Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| adjective of nationality | The adjective(s) describing a national (citizen) officially sanctioned by a state for United Nations’ usage. |
| adult | In law a human male or female over a fixed age; collectively making up the working-age and old-age population. In church statistics, as often in civil law, a person over 14 years old. |
| adult | A person who is 15 years old or above. |
| adult baptisms | The administration of baptism to candidates over 14 years of age; in practice, the youngest age is as low as 6 years old (Anglicans, many Baptists and other Protestants, et alii). |
| adult Christians | Christians over 14 years of age. |
| adult literacy | See literacy. |
| adult members | Adult church members on average over 14 years of age and on the church’s books or rolls, who are either communicants or full members, adult believers, probationary members, baptized adult non-communicants, sometimes also unbaptized attending adults. |
| Adventists | Protestant tradition begun 1844, emphasizing imminent Second Advent of Christ. |
| advocacy | The process of championing a particular unevangelized population segment, especially if voiceless or neglected, and continually seeking opportunities to present its case for a larger share of Christian resources. |
| 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 organized churches; those whose names are inscribed, written or entered on the churches’ books or records, or with whom the churches are in touch, usually known by name and address to the churches at grass-roots or local parish level; i.e. all distinct individuals attached to or claimed by the institutional churches or organized Christianity and hence part of their corporate life, community and fellowship; total church membership, or total Christian community, or inclusive membership; including full members, other attenders, their children and infants, members under discipline, and other adherents. |
| affiliated Christians | Church members: all persons belonging to or connected with organized churches, whose names are inscribed, written or entered on the churches’ books, records, or rolls. |
| affiliation | Church membership, attachment to organized Christianity; usually begun by the inscribing, writing or entering of people’s names on the churches’ books or records. |
| affiliation, double | See doubly-affiliated Christians. |
| affiliation, legal | Church membership in countries where the bulk of the population belongs by law to the state church or established church. |
| affiliation, religious | Membership in, or attachment to a particular organized religion. |
| African | One of the 13 ethnic regions of mankind, excluding Middle Eastern (Semitic, Hamitic and Cushitic) and Early African (qv), speaking about 1,320 languages. |
| African independent churches | African indigenous churches (qv). |
| African indigenous Christianity | Type or style of Christianity evolved and practiced by African indigenous churches (qv). |
| African indigenous churches | Denominations indigenous to African peoples, begun without outside help; also termed African independent churches, African separatist churches. |
| Afro-American | One of the 13 ethnic regions of mankind, speaking over 60 languages. |
| Afro-American spiritists | Followers of Afro-Brazilian, Afro- Cuban and other African religious survivals in the Americas, low spiritists, syncretizing Catholicism with African and Amerindian animistic religions; low spiritists as opposed to high (non-Christian) spiritists; also Afro-American syncretistic cults with Christian elements. All varieties, including specifically Christian bodies, are detailed in G. E. Simpson, Black religions in the New World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978). |
| agencies-in-peoples | A measure of the widespread distribution of mission agencies across the world which quantifies one agency working in 50 peoples as 50 of these units. |
| aggiornamento | (Italian). Updating, renewal, bringing upto- date, used by pope John XXIII to justify convening Vatican II in 1962. |
| agnosticism | The doctrine that the existence or nature of any ultimate reality or God is unknown and unknowable. |
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.