Understanding evangelicalism in America today

  A precipitous decline in the number of Americans identifying as white evangelical was revealed in Public Religion Research Institute’s 2020 Census on American Religion. In 2006, almost a quarter of the American population identified as white evangelical, but only 14.5% the population does so today.

  Evangelical is an umbrella category within Protestant Christianity. The category of evangelical is complicated; unlike Catholics, who have a centralized authority, evangelicals do not maintain a single spokesperson or institution. Instead, evangelicalism in the United States today is composed of several institutions, churches, and a network of largely conservative spokespersons.

Think U.S. evangelicals are dying out? Well, define evangelicalism…

  The death spiral of evangelicalism has long been written about in both the religious and mainstream press.

  The assumption is that evangelicalism has weathered the storms of secularization and politicization poorly. Journalist Eliza Griswold, writing for The New Yorker, chalks this up to the theological rigidity of evangelicals: that they have been structurally incapable of changing course quickly enough to stem the tide.