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A new report in the Fall issue of Leadership journal shows great disparity among people in the United States who call themselves "Christian." In fact, this nationwide survey of more than 1,000 self-identified adherents reveals five distinct types of practitioners with very different views on salvation, the Bible, morality, and the cultural impact of their faith.

For news reporters and news consumers, this diversity requires careful attention to the variety of opinion among people generally labeled "Christian." Not all Christians think alike on cultural issues, and the survey makes the reasons clearer.

For church leaders, the identification of five approaches to faith may make theological discussion and the faith-sharing common to evangelical believers more coherent. With this survey, the common ground among Christians becomes more evident, but so do the areas of disagreement.

The survey was conducted for Christianity Today International (publisher of Leadership journal) and Zondervan Publishers by the research firm Knowledge Networks. It is one step in the development of NationalChristianPoll.com, a new research database for surveying the opinions of Christians in the United States on a variety of issues.

While between 70 and 80 percent of people in the United States identify themselves as Christian according to a number of studies, what those people mean by the term varies widely. Respondents to our new survey were almost evenly divided among five categories:

• Active Christians (19%): Committed churchgoers, often in positions of church leadership; believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ; Bible readers.
• Professing Christians (20%): Similar beliefs to Active Christians, but less committed to church attendance; focus more on personal relationship with God and Jesus, less on Bible reading or faith sharing.
• Liturgical Christians (16%): High level of spiritual activity; regular churchgoers, recognizing the authority of the church; predominantly Catholic and Lutheran.
• Private Christians (24%): Largest and youngest segment; believe in God and have spiritual interest, but not within the church context; only one-third attend church at all, almost none are church leaders.
• Cultural Christians (21%): God aware, but do not view Jesus as essential to salvation; affirm many ways to God; express little outward religious behavior.

The categorization used in this survey does not employ the commonly used terms "evangelical," "fundamentalist," or "mainline" because some Christians who are often defined by those terms landed in all five of our categories. What that may show us is that the traditional labels are losing their distinctiveness in today's shifting religious landscape.

Our categories are based on actions as well as professed beliefs. They also provide good starting points for faith-oriented discussions. Rather than the customary presentations of the gospel based on "roads" and "laws," a series of questions may be more effective openers for talks with Liturgical, Private, and Cultural Christians:

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