And, while referring to a particular group as evangelical may be more accurate than simply calling them Christian, the increasingly varied shades of evangelicalism make even that term insufficient. For example, are we referring to the ultra-conservative televangelist and one-time Republican presidential hopeful, Pat Robertson? Or, do we see Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and vocal Obama supporter as the quintessential evangelical?

I didn’t know that I was an evangelical until I was 22, though I grew up in a tight-knit charismatic Christian community that any outsider, today, would call evangelical. But, back then, through the 1980s and ’90s we were “Born Again” or “Charismatic.” We evangelized, but never referred to ourselves as evangelical.

Perhaps this is because it has always been difficult to know what one means by “evangelical.” Is it a theological construct, as some argue, or a social categorization? David Bebbington, a British historian who studied the movement, famously defined evangelicalism as marked by belief in conversionism, biblicism, activism, and crucicentrism. But, even there, wedged amongst theological propositions, the presence of activism suggests that evangelicalism is in fact a social movement.

Certainly this conception of evangelicalism as a social movement is what the mainstream media meant when they began to use the word to describe George W. Bush’s most ardent supporters leading up to the 2004 presidential elections. This is when I learned that, despite my individual political leanings, my religious affiliation consigned me to the evangelical voting bloc; it was assumed that a person with my religious beliefs would necessarily vote Republican.

When it became clear that in the popular mind the word evangelical was more a social and political construct than a theological one, it set off a scramble to accurately self-identify in books, articles, and blog posts among evangelicals of all stripes. There are those who defend the theological roots of the term and wish to reclaim it from social rebranding, and others who recognize their own views in the social and political categorization and thus accept the term as is. Still others reject the label outright, ceasing to identify as evangelical altogether.

The result of all this hand-wringing and word wrangling is that, in 2012, it is more difficult than ever to know what one means by the term. Today, we have what I call shades of evangelicalism. The term is not going away, but the people it is meant to describe are becoming more and more diverse—politically, theologically, and socially. At the same time, the media is using the term with far greater frequency.

With each new issue that incites responses from evangelicals, it is becoming more and more difficult to identify a unified platform. The recent kerfuffle over the anti-gay marriage comments by Chick-fil-A’s president Dan Cathy has inspired divergent views from evangelicals who have flooded my Facebook wall and Twitter stream praising and condemning Cathy in blogs and columns, and yet believers have been portrayed as a unified bloc by the media. Yesterday, as competing groups met at Chick-fil-A restaurants around the country to show support or derision in organized events, the narrative that emerged pitted evangelicals versus marriage equality supporters.

If we don’t take the time to understand the similarities and differences between these shades, if we dismiss this large segment of the population as monolithic and stubbornly fundamentalist, then we can easily discount their religiously informed political perspectives and, perhaps by extension, the political opinions of any religious people who allow their faith to shape their politics. But by understanding that there are shades of evangelicalism—that even fervent Christian belief translates into political conviction in multitudinous ways—we see that political leanings that are informed by closely held religious beliefs deserve legitimate space in the public square.

The Ambiguity

Back in March and again in April, Timothy Noah writing in the New Republic, observed how the mainstream media, and particularly the New York Times, misuse the word “Christian,” using it as a synonym for “Christian Right” or “Christian conservative.” Seventy-eight percent of the American population, he points out, identify as Christians, though far fewer fit into those sub-categories. Roughly one-third of that 78% call themselves evangelicals.

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