Who is an evangelical?

No seriously, what does it even mean??

“Evangelical” is one of the most confusing, contentious, and poorly defined concepts of our time. As a starting point, here are some angles for understanding what it means:

Academic/Theological - Officially, the primary characteristics of an evangelical (aka Bebbington’s Quadrilateral) are 1) high view of the Bible, 2) atoning work of the Cross, 3) need for Conversion, and 4) Activism (including missions/proselytism). While unobjectionable, I find this definition to be too broad and not very practical. After all, many non-evangelical Christians would also affirm these points. Barna Group (evangelical polling org) has a narrower definition with NINE points, which might be overly restrictive since only 8% of Americans end up qualifying. Either way, a purely academic/theological approach feels like it’s missing something¹.

Historical - VERY long story short: while the term evangelical has been around for centuries, our current American Evangelical movement is rooted in the Fundamentalist-Modernist split (regarding Biblical inerrancy) in the early 20th century. Mainline denominations (Methodist, Episcopal, etc.) are roughly descended from the Modernist wing. The Fundamentalists retreated after cultural defeats like the Scopes Monkey Trial and regrouped in the 1950s around Billy Graham, rebranding themselves as neo-evangelicals (or just evangelicals). The next major inflection point is 1980, when multiple social and political undercurrents collided and the architects of the Christian Right dramatically reshaped the landscape into what we recognize today. While “evangelical” has a long history, our current expression is really only a few decades old, and things looked very different before that².

Denominational - Simple: you’re an evangelical if you’re Protestant (not Catholic or Orthodox) and not from a Mainline denomination³

I would also add two useful axioms:
1) If you’re non-denominational, you’re probably an evangelical
2) If you don’t know whether you’re an evangelical, you’re probably an evangelical

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So far we’ve looked at the “dry” definitions. Are you still feeling confused and unsatisfied? Does it seem like there’s more to it? I promise clarity!

I present to you my favorite definition, from David Gushee. It’s a bit cheeky, but it crucially captures that culture (books, music, media, institutions, and popular figures) is actually central to what it means to be an evangelical. We are not individuals existing in a vacuum, defined solely by our doctrinal positions. We will get nowhere unless we try to understand how we exist in relation to our context. Which means, it’s time to take this hot mess and make it THREE times more complicated! I’m going to get super pedantic and differentiate between evangelical (individual) vs. evangelicals (subpopulation) vs. evangelicalism (ideology/institutions).

There’s no such thing as “an evangelical”⁴

Each evangelical person has a unique set of experiences, traditions and views. Pick any dimension, and any given evangelical can be anywhere on the spectrum. Being an evangelical is simultaneously involuntary (i.e. you’re part of an evangelical church) and voluntary (choosing to identify as evangelical), and possibly contradictory (you go to an evangelical church but don’t identify as evangelical). Many people are evangelical but don’t know it (as I was), while others may think they’re evangelical but maybe actually aren’t. Altogether, knowing that someone is an evangelical doesn’t really tell me anything useful, and it’s unhelpful to apply stereotypes or caricatures.

The elephant in the room

It is however, entirely legitimate to talk about evangelicals as a group. A group’s characteristics are meaningful, even when it is not true for every single person in the group. Like it or not, evangelical has come to be defined by its association with conservative politics, exemplified by the well known statistic that 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016⁵. Of course it doesn’t mean they all did (the other 20% is still a lot of people), but that exact percentage absolutely matters. Such data compels us to ask why things are the way they are. The purpose is not to label or pass judgment on individuals, but to uncover the underlying mechanisms and dynamics that explain those characteristics. In summary, while evangelical individuals are all over the place and can’t be generalized, we can make observations about evangelicals as a whole (i.e. X% of evangelicals are ___), with the goal of understanding how evangelicalism influences those trends.

Understanding evangelicals means understanding evangelicalism

While evangelicals do share some foundational beliefs, the definition is incomplete without considering cultural context. In fact, many evangelical denominations have major irreconcilable doctrinal differences (e.g. immersion baptism, cessationism vs continuationism) and yet embrace each other under the evangelical umbrella, while other issues are grounds for immediate schism or excommunication. It is the shared culture and identity that bonds all these disparate groups together. Evangelicalism is scaffolded by a vast multi-billion-dollar network of organizations, publishers, publications, schools, stores, and businesses (aka the Evangelical Industrial Complex), functioning together as gatekeepers and enforcers. Evangelicalism dictates which doctrinal and societal issues are important and which ones aren’t. Individuals can hold a spectrum of views, but there is a clear delineation between those who hold power vs. the dissenters. Evangelicalism is a project constructed by human hands (and if you look, you can see exactly whose hands). The influence of evangelicalism can be seen through the values and actions of evangelicals.

NEXT: what exactly are the characteristics of evangelicalism (for real this time)

More reading:
- Are You an Evangelical? Are You Sure? - NPR
- The Evangelicals by Frances FitzGerald
- After Evangelicalism by David Gushee

1. It’s like defining Scientology as self improvement and free personality tests. Well… technically it is that… but it’s also some other things too…

2. Ready for 🤯? The Southern Baptist Convention officially supported abortion rights until 1980

3. OK, it does get ludicrously messy from here. Black Protestants are typically put in a separate category, even though some would be considered evangelical. Southern Baptists are evangelical but American Baptists (ABC) are not. Presbyterians either are (PCA), aren’t (PCUSA), or either (various offshoots). Evangelical Lutherans (ELCA) are NOT evangelical, but Missouri and Wisconsin Synod Lutherans (which actually have churches in every state) are. Please refer to this detailed taxonomy. Oh, and any single church might be evangelical for all intents and purposes, even if they are officially in a non-evangelical denomination.

4. It’s been said that before America, there was no such thing as a white person: only English, French, Polish, etc. Also, there are no Black people in Africa. Likewise, no one is “an evangelical”: there are only Baptists, Pentecostals, etc. Evangelicalism has consumed and diluted what was once a “spicy diversity” (to quote Gushee) of traditions.

5. Politics has come to mean parties and elections, but politics is really about our values and how we relate within a society, which is entirely relevant to the gospel.

In public opinion research, white evangelicals are often broken out as a separate group because their behavior is highly homogeneous and distinct from non-white evangelicals. In 2020, Trump’s share of the white evangelical vote was either unchanged or decreased to 76%, depending on who you ask.