Stereotyping blacks, women, Jews, Hispanics, the handicapped and numerous other groups can land loose-lipped people in the soup of political incorrectness faster than one can say, "Jackie Robinson."
But some groups, such as evangelical Christians, who enjoy few vocal supporters among nationally known commentators, still are fair game for the narrow-minded. In some cases, for example, they are excluded from college campus ministry associations, unlike more "respectable" denominations, without explanation or chance for appeal. More often, people assume evangelicals as a whole are right-wing zealots intent on using political power to impose a "re-Christianized" America.
But the most extensive study ever done on U.S. evangelicals shows many if not most are significantly different from that stereotype, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill expert. Evangelicals vary tremendously on beliefs about gender equality, prayer in schools, "Christian America" and the death penalty and even disagree among themselves on abortion, gay rights and other issues. They also often are not unthinking followers of such conservative, politically oriented leaders as Pat Robinson.
"American evangelicalism needs a good dose of demythologizing," says Dr. Christian Smith, professor of sociology at UNC-CH. "In the American media, in the popular imagination and often in academic scholarship, American evangelicals are routinely cast as either angels or demons."
In fact, Smith's study shows, ordinary evangelicals are characterized by much internal diversity, complexity and ambivalence on controversial social issues, contradicting the normal stereotype.
On the radar screen of American public life, evangelicals were virtually invisible before the mid-1970s, he wrote. Despite numbering in the tens of millions and growing in number and institutional strength, they had for decades blended into the mainstream.
"But the 1976 election of the 'born-again' President Jimmy Carter and the rise in the late 1970s of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority changed all of that," Smith said. "Evangelicals found themselves on the American cultural and political map, and they have remained conspicuous throughout the decades since then."
Many journalists, scholars, public leaders and ordinary Americans are curious and concerned -- sometimes frightened -- about who evangelicals are and what they want, he wrote. Many wonder especially about evangelicalism's political significance.
"Don't they aim to legally impose their moral standards on all other Americans?" the UNC-CH professor said. "Doesn't evangelicalism -- with its preoccupation with 'Christian America,' prayer and creationism in schools, male headship in the home, and so on -- represent some kind of backlash that is jeopardizing the liberties and rights of other Americans who disagree with their beliefs and values?"
Smith's short response to such concerns is "no." In his new book, titled "Christian America? What Evangelicals Really What," he attempts to address those and similar questions in a balanced way. In doing so, he reports results of more than 300 two-hour personal interviews with churchgoing Protestants, with an over-sample of evangelicals. Also revealed are results from a 1996 telephone survey of 2,591 Americans and other national telephone surveys, including the 1996 Religious Right Survey commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.
Among fallacies Smith discusses are that evangelicals think alike and follow others almost blindly.
"A common error that observers of evangelicals make is presuming that evangelical leaders speak as representatives of ordinary evangelicals," Smith said. "In fact, evangelical leaders do not simply give voice to the thoughts and feelings of the millions of ordinary evangelicals. Nor do ordinary evangelicals simply follow whatever their leader says -- assuming that they even listen to them much."
Another fallacy is that public opinion surveys by themselves accurately and adequately represent the views of ordinary people, he said. Another is that such people normally work out their beliefs, attitudes and desires in an ideologically consistent way. A fourth is that conservative Protestants represent a monolithic social group.
"The broad wing of 'conservative Protestantism,' in fact, comprises a conglomeration of varied subgroups that differ on many issues and sometimes clash significantly." Smith wrote. "Among these are major groups that are properly known as pentecostals, fundamentalists, evangelicals and charismatics" and to some extent black churches. "Each of these groups has its own history, formative concerns, characteristic tendencies and organizational location."
Among the subjects the sociologist covers in his 257-page book are religion and politics, pluralism and tolerance, gender equality and education. The University of California Press has just published Smith's "Christian America? What Evangelicals Really Want."
Note: Smith can be reached at 919-962-4524 or via e-mail at chis_smith@unc.edu.