Defining Myself for Those Who Categorize

People love categories. Think about election polls. How are people categorized?

- African-Americans

- Hispanics

- Soccer Moms

- Catholics

- Swing Voters

- Evangelicals

Uh, okay. Thanks, categorizers.

I mention this in light of the fact that I've been really considering how I vote and how politics and faith relate for me, as a Christian. Interesting to me has been the back-and-forth regarding evangelical Christians and their votes. According to CNN:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll taken July 27-29 showed that among white, born-again or evangelical voters, 67 percent are for McCain, with 24 percent for Obama.

Although it's a strong showing for McCain, he's lagging 11 percentage points behind President Bush in the 2004 election. Exit polls show that Bush beat Sen. John Kerry 78 percent to 21 percent among these voters.

Pew confirms this information, giving McCain a 68-24 advantage over Senator Obama. As I have tried to digest all of this and put my own Christian and political leanings into sync, I first have had to define "evangelical" and figure out how I fit under that definition.

According to the recently released Evangelical Manifesto, evangelical is defined as the following:

Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. (Evangelical comes from the Greek word for good news, or gospel.) Believing that the Gospel of Jesus is God's good news for the whole world, we affirm with the Apostle Paul that we are "not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation." Contrary to widespread misunderstanding today, we Evangelicals should be defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.

To me, this seems like a very generic definition of "Christian," but sticking with this definition defines me as an Evangelical too.

Either way, I have seen that the 20th century American Protestant Christian approach to politics is being rejected in whole or part by many who I grew up with or around. In the evangelical political sphere that I grew up around, there was no part-timers, meaning that political leaders with us or against us, cut and dry. In today's political landscape, it seems that they've taken more of a "best we can get" approach.

The 2007 Dr. James Dobson "I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances" has now become the 2008 "the possibility is there that I might [endorse McCain]." Some evangelical leaders met in July to agree to support McCain, saying "The only evangelicals that [Obama's] going to win over are those who have never read the Bible."

Which seems a bit ridiculous considering the words of someone like Pastor Joel Hunter.

I'm not going to beat any drum here, especially considering that I really don't think I'm an Evangelical (capital 'e') but trying to be more of an orthodox Christian instead. That being said, it'd be nice to see some more consistency from the Christian leadership in America that attacks inconsistencies in political voting records.

Food for thought this Sunday afternoon.