Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| language, outer | Synonym for language cluster. |
| language, phyla | 24 major divisions under which the world’s languages can be classified. |
| languages | On our classification, the world has 12, 900 distinct and separate languages, excluding dialects. |
| lapsed | Former church members who have abandoned churchgoing, or the practice of Christianity, or affiliation, or Christian profession, and have deserted the faith completely; backsliders, disaffiliated, dechristianized, post-Christians, apostates. |
| Last Commission | See Great Commission. |
| latent church | A theological term (coined by P. Tillich) for nominal Christians (qv) and others not part of the organized churches which assert that Jesus is the Christ. |
| latifundia | (Latin; Spanish, latifundio; Italian latifondo). A system of land concentration in vast rural estates; mainly in Latin America. |
| Latin | A European ethnolinguistic family; Romance. |
| Latin American | One of the 13 ethnic regions of mankind, speaking Spanish and Portuguese. |
| Latin American indigenous churches | Non-White indigenous churches, indigenous to Latin American peoples. |
| Latin Europe | A term for Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, San Marino, and Spain. |
| Latin rite | Forms of Christian worship and liturgy utilizing or based on Latin; that part of the Catholic Church that employs Latin liturgies. |
| Latter Rain | A type of Perfectionist-Pentecostals (qv) claiming to inaugurate the Latter or Springtime Rain cited by Old Testament prophets as immediate precursor to the Second Coming of Christ. |
| Latter-day Saints | Mormons; a generic term for followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City) or of its 85 schismatic breakoff bodies; a marginal Protestant movement. |
| laura | A monastery of the Eastern Church originally consisting of monks in community yet inhabiting separate cells grouped around a church. |
| lay | Belonging or relating to those church members not in holy orders, not of the clergy. |
| lay ministries | In this field, organizations significant at the national or wider levels number over 300. |
| lay missionaries, Catholic | (1996) 9,554. |
| lay preachers | Unordained unpaid but officially-accredited spare-time preachers in Protestant churches. |
| lay readers | In Anglicanism, laypersons authorized by a bishop to read parts of the public service, to preach and to assist at Holy Communion. |
| lay training centers | Study centers and other specialized centers for training the laity in their role in church and mission in the modern world. |
| lay woman, laywomen | See laypersons. |
| lay workers, layworkers | Full-time unordained church workers. |
| layman, laymen | See laypersons. |
| laypersons | A contemporary term covering both laymen and laywomen, who together number over 99.7% of the entire membership of the churches. |
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.