Interfaith Group

Let me see if I can kinda sorta organize a reply here. In no particular order:

Isa and Maryam are identical to Jesus and Mary. The Quran includes a chapter entirely dedicated to Maryam, in which Isa is conceived miraculously by the spirit of Allah and Maryam's virginity is not compromised. Christians and Muslims would both be included in your first definition.

No, I don't identity as a Christian. I identify as a Native American Traditional. That said, I subscribe to a panentheist theology that fits very well with Process Theology, which works effectively within Christianity, Judaism, Islam and many other faiths. My theology overlaps theirs, but my practice largely does not.

The difficulty I see with accepting self-identification alone as sufficient grounds for
establishing Christianity is that Jesus himself did not appear to accept.it.. "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in Heaven." (Matt. 7:22ff) The epistle of James, Jesus's brother, also stresses action over belief or self-identification.

I'm not so sure Jesus would not accept an atheist as a follower. He accepted Samaritans, a gay Roman centurion and his partner, a (presumably reformed) terrorist who may have been his younger brother, a tax collector who collaborated with the Romans, a pagan Canaanite woman, and a good many other unconventional folk. Forgive me, but an atheist is pretty tame compared to some of those.