Evangelicals make up smaller share of US population than commonly thought: report

[Michie]

Only a third of Evangelicals attend Evangelical churches

Evangelicals make up a far smaller share of the United States population than expected due to a misunderstanding of the term, a new research report states, finding that the lack of a uniform biblical worldview among Evangelicals has negative implications.

The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, led by longtime Evangelical pollster George Barna, released the fourth installment of its American Worldview Inventory 2024 last week.

The report, focusing on "The Limitations of Christian Evangelicalism in American Society," concluded that "Evangelicals are far fewer in number than typically reported, often are far less biblical in their thinking than one might assume, and tend to vote in far fewer numbers than expected."

Continued below.

Evangelicals make up smaller share of US population than commonly thought: report

Evangelicals make up a far smaller share of the United States population than expected due to a misunderstanding of the term, a new report states, finding that the lack of a uniform biblical

www.christianpost.com

 

[Tuur]

Sigh.

The definition of evangelicals is simple and not often acknowledged. Evangelicals evangelize. They put an emphasis on missions. I respectfully submit there are more evangelicals than many realize, and some would be offended at being called such.

 

[Pioneer3mm]

They put an emphasis on missions. I respectfully submit there are more evangelicals than many realize,

Good point.
---
Wikipedia has an informative/interesting article on..
- 'Evangelicalism'

 

[PloverWing]

I read the article and skimmed the Barna report that it links to, https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp...RC-Release-AWVI-4-Aug-6-2024-Fourth-Draft.pdf . What struck me most was how difficult it is to define exactly what an "Evangelical" is, and how much the definition is changing over time. An emphasis on the necessity of making a conscious, explicit commitment to Christ and on the importance of individual prayer and Bible study seems to be pretty constant throughout the movement. But otherwise, beliefs and emphases have been shifting over time. Barna's questionnaire is addressing different topics than the ones I heard Evangelicals discuss back when I was in college. I expect this is partly due to Evangelicalism having no single founder and no single authoritative set of documents, and partly due to Evangelicalism being a young movement. As a child growing up in an Evangelical community, I didn't appreciate how quickly the community would change.

[ Postscript: Some of this may just be Barna. I have long disliked Barna's wording of questions and Barna's choices of what qualifies as true Evangelicalism and true Christianity. So maybe it's just the quirks of this one guy. ]

 

[AlexB23]

Sigh.

The definition of evangelicals is simple and not often acknowledged. Evangelicals evangelize. They put an emphasis on missions. I respectfully submit there are more evangelicals than many realize, and some would be offended at being called such.

Yep, though, evangelical has changed its meaning over the past few decades to mean more fundamentalist Christians. I am a Catholic, though I do try to evangelize a bit.

 

[Stephen3141]

The current short description of what Evangelical means, cited in the article,
is hardly a summary of the defining characteristics of Evangelicals in
the 20th century.

In the 20th century, the description strongly included:

1 the embrace of the intellect, as a good gift from God
2 the embrace of the historic creeds of the united Church, such as
The Nicene Creed, and the Apostles' Creed.

By embracing the mind, most 20th century Evangelicals held to the
belief that the universe, and the earth, are billions of years old.
Historic Evangelicals, did not have the young-earth belief, or the
objection to the idea that biological life has changed on earth,
over millions of years.


Because 20th century Evangelicals understood that the title comes
from the "evangel" -- the good news -- and that a summary of the good
news is in the early creeds of the united Church, many 20th century
Evangelicals held to a more "high church" theology, with regard to the
sacraments and the structure of leadership in the Church. This emphasis,
heavily eliminated low church Protestant Fundamentalists from being
"Evangelical". (!)


The current definition of "Evangelical" by the National Association of
Evangelicals, does not really capture the characteristics of 20th century
Evangelicals.

Even in the 1970's, the National Association of Evangelicals was pulling
away from a much more biblical moral-ethical model, and turning toward
non-doctrinal attempts to describe Evangelicalism, without the historical
moral-ethical model of Christianity.
---------- ----------

As I have been writing in comments on the Christianity Today website,
American Evangelicalism has ditched most of its historic characteristics,
that were heavily doctrinal, to the point that the average North American
"Evangelical" cannot be guaranteed to hold to any real doctrinal core
of historic Christianity.


Given the massive shift in definition of "Evangelical" by those who claim
the name, I'm not sure what "Evangelical" means any more.

And so, I'm not sure what the point of the article is.
There are about 30 million "Evangelicals" in America.
What does that mean?

The article also mentions many of the heretical or non-doctrinal
beliefs of "Evangelicals". It seems that the "Evangelical" movement
in America has slid into being merely a cultural group, cut free of
rigorous definitions of what orthodox Christian doctrine is. And,
that means that "Evangelicals" are cut free of rigorous orthodox
definitions of what the good news is, in the Bible.

"Evangelical" does not refer to those who "evangelize", cut free of the
historical doctrinal definition of the "gospel" (the "good news"). So,
"Evangelical" cannnot acuurately be applied to the Mormons, or
Protestant Fundamentalist groups that "evangelize", but do not
hold to the early doctrinal unity of the united Church. Non-trinitarian
groups, cannot accurately claim to be "Evangelical".

I'm not sure what this article means.
Given that the definition of the term "Evangelical" has been so
eroded, in North America.