Is the label evangelical more about politics than religious beliefs?
A growing number of evangelicals say the term has become a marker of politics more than beliefs.
(The Christian Science Monitor) For political pollsters and analysts, the term white evangelical Protestant has been one of the handiest demographic labels out there.
White Americans who say that they are born again or who self-identify as evangelical Christian have for decades voted consistently and overwhelmingly Republican. As a group, they reveal some of the clearest political positions of any subgroup. Making up around 25 percent of the population, white evangelicals are by far the group most worried about the threats they see as posed by immigrants. They are by far the most suspicious of Islam. They are by far the most resistant to same-sex marriage.
That makes it very “useful as a category of analysis in sociology and political science,” said John Schmalzbauer, a professor of religious studies at Missouri State University in Springfield. “The fact that 81 percent of people in a religious category voted for a single candidate suggests that it is a helpful way of mapping social reality,” he said, referring to the overwhelming support white evangelicals gave and continue to give to President Trump.
