non-denominational, lutheran, protestant, catholic, anglican, mormon, baptist and whatnot) should all be categorized under the "christian" religion.

Christians don't seem particularly interested in fundamentals of their denomination. On the other hand it seems like many muslims are. I think it just depends how fundamentalist one is whether you call other denominations heretical. Besides Christianity is just like a weekend-warrior religion. Is it even worth fighting about?