The reason for the season: a qualitative exploration of evangelical christians' perceptions of religious identity, social change, and holiday celebrations

Abstract

Evangelical Christianity is the largest Protestant religious body in the United States today (Pew, 2014) and is charged with a mission to spread the Gospel across the globe while also influencing transformative change in the sociopolitical sphere. To understand Evangelical Christians’ desire to influence social change, it is essential for researchers and policy makers to discover what motivates their desire to instigate change by exploring their perceptions of social problems. This study qualitatively explores the experiences, attitudes, and opinions of 18 Evangelical Christians relating to religious identity, social change, and holiday celebrations, traditions, and rituals preceding from the theoretical framework of Smith’s (1998) subcultural identity theory of religious strength and Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical theory of impression management. An analysis of the interviews of the study participants revealed several subthemes that emerged from the main three themes of religious identity, social change, and holiday celebrations. These subthemes include: biblical scripture as a source of moral guidance, a calling to ministry, the perceived breakdown of the family, and the secularization of holiday celebrations. The findings of this study reveal that religious identity, perceptions of social change, and perspectives of holiday celebrations are interconnected and mutually informing, which provides additional insight into the motivations of Evangelical Christians and their strength as a community to remain steadfast in their belief in the midst of tension and conflict with a society they perceive as trying to silence their voices and erase Christian influence.