Evangelical identity has become a contested and ambiguous polling category

Evidence

8.Thomas S. Kidd, “Polls show evangelicals support Trump. But the term ‘evangelical’ has become meaningless,” Washington Post, July 22, 2016; Jeremy Weber, “Christian, What Do You Believe? Probably a Heresy About Jesus, Says Survey,” Christianity Today, October 16, 2018; Bob Smietana, “What Is an Evangelical? Four Questions Offer New Definition,” Christianity Today, November 19, 2015. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 709

Categorization

• DEFINE: Documents that even evangelical outlets debated the meaningfulness of the term by 2015-2016 — evidence for the reader’s ‘dominant strand, not the whole’ contestation of Du Mez’s method.
• SEED: Angle: ‘evangelical’ as a meaninglessly elastic polling category versus a coherent cultural identity — the gap between self-identification and theological definition.
• XREF: connects to: Accommodators are evenly split between evangelical and Catholic affiliation — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 145; Rural evangelical communities fused Christian and American identity as one — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 53