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 PHOENIX, Ariz. — Evangelical Christians, who have emerged as an often-cited political voting bloc, cannot easily be described by Americans and some—including evangelicals themselves—admit they don’t have the slightest clue how to define them.
Those are the findings of “America’s Definition: What Is an Evangelical?,” a report released Sept. 3 by Phoenix-based Ellison Research.
Ron Sellers, president of the research firm, said the findings should signal to church leaders that they need to use care in using the term evangelical since it’s so hard to define.
“Evangelicals are defined every which way, and that is among the people who even attempted to define them,” he said. “When the media reports something about ‘evangelical leaders’ like Rick Warren or James Dobson, or describes a political candidate as meeting with an evangelical group, or polls likely voters and reports that evangelicals are backing a particular candidate, many Americans honestly don’t have the faintest notion of just who belongs to that group that is being described, while others are completely off-base in their assumptions of who the report is describing.”
Although not part of the research data, Sellers said one of the observations he took away from the study is that American media has helped to exacerbate the issue by using the term in undefined ways and, in the process, created broad stereotypes such as the flamboyant televangelist or the street-corner thug speaking out against homosexuality.
“The term evangelical has been hijacked to be synonymous with the religious right,” Sellers said. “As far as I know, it was never intended to be a political party or political position. A lot of it is media driven. Some of it is because of a complete lack of understanding in the media, some of it is confusion, some of it is laziness.”
Insults and anger
According to the report, only 56 percent of all Americans can give any sort of substantive definition of “evangelical,” beyond a simple “I don’t know” or just criticism or invective. In some instances, respondents used offensive language in their descriptions of evangelicals, including a few that, according to Sellers, couldn’t be printed in his report.
“Evangelicals were called illiterate, greedy, psychos, racist, stupid, narrow-minded, bigots, idiots, fanatics, nut cases, screaming loons, delusional, simpletons, pompous, morons, cruel, nitwits, and freaks, and that’s just a partial list,” Sellers said. “The insults and anger directed at this population group by a surprisingly large proportion of Americans was truly shocking. Some people don’t have any idea what evangelicals actually are or what they believe—they just know they can’t stand evangelicals, whatever they might be.”
Specifically, the 1,000 respondents were asked to define in their own words just what an “evangelical Christian” actually is. For starters, 36 percent of all Americans say they have no idea at all what an evangelical Christian is. They could not even hazard a guess as to what defines an evangelical.
Spreading the news
The most common perception in the study, coming in at 18 percent, is that evangelicals are Christians who place a special emphasis on spreading their faith to other people. Sometimes the definition was noted in a negative light, using such words as “proselytizing,” or in more positive light tones with such phrases as “spreading their faith,” “telling others about Jesus,” or “evangelizing others.”
All other answers garnered 9 percent or fewer of the responses or less than one in 10. For instance, 9 percent say evangelicals are just a specific type of Christian, such as a non-denominational Christian, a born-again Christian, or a Protestant Christian. Another 9 percent said they believe evangelicals are Christians who are particularly zealous or devoted to their faith.
Eight percent feel evangelicals are defined largely by their focus on the Bible: their reliance on it, their belief in it, and/or their more literal interpretation of it. Another 8 percent have some sort of specific theological definition of what an evangelical is: they are saved by grace, they believe in a born-again religious experience, they believe in eternal life through Christ, etc. Only 6 percent define evangelicals by their worldview or politics, even though evangelicals are often discussed in the public arena in a political context.
What do evangelicals know?
The evangelical community is not immune from confusion when it comes to the study. The findings show that 11 percent of all Americans called themselves “evangelical Christians.” But, among those who did, 14 percent later admitted in the study that they actually have no idea just what an evangelical is. And 28 percent of the people who regularly attend a church that is generally considered to be part of an evangelical denomination say they do not have any guess as to what an evangelical is.
The study also showed that definitions of “evangelical” vary some by age, gender, religious involvement and religious perspective, but the greatest variation is by political affiliation. Self-described political moderates are especially unlikely to have any clue what an evangelical is, while political liberals are particularly likely to have disapproving comments about this group.
Sellers noted that other studies by Ellison Research have shown that only 35 percent of all Americans believe they know someone very well who is an evangelical, while 51 percent don’t personally know any evangelicals even casually.
“Americans are less likely to know an evangelical Christian than they are to know a Jewish person, an American Indian, an Asian person, or a gay or lesbian person—all of whom represent populations that are considerably smaller than the evangelical population in this country, no matter how it is defined.”
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