New Poll Says American Evangelicals ‘Complain Too Much’

By 316Networks.com

Published: September 12, 2008

According to a recent study performed by The Barna Group, while a majority of Americans believe evangelical voters will indeed have a significant impact on the November election, many say that evangelicals tend to complain too much.

Nearly 60 percent of American adults polled said evangelicals spend more time complaining, and not enough time solving societal problems. Surprisingly, some evangelicals polled also carry a similar self-perception.

While 84 percent of evangelicals believe their vote will have a significant impact on the presidential election, 50 percent of this group also agreed that they complain too much.

In a 2007 study, David Kinnaman, who directed the Barna study, pointed out that 9 out of 10 evangelicals believe abortion is a major problem, while nearly 8 out of 10 evangelicals said homosexuality is a major challenge facing the nation.

Despite these findings, only 48 percent of evangelicals believe that their peers will focus primarily on abortion and homosexuality when casting their vote despite the wide attention these moral issues have received.

"The fact that many evangelicals are reluctant to describe their voting as primarily focused on these issues seems to reflect their self-awareness rather than their stances on the issues," Kinnaman said.

"Like anyone else, many evangelicals care about their image and do not want to be pigeon-holed as one- or two-issue voters, even though these social and moral issues remain very significant for many evangelicals."

47 percent of all Americans say that evangelical voters tend to minimize other social justice issues like poverty and immigration in order to concentrate on abortion and homosexuality. The findings also pointed out that while Christian leaders stress that evangelicals are not a monolithic voting bloc, 74 percent of evangelicals believe their tribe will vote overwhelmingly Republican in this year's election.

American adults also believe evangelicals will cause the political conversation to become more conservative, as well as unfairly described by a number of news media outlets

The Barna study, which was conducted in August 2008, was based on a random national sample of 1,003 adults.

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