Beliefnet Poll: Evangelicals Still Conservative, But Defy Issue Stereotypes

[theredpen]

A http://www.beliefnet.com/story/229/story_22903_1.html">Beliefnet Poll of self-identified evangelicals has revealed what many of us already knew: that evangelicals, despite their strong associateion with Christian Nationalists and other extreme-right-wing ideologies, are much more moderate than most people (including lefty Xtians) give them credit for. I guess some of the do actually read the Bible. ;)

A writeup of the survey in Salon.com's http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/23/evangelicals/index.html">War Room has this to say (in part):

In a year in which even "real" polls seem to have gotten it wrong, online polls should probably be taken with an extra grain of salt. Still, a new online poll out from Beliefnet provides some interesting insights into the question posed during a panel discussion at George Washington University today: "What do evangelicals want?"

The answer, it turns out, is a little more complicated than "Not Giuliani."

(snip)

On the issues, the poll suggests that traditional hot-button issues for evangelical politics, such as abortion and gay marriage, may be trumped in importance by the economy, cleaning up government, reducing poverty, improving public education and access to healthcare, protecting the environment, ending torture and ending the Iraq war. Only then does ending abortion come onto the radar (even farther down is banning gay marriage). And when asked how to end abortion in America, 69 percent said it should be done "by changing the culture through education and other means," as opposed to only 26 percent who favored limiting abortion rights.

If these don't sound like the views of stereotypical evangelicals, the Rev. Jim Wallis says that's exactly the point. At this afternoon's panel discussion, Wallis, an evangelical Christian who founded the religious social justice group Sojourners, said the media has done "a lot of stereotyping" and has exhibited a "lack of awareness" of the evangelical community.

Maybe we have. When we talk about "evangelical Christians," it's usually as shorthand for the sort of folks who make up Huckabee's base. But as the speakers at today's panel showed, the evangelical community is broader than that; some of today's speakers even implied that their ideal candidate was — God forbid! — a Democrat.

(snip)

[supernova]

1. Thanks for the article theredpen

I think a lot of it has to do with the use of "evangelical."

I think it gets overused.

When the media talks about "Evangelical," they are talking about Baptists (specifically the SBC), The Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, etc., and the loud, obnoxious, born-again mega-churches.

But the normal definition of "evangelical" simply is one who takes the teachings of christ and the concept of salvation above the authority of the church. Even the PCUSA calls itself "evangelical," small "e," and Presbyterians aren't exactly the take-over type. And I think most of the mainline denoms do also call themselves evangelical.

So one way to look at the data is that it includes more mainline protestants and less fundamentalists. But I think that's true of Beliefnet in general. The religious folk who visit that site are much less dogmatic, no matter which path they follow. I think the fundies really prefer visiting their own internet forums.

[Kat45]

2. I think the media (and others) confuse the words evangelical and fundamentalist

First, they mistakenly assume that the fundies, who have the loudest mouths of all, represent all Christians, which we know is not true. Then they assume fundies and evangelicals are the same thing, and they're not. Fundies may be evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists.

If the politicians would realize this, and that the fundies do not represent all Christians, perhaps they wouldn't find it so important to appease this group by trending further to the right and curtailing people's rights.

[supernova]

3. I'll agree with you

there. There is a great deal of ignorance about religion in this country, and about how different xtian branches operate, even by those who participate in it and those who don't.