Industry Evangelicals vs. Identity Evangelicals

By the always interesting John Hawthorne, who used Nazarenes for this study [HT: JS]:

As I’ve written before, my thesis is that the rhetorical frame of evangelicalism is changing. Former views based on boundary maintenance and separation (Industry Evangelicalism) give way to an evangelical approach based on story, listening, diversity, and engagement (Identity Evangelicalism).

There were careful conversations at the conference about engaging LGBTQ populations, of dealing with racial/ethnic diversity, hospitality,and acknowledging singleness. There was worship and fellowship and discussions about “institutional change from within”.

I was particularly glad to be with these innovators in light of my research project I mentioned in my previous post. Back in December, I was able to gather survey data on 470 clergy in the Church of the Nazarene who are under 40. I began unpacking that data over the last month in preparation for OKC.

There were four questions in my survey that allowed an initial test of my thesis. One dealt with how the church should respond to the changing social dynamics of same-sex marriage and transgender rights. There were four responses: a traditional response, a traditional response addressing the complexity of the conversation, a welcoming but not affirming response, and an affirming response. A second question asked if the church should maintain separation from society. A third dealt with discrimination against Christians. The fourth asked if the church should support America. The last three questions were in a strongly-agree to strongly disagree Likert format.

I scored the first question as either 1 traditional or 2 open. For the other three, I scored the questions as 1 SA/A, 2 neutral, and 3 D/SD. That gave me a scale ranging from 4 to 11. I then split the scale into two groups representing my two frames: Industry Evangelicalism (4-8) or Identity Evangelicalism (9-11). Using this scaling, 63% of my sample fell in the Industry category with the remaining 37% in the Identity Frame.

There are significant differences between the frames, The Industry folks see the changes in society over recent decades as more negative the positive while the Identity folks see the opposite. The Identity group felt that their denomination had been too cautious in responding to changes in society while the Industry group was mildly supportive.

Here’s the important point: Both groups are committed to remaining part of their denomination. Over 72% of the Identity group and 82% of the Industry group see it as important or very important to remain inside. This suggests that the changing frame is not a long term challenge to the institutional church.