Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| adherents | Followers, supporters, members, believers, devotees of a religion. |
| adult | A person who is over 14 years of age. |
| Adventists | Protestant tradition founded 1844, emphasising the imminent Second Advent of Christ. |
| affiliated | Followers of a religion enrolled and known to its leadership, usually with names written on rolls. |
| affiliated Christians | Church members: all persons belonging to or connected with organised churches, whose names are inscribed, written or entered on the churches’ books, records or rolls. |
| African Indigenous Churches | Denominations indigenous to Africans, founded without outside help; also termed African Independent Churches, African Initiated Churches. |
| Afro-American spiritists | Followers of Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and other African religious survivals in the Americas, low spiritists, syncretising Catholicism with African and Amerindian animistic religions. |
| agnostics | Persons who lack a religion or profess unbelief in a religion. The term includes (1) ‘classical’ agnostics (who hold that it is impossible to know for certain whether God – or deity of any kind – exists); (2) those who profess uncertainty as to the existence of God; and (3) other nonreligious persons such as secularists. |
| Ahmadiya | (Ahmadiyya) Ex-Shia Muslim messianic movement, pronounced heretical by Pakistan, following 1889 founder Ghulam Ahmad. |
| Anabaptists | (from Greek: re-baptisers) Various groups in Continental Europe in the 16th century collectively termed the Left-Wing Reformation who refused to allow their children to be baptised and reinstituted the baptism of adult believers; represented today by Mennonites and Hutterites. |
| Ancient Church of the East | Also called Assyrians, Nestorians, Aramaean Christians or East Syrians (Messihaye); Chaldean (Syriac)-speaking; the original Church of Mesopotamia. |
| Anglicans | Christians related to the Anglican Communion, tracing their origin back to the ancient British (Celtic) and English churches; including Anglican dissidents. |
| animism | The attribution of consciousness and personality to natural phenomena such as thunder and fire, and to objects such as rocks and trees. |
| apostasy | The renunciation or abandonment of one’s previous religious profession of faith. |
| apostolate | In Catholic usage, the service of members and spread of the faith by bishops, priests, religious and laity. |
| archbishop | (Greek: leading bishop) A metropolitan or primate with jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province; occasionally an honorary title only. |
| archdiocese | (symbol AD). A diocese presided over by an archbishop (qv). |
| Armenian Apostolic | An ancient Orthodox liturgical tradition dating back to the Apostolic era, also called Gregorians. |
| atheists | Persons who reject the idea of any deity. The term also includes opponents of theism and of organised religion who otherwise might be considered agnostics (qv). |
| autocephalous church | An independent, self-governing church appointing its own chief bishop; usually Orthodox. |
| Baha'is | Followers of the Baha’i World Faith, founded in 1844 by Baha’u’llah in what is now Iran. |
| baptism | The sacramental rite that admits a candidate to membership in a Christian church; usually by immersion (submersion), affusion (pouring), or aspersion (sprinkling) with water. |
| Baptistic-Pentecostals | Classical Pentecostals (qv) teaching a 2-crisis experience (conversion, baptism of the Spirit). Also termed Keswick-Pentecostals. |
| Baptists | (1) In its widest meaning, all Christian traditions that baptise adults (qv) only – in contrast to paedobaptists, who baptise infants. (2) The specific tradition of Protestants and Independents calling themselves Baptists. |
| Base Christian communities | Small ecclesial communities or groups that have sprung up in the churches, stressing such things as community, renewal, Charismatic gifts, prayer, Bible study, evangelism, social action and political awareness |
Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.
Data on all religions, Christian activities, and trends.
Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.
Population and religion data on all major cities & provinces.
Detailed information covering religion, culture, and geography.
A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.