Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| Jehovah’s Witnesses | A marginal Protestant tradition begun in 1872 also called Russellites. |
| Jerusalem | One of the 4 original partriarchates of the Apostolic Church; now the see of 4 rival patriarchs: Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Melkite and Latin. |
| Jerusalems | See holy cities. |
| Jesuits | Members of the Society of Jesus, Catholicism’s largest religious order; in 1975, 29,636 members (20,604 priests, the rest brothers), (1997) 22,580 in 1,931 houses. |
| Jesus Christ | Founder of Christianity, Son of God, acknowledged as Lord and Savior by 2 billion Christians and 33,000 denominations (AD 2000). |
| Jesus movement, people, generation | Terms covering the widespread revival of faith in Jesus, in the 1960s and 1970s, on the part of youth and students in the Western world. |
| Jesus-Only Pentecostals | Oneness-Pentecostals (qv). |
| Jewish-Christians | Also called Hebrew Christians, Messianic Christians, Messianic Jews, Jewish crypto-Christians. Total in 250 separate Jewish-Christian denominations. |
| Jews | Followers of the various schools of Judaism: in the United States: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform; in Israel: Haredi, Orthodox, Traditional, Observant, and secular; ethnically, Ashkenazi (Eastern Europe), Mizrahi (Middle Eastern), Sephardic (Iberian Peninsula), and various African ethnicities. |
| jihad | (Arabic). For Muslims, a holy war waged on behalf of Islam. |
| joint action for mission | An ecumenical program involving (a) a joint survey by all churches in an area, (b) joint planning to secure real and effective redeployment of resources in the light of agreed goals, and (c) joint action to implement this. |
| journalism, religious | See religious journalism. |
| Judaism | The religion of the Jews (qv) characterized by belief in one God and in the mission of Jews to teach the Fatherhood of God as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures. |
| Julian Calendar | Old Calendar (qv). |
| jurisdiction | (1) Any territory within which a bishop or other church leader exercises his authority, such as an archdiocese, diocese, vicariate, prefecture, etc. (2) In some churches, a jurisdiction (symbol J) is a specific type of territory similar to a diocese. |
| kaleidoscopic | Multifaceted, many-featured, constantly changing, applying here to the complex components of global mission. |
| Kanuri | An African ethnolinguistic family, with over 15 languages. |
| Karaites | Readers of the Scriptures, followers of Qaraism (a Jewish sect). |
| Kardecism | High spiritism (qv) or spiritualism, notably in Brazil. |
| karma | (Sanskrit). In Buddhism and Hinduism, the force generated by a person’s actions that is held to be the motive power for the round of rebirths and deaths endured by him until he has achieved spiritual liberation (nirvana). |
| Karmatians | See Qarmatians. |
| kerygma | (NT Greek). Preaching, the preaching of the gospel, the message preached. |
| Keswick-Pentecostals | Baptistic-Pentecostals (qv). |
| keyword | In library cataloguing (OCLC and Library of Congress coding), the main word or words describing the contents of a book. |
| Kharijites | (Seceders). Followers of schism from Sunni and Shia Islam, mainly in Ibadite form. |
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.