I’ve long argued that the mainstream media has done a tremendous disservice to its audiences by lumping large religious groups into single categories. The term “evangelical Christians” is only slightly less heterogeneous than “African-Americans” when it comes to any attempt to characterize either group’s collective attitudes or opinions about anything. The fact that the media still quotes Jim Dobson or Pat Robertson as the definitive spokesmen for all evangelical Christians makes about as much sense as quoting Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as the definitive spokesmen for African-Americans.

Now comes a new report from Media Matters that illustrates this problem in the media. As an evangelical Christian — who also considers himself a conservative — I’d much rather hear more voices than just those of Robertson or Dobson when it comes to covering issues of faith, even if it means voices that I might not agree with. The problem, as I see it, is that the media attempts to assert that one or two voices can truly represent an entire subculture. While that may be true for some subcultures, increasingly it’s not something that can be said of evangelical Christians.

Brian McLaren made a few remarks on this topic that I think are a good starting place for this discussion.