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Evangelical Protestantism

Evangelical is a very capacious term, and both scholars and conservative Protestants themselves struggle to define the boundaries of this religious community. Some people apply the term to groups as divergent as Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, and more conservative branches of Methodism, Lutheranism, and Pres-byterianism. Complicating this definition, however, is the reality that not all of the members of each of these groups would self-identify as evangelicals. In general, several key beliefs and practices tend to characterize evangelical cultures. To begin with, a profound conversion experience, often called a “born again” experience, refers to the belief that lives must be transformed through a direct relationship with Jesus Christ. Evangelicals understand themselves to have a “great commission” to spreading the message of Jesus Christ, and they have long had a vibrant missions community. Many, but not all, evangelicals perceive the Bible as inerrant, but the Bible remains of great importance to even those evangelicals who do not read it literally. On a daily basis, many evangelicals engage in prayer and Bible study. This article will explore the roll of women within this religious community, as this fast-growing religion has distinctive ideas about gender norms.

Numbers of Evangelicals in the United States and in the World

Struggling to find the right questions to identity the number of evangelicals within the United States, the Gallup polls and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have suggested differing numbers for this population. In 2005, the Gallup Poll suggested that 43 percent of United States population self-identify as evangelicals. In contrast, the Pew Forum's Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007, asserts that just over 26 percent of American adults would call themselves evangelicals. In both cases, however, the data confirmed that slightly more than half of those people identifying themselves as evangelicals are female. Within the United States, approximately half of the evangelical churches are in the South, and the Northeast has the fewest evangelical churches.

Globally, evangelical Protestantism-particularly if Pentecostal groups are included in this category-is among the fastest growing religions in the world. Asia, Africa, and South America, particularly South American countries that formerly had large number of Catholics, have all seen large increases in the numbers of evangelicals in recent years. In the first decade of 2000, combining evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Great Commission Christians produces a number of approximately 1.4 billion evangelicals-or 23 percent of the world's population. Twenty-five years later, the World Christian Encyclopedia offers a projection that the world will have approximately 2 billion evangelicals, or 26 percent of the world's population.

Gender Dynamics and Family Formation

A key aspect of evangelical ideology doctrine is male headship, which is the understanding that the New Testament instructs men to lead the family and make significant household decisions. While this philosophy of marriage instructs women to submit to their husbands’ wills, it also portrays “headship” as a kind of burden in which the husband must be extremely willing to care and sacrifice for his wife. While lived reality does not always exhibit this rigid hierarchy, many evangelicals make an effort to follow some version of male headship. In an extreme version of wifely submission, some women chose to obey even nonreligious or neglectful husbands, with the idea that their very submission will affect a change in their husbands’ beliefs and behavior.

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