If the New Yorker piece is any indication, apparently we evangelicals remain an elusive, vastly misunderstood lot…Those of us in the media would do well to treat evangelicals as neither homogenous nor uncommon, and choose our words more carefully.

A week or two after the 2004 election, I was dining with some friends in New York when the conversation turned to religion and politics—the two things that you’re never supposed to discuss in polite company.

George W. Bush had just been re-elected with the help of what was described in the media as “evangelical voters.” And knowing that I am an evangelical Christian, my friends were terribly curious.

“What, exactly, is an evangelical?” one gentleman asked, as if he were inquiring about my time living among the lowland gorillas of Cameroon. I suddenly found myself as cultural translator for the evangelical mind.

“As I understand it,” I began, “what `evangelical’ really means is that a person believes in Jesus Christ, has a personal relationship with him and because of that relationship feels compelled to share their experience of God’s love with other people.

“How they choose to share that `good news’ with others is entirely up to the individual. Beyond that, the rest is details and style.”

Most of my friends knew evangelicalism only through the big, bellicose voices of TV preachers and religio-political activists such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Chuck Colson. Not surprisingly, my friends hadn’t experienced an evangelicalism that sounded particularly loving, accepting or open-minded.

After eschewing the descriptor because I hadn’t wanted to be associated with a faith tradition known more for harsh judgmentalism and fearmongering than the revolutionary love and freedom that Jesus taught, I began publicly referring to myself again as an evangelical. By speaking up, I hoped I might help reclaim “evangelical” for what it is supposed to mean.

With the 2012 presidential race upon us, the “evangelical” question is once again front and center, chiefly with the campaign of Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman and Tea Party darling who proudly wears the evangelical label.

As I read the recent profile of Bachmann in The New Yorker, it was painfully clear that the what-is-an-evangelical question remains largely unanswered for many who live outside the born-again bubble.

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Cathleen Falsani is Wheaton College grad who is a journalist, author and blogger. She is a columnist who writes for Religion News Service.