Appendix B - Glossary

Glossary

Clergy segments

All Clergy: all leaders (Catholic, Protestant, and non-Christian faith) included in the study

Non-Christian Clergy: Leaders of religious groups that do not identify as Christian, such as Jewish rabbis, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhist, and other religious faith leaders. Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness faith leaders are also included in this category, including those who identify as “Christian.”

Protestant Mainline Clergy: Pastors from Protestant denominations such as American Baptist Churches USA, the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church USA

Protestant Non-mainline Clergy: Pastors from Protestant traditions such as charismatic / Pentecostal churches, the Southern Baptist Convention, churches in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, and non-denominational churches not included in mainline

Catholic Clergy: Leaders of Catholic or Roman Catholic churches

Protestant Pastor: Pastors who are not part of Catholic or non-Christian faith

African American Protestant Pastor: Pastors from Protestant traditions who lead primarily African-American churches, most (92%) of which are African-American themselves.

US Adult segments

Evangelicals: Evangelicals have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and believe that, when they die, they will go to heaven because they have confessed their sins and have accepted Jesus as their Savior (Barna’s “born-again” criteria) and meet seven other conditions: say their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent on church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents are not asked to de- scribe themselves as “evangelical.”

Practicing Christians are self-identified Christians who strongly agree their faith is very important in their life and have attended a worship service within the past month or more.

No Faith are atheists or agnostics, or people who choose “none of the above” from a list of religious affiliations.

Generations

Elders born before 1946
Boomers born between 1946 and 1964
Gen X born between 1965 and 1983
Millennials born between 1984 to 1998
Gen Z born between 1999 and 2012