What do most members of evangelical churches in America believe? As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the Ligonier/Lifeway State of Theology Survey for 2025 defined evangelicals by beliefs as those who strongly agreed with all four of the following statements (using the Survey’s numbering):
- The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.
- It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior.
- Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin.
- Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.
The Survey also provides a second classification of “evangelicals” in which respondents who identified as members or participants in such churches as Assemblies of God, Church of God (Cleveland, TN), Churches of Christ, Evangelical Free Church, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) were classified as evangelicals by affiliation. These are the seven largest evangelical denominations in the United States. I was unable to find a list of the denominations that the Survey actually counted as evangelical, but I would presume the above seven were included. (Since the statisticians who do this sort of thing generally treat the Seventh-day Adventist Church as an evangelical body, the Survey may have done so as well, despite the legitimate concerns that many evangelicals have about classifying them as evangelical.[1] If one counts the SDA Church as evangelical it would be the eighth-largest US evangelical denomination.) There are, of course, some evangelicals in mainline Protestant denominations, but we are looking here at people categorized as evangelical based on their church affiliation. I also count not find any information about how people affiliated with nondenominational churches (most but not all of which are predominantly evangelical) were counted. There are now approaching twice as many people in nondenominational churches as in the Southern Baptist Convention, which is still the largest Protestant denomination in the US. I have written a short book that surveys Christian denominations with information also about nondenominational churches.[2]
With all these qualifications and uncertainties acknowledged, what can we learn from the Survey as to the beliefs commonly held by those affiliates with evangelical churches in America? Below I list the ten statements from the Survey (using its numbering) to which the largest percentages of respondents in evangelical churches strongly agreed, in the order of percentage agreeing. In each case, over two-thirds strongly agreed and about 90 percent or more at least somewhat agreed (for two of them it was 89 percent). Following each statement are two numbers in parentheses giving the percentages strongly agreeing and somewhat agreeing, followed by the total of those two numbers in brackets.
2. There is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. (84/11) [95]
1. God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake. (83/10) [93]
6. God loves all people the same way. (83/10) [93]
4. God is unchanging. (80/12) [92]
8. God created marriage to be between one man and one woman. (79/10) [89]
5. Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred. (78/16) [94]
21. There will be a time when Jesus Christ returns to judge all the people who have lived. (77/14) [91]
34. Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin. (75/16) [91]
32. The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe. (68/23) [91]
35. Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation. (68/21) [89]
I note, in passing for now, that Ligonier considers its statement #6, “God loves all people the same way,” to be false, and comments on the Survey website that the positive response to this statement from evangelicals “suggests a major misunderstanding.” The issue here involves Ligonier’s Reformed or Calvinist theological perspective. I will discuss this matter in a subsequent post.
People might be surprised to see that the statement affirming the Trinity had the largest percentage of US evangelical church members strongly agreeing (84%) and the largest percentage at least somewhat agreeing (95%). In another subsequent post, I plan to discuss the fact that two other statements relevant to the Trinity did not receive such overwhelming support. For now, we simply note that affirmation of the Trinity had the highest support of all 35 statements in the Survey.
Finally, we should also notice that not only does the affirmation of the doctrine of the Trinity top the list, but nine of these ten statements are theological rather than about ethical or social issues. Missing from this list of the top ten statements affirmed by evangelical church members are those concerning gender, homosexuality, sex outside marriage, abortion, and political decisions. The exception is the statement affirming that God created marriage to be between one man and one woman. This finding gives some indication that theological beliefs rather than social positions are most important or defining for those affiliated with evangelical churches in America. That implication runs counter to the way evangelicalism is characterized in the media and even by many Christian critics.
NOTES
[1] For a convenient overview of the concerns, see Timothy Oliver, “Seventh-day Adventism,” Watchman Fellowship Profile (2000), available from https://www.watchman.org/.
[2] Christian Denominations Made Easy (Carol Stream, IL: Rose Publishing, 2025). See also the glossy chart pamphlet Christian Denominations: A Side-by-Side Comparison (Carol Stream, IL: Rose Publishing, 2024).