Once again, journalists need to ponder this question: What is an 'evangelical'?

THE QUESTION:

One more time: What is an "evangelical"?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Last month the Public Religion Research Institute reported that its latest polling shows white U.S. Protestants who identify as "evangelical" are now outnumbered by whites who do not do so. That upended the usual thinking on numbers, and analysts raised doubts. The discussion led Terry Shoemaker of Arizona State University, writing for theconversaation.com, to again mull the perennial question of what "evangelical" means.

In the American context, this term essentially covers the conservative wing of Protestantism, a variegated constellation of denominations, independent congregations, "parachurch" ministries, media outlets, and individual personalities that is organizationally scattered but religiously coherent.

There are three ways of defining and counting U.S. evangelicals -- by belief, by church affiliation and by self-identification. Shoemaker's analysis (which is open to some nitpicking) started from the belief aspect and a four-point definition by historian David Bebbington in his 1989 work "Evangelicalism in Modern Britain." In summary, these points are:

(1) a high view of the Bible as Christians' ultimate authority,

(2) emphasis on Jesus Christ's work of salvation on the cross,

(3) the necessity of conscious personal faith commitments and changed lives (often called the "born again" experience) and

(4) activism in person-to-person evangelism, missions and moral reform.

Problem is, those four points overlap with the definition of "Protestant" or even "Christian."

Like many bitter dodgeball contests linked to religion these days, the fight began on Twitter.

On one side was a historian who has written several books on the roots of evangelicalism — defining the term (a) in doctrinal terms and (b) in a global context. When you put those two things together, you end up with lots of people, in lots of places, throughout Protestant history, who are “evangelicals.” It helps that the word is used this way around the world in many different church settings.

On the other side were other historians, as well as woke, post-evangelical voices. The key here? You guessed it: that famous 81 percent number, as in the percentage of white, self-identified “evangelicals” who — gladly or reluctantly — voted for GOP candidate Donald Trump (or against Democrat Hillary Clinton). Thus, “evangelicals” are white, conservative Republicans with racist roots (and lots of homophobia).

In other words, “evangelical” has evolved into semi-curse word that cannot be separated from contemporary American culture and Trumpian-era politics. We know this is true, because this is the way the term is used in most elite media coverage of politics.

The argument focused on an article at The Gospel Coalition website by Thomas Kidd of Baylor University with this title: “Phillis Wheatley: An Evangelical and the First Published African American Female Poet.”

The problem is that Wheatley is a black, heroic figure. Thus, it is wrong to identify her as an “evangelical,” even in an article that is striving to get modern evangelicals to pay more attention to the lives and convictions of evangelicals in other cultures and in other times. The piece ended by noting: “Evangelicals, of all people, need to remember her today.”