VENTURA, Calif. -- Non-Christians in the United States have negative impressions of evangelicals, rating them just above prostitutes, according to pollster George Barna.

A nationwide survey by the Barna Research Group asked adults who do not consider themselves Christian to rank their impressions of 11 categories of people: military officers, ministers, evangelicals, born-again Christians, Democrats, Republicans, real-estate agents, movie and TV performers, lawyers, lesbians and prostitutes.

Evangelicals ranked 10th out of the 11 categories, according to a Barna news release. They received favorable marks from 22 percent of the non-Christians interviewed, higher than the 5 percent approval rating given prostitutes but lower than the 23 percent rating given lesbians and Republicans.

Ministers came in second, with a 44 percent favorable rating, behind military officers, who scored 56 percent. Born-again Christians also fared better than evangelicals, with the third highest rating of 32 percent. Barna, however, said most respondents don't know the difference between the two terms.

"Our studies show that many of the people who have negative impressions of evangelicals do not know what or who an evangelical is," Barna said in a release.

In Barna's surveys, born-again Christians are those who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, claim He is important in their lives today and believe they will go to Heaven when they die because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior.

Evangelicals, as defined by Barna, are born-again Christians who believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians, believe Satan exists and that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works. Evangelicals also believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth, and that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches.

Barna's findings are based on a national telephone poll of 1,002 adults conducted in May.