Actually, I think these seemingly contradictory data might be telling the same story.
My impression is the that growth of evangelicals less about any net increase of religious Christians but more about the decline of traditional Christian denominations. When members switches churches to an evangelical one, they call themselves "born again". I think this is a global trend -- at least the same thing is happening in Latin America with Catholics.
This decline also leads to result reported in the survey where more people say they are not associated with any church or that they are "spiritual but not religious".
The reason the evangelical movement has become so powerful is not so much because they have grown but because they have become so politicized -- that is a new phenomenon of the last 30 years or so.
-- adam
On 7/6/05, Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:
> These survey results are simply nonsense. The terminology is
> misleading. Between 35% and 45% of Americans identify as Christian
> evangelicals or "born again," with multiple surveys falling onto that
> range, and most showing an small but significant increase over the
> past 20 years. Chip Berlet
>
> The arguments that the religious right are some kind of growing movement
> are nonsense... Chuck0
>
> -------------
>
> Well, that's just great. So which is it?
>
> I am afraid I tend toward believing that they are a significant
> minority something in the 20-30% range and not an insignificant
> miniority in the 7-10% range.
>
> The cover that they are over represented in the press is one thing,
> but it doesn't really explain the votes or the constant political
> pressure to the right. On just about every issue there are enough of
> them to swing the political spectrum.
>
> CG
>
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