Defining “Evangelical”
At The Atlantic, Jonathan Merritt explains what it means to be an evangelical, a term that can apply to as many as 47 percent of the American population or as few as 7 percent. “The disparate nature of evangelicalism makes its members difficult to define,” Merritt writes. He adds, “As a result, individual observers are left to decide how to define what makes someone or something evangelical. To the pollster, it is a sociological term. To the pastor, it is a denominational or doctrinal term. And to the politician, it is a synonym for a white Christian Republican.”