Who Are the Evangelicals?

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- What will likely be the Rev. Billy Graham's last U.S. evangelistic crusade starts this weekend, and the event has refocused attention on the group of religious Americans known as evangelicals. The term evangelical has been in general use for many years, but a more precise definition of exactly who this group is has been the subject of more intense focus in recent decades as evangelicals have become increasingly visible and active in American society. Evangelicals received a great deal of news coverage during the presidential election last fall, and more recently -- from a totally different perspective -- were featured in a BusinessWeek magazine cover story that investigated their influence on the U.S. economy.

About 8 in 10 Americans adhere to some form of Christianity. Who among this group are the evangelicals? There is no easy answer to that question. There are perhaps as many different ways to define evangelicals as there are those attempting to define them.

Two Approaches to Defining Evangelicals

Broadly speaking, there are two basic ways to approach the objective of defining evangelicals: adherence to some specific belief or religious practice criteria and self-definition (that is, just asking people whether they consider themselves evangelical).

The list of possible belief and religious practice criteria that can be used to qualify individuals as evangelicals can quickly become mind-boggling. Gallup at times in the past has attempted to define evangelicals as those who answer affirmatively to three questions: (1) whether they have been born again or have had a born-again experience, (2) whether they have encouraged other people to believe in Jesus Christ, and (3) whether they believe the Bible is the actual word of God. In 1980, about 19% of the adult population agreed with all three statements. In a recent Gallup Poll update in May of this year, a quite similar 22% of all Americans agreed with all three statements.

Even more elaborate criteria have been used by other researchers. One research firm (The Barna Group) argues that individuals must answer positively to as many as nine different questions in order to qualify. Not surprisingly, only 7% of the U.S. adult population qualifies as evangelical using these restrictive criteria.

The obvious problem with any procedure that qualifies people as evangelical based on agreement with a set of statements is the lack of consensus on what those statements should be. There are so many different possible criteria, one could envision a series of 20 or more statements necessary for individuals to agree with in order to be included under the "evangelical" umbrella.

The second approach outlined is much simpler, focusing primarily on a simple self-definitional question: "Would you describe yourself as a 'born again' or evangelical?" Here is how Americans have responded to this question since 1991:

This question is typically asked of the entire U.S. population. The range of affirmative responses since 1991 has been between a low point of 35% in a June 1996 survey and a high point of 46% in 1993, 1999, 2000, and 2002. The average across the years is 42%, which matches the results of most recent April survey.

Further Restrictions on Self-Definitional Criteria

Some individuals who identify themselves as evangelicals are members of subgroups that many informed observers would agree don't fit in an evangelical category as conceived. These would include, in particular, people who are not Christian (but who agree with the "born again or evangelical" criterion). Additionally, for practical purposes, it is often reasonable to exclude nonwhites and Catholics from the evangelical category.

Why? Black Americans, as a whole, are highly religious and likely to say that they are evangelical or born again. Any sample of self-defined born agains or evangelicals thus includes a number of black Americans. But for the purposes of analysis involving political variables, the presence of blacks in the sample of evangelicals can be confusing. A large percentage of blacks have historically identified with the Democratic Party. Thus, for most analytical purposes, including blacks as part of the sample of evangelicals confounds the analysis, particularly when one discusses the relationship between being evangelical and certain political stances.

Also, a perhaps surprisingly high percentage of Catholics (19%) say they are born again or evangelical. Catholics in general may think of themselves that way, but again, for analytical purposes, Catholics are historically different enough from members of traditionally non-Catholic, Protestant denominations to warrant their exclusion from an evangelical definition. Hence the usual decision to exclude Catholics from the "evangelical category."

That any non-Christians agree with the born-again or evangelical label is also surprising, but for obvious reasons we want to remove them from the calculations. That goes for those who say they have no religious preference as well.

Thus, one procedure for defining evangelicals (the one to be used in the following analysis) consists of these three criteria:

1. Respondents must agree that the label "born again" or "evangelical" describes them.
2. Respondents must be white.
3. Respondents must be self-identified members of a Christian faith other than Catholic.

Twenty-six percent of Americans meet these criteria (based on an aggregated random sample of 3,000 interviews in which this evangelical question was asked in 2004 and 2005). By way of comparison, about 19% of the population is white and a member of a Christian faith other than Catholic, but do not agree with the born-again/evangelical label; 22% are white Catholics (regardless of their beliefs); 11% are black; and the rest of the population (those that do not identify as either white or black, those with no religious preference, those identifying with Eastern religions and so forth) constitute 22% of the population.

Evangelicals and Religosity

Are these evangelicals (as defined) indeed more religious than average Americans -- as we would expect? The table displays the relationship between this definition of evangelical and self-reported importance of religion:

It is clear that describing oneself as a born again or evangelical is tantamount to saying that religion is very important in one's life. Eighty-four percent of evangelicals agree that religion is very important in their lives, compared with just 41% white, non-Catholic Christians who are not born again or evangelical.

Here is the relationship between evangelical status and church attendance:

Note the significant relationship between being evangelical and church attendance. Two-thirds of those in the white, non-Catholic Christian evangelical group attend church weekly or almost every week. Those white, non-Catholic Christians who don't accept the evangelical label are less than half as likely to attend church that often.

Who Are the Evangelicals?

The table shows the percentage of a variety of demographic subgroups in the population who are in the evangelical group:

It is significant to note that the representation of white, non-Catholic Christian evangelicals is not extremely strongly correlated with any demographic or regional variable. In other words, evangelicals are to a large degree represented throughout the U.S. population. Evangelicals do skew downscale, a little older, and toward the middle of the country (that is, away from either coast). But these differences are not large.

Importantly, it appears that the relationship between political variables and evangelical status (as defined here) is stronger than any other demographic or regional variable included in this analysis. There is a 24-percentage-point difference in the percentage of Republicans who are evangelicals as opposed to Democrats and a similarly large distinction between the representation of evangelicals among conservatives and liberals.

We can look at these data in a slightly different fashion. Fifty-seven percent of white, non-Catholic Christians who are evangelicals are Republicans, compared with just 34% of white non-Catholic Christian non-evangelicals who are Republicans.

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with an aggregated group of randomly selected national samples of more than 3,000 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted by Gallup in 2004 and 2005. The sample is comprised of three separate surveys, which included the "evangelical" question as discussed above. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±2 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.