Glossary
Glossary
Generations
A “generation” is an analytical tool for understanding culture and the people within it. It is based on the idea that people born during a certain period of time are influenced by a unique set of circumstances; global events; moral and social values; technologies; and cultural and behavioral norms. We use the following generations:
Millennials: born between 1984 and 2002
Gen-Xers: born between 1965 and 1983
Boomers: born between 1946 and 1964
Elders: born 1945 and earlier
Faith Segments
To understand people better, Barna groups them into various categories based on their religious beliefs and faith practices. We use the following faith segments:
Self-identified Christians: people who select “Christian” from a list of religious affiliations
Other faith: people who select a faith other than Christianity from a list of religious affiliations
No faith: people who select “atheist,” “agnostic,” or “none” from a list of religious affiliations
Practicing Christians: self-identified Christians who say their faith is very important in their lives and have attended a worship service within the past month; this group includes practicing Protestants (including mainline and non-mainline adherents) and practicing Catholics
Evangelicals: self-identified Christians who have made a commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their lives today and believe that, when they die, they will go to heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior. They also meet seven additional criteria:
Classification as an evangelical does not depend on church attendance or denominational affiliation, and respondents are not asked to describe themselves as “evangelical.”
According to the definitions shown above, evangelicals represent just fewer than 19 million US adults, and practicing Christians comprise about 72 million. There is some overlap between the two groups: 95 percent of evangelicals are practicing Christians and 21 percent of practicing Christians are evangelicals.