Obama Leads Among Christians

All types of Christians, according to a poll by the Barna Group, a Christian research and consulting firm. Obama's adviser for religious outreach, Josh DuBois, e-mailed supporters with the findings.

According to Barna, Obama leads among 18 self-identified faith groups including Protestants, Catholics, non-Christians, athiests and agnostics and born-again Christians. McCain leads among evangelicals. Note: these descriptions don't come from those surveyed; the Barna group asks a series of screening questions to get at the definitions of these tough terms.

Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."

"Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical."

If current preferences hold, "this would mark the first time in more than two decades that the born again vote has swung toward the Democratic candidate."

Obviously, methodology and question wording are very important here. It's much easier to draw a line between Protestants and Catholics than it is between evangelicals and born-again Christians; many Christians might not subscribe to Barna's definitions. And I'm a little suspicious, just because I'm constitutionally skeptical, about their head-to-head results: Obama leads by 9 points among likely voters with McCain at 34%. Still... food for thought.