Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| Left-Wing Reformation | See Anabaptists. |
| legalism | The principles and practices characterizing the theological doctrine of strict conformity to a code of deeds and observances. |
| legate | An ecclesiastic representing the Catholic pope and invested with the authority of the Holy See. |
| legislature | The organized body having the authority to make laws for a country or state. |
| lepers | Sufferers from leprosy, still one of the most dreaded diseases and the greatest crippler of all diseases. |
| leprosarium | A hospital for lepers; see medical centers. |
| Lesser Vehicle | The Theravada or Hinayana school of Buddhists (qv). |
| lexicostatistics | The study of languages by comparing lexicons (word lists) and finding how many words, and what percentages of a standard word-list, are shared in common by 2 or more languages. |
| Liberal Anglicans | Central or Broad Church Anglicans. |
| Liberal Catholics | Followers of churches under bishops-at-large (qv) holding liberal or deviant Catholic views usually including Theosophical, Masonic, Gnostic, magical or occult dogmas and practices. |
| Liberal Christians | Unitarians (qv). |
| Liberal Protestants | See Unitarians. |
| liberation | The act of freeing from control or domination by a foreign party, or the state of being freed from such power. |
| libraries, religious | Major professional exclusively-theological or -religious library collections under church or Christian auspices, specializing primarily in Christianity and religion, a majority of each’s holdings being religious. |
| life expectancy | The expected number of years of life of individuals in a population, based on statistical probability. World average: (AD 2000) 67.6 years. |
| life span | The maximum possible length of human life. |
| life styles | Attitudes to money, property, discipline, moral imperatives, on the part of either denominations or individuals. During the 1970s there has been widespread discussion on what life styles (ways of living) are authentically Christian, focusing on subjects such as standard of living, waste, simplicity of dress and food, etc. |
| limited-access country | A country whose government or regime limits access by alien foreign missionaries wishing to reside, usually by small or decreasing quotas or progressively shorter residence permits; see closing country. |
| lingua franca | An auxiliary or compromise language used between groups having no other language in common. |
| lingua franca | Or, ‘common language’. Originally a hybrid language (Italian/Spanish/French/Greek/Arabic/Turkish elements) used in Mediterranean ports; now any language with a large number of non-native speakers (defined in this survey as over 100,000), e.g. state official languages, national languages, trade languages, broadcasting languages, and all languages of wider communication. |
| lingua franca, inner | See inner lingua franca. |
| lingua franca, outer | See outer lingua franca. |
| lingua francas | Common languages with over 100,000 non-native speakers each, of 2 main kinds: (a) outer lingua francas are each a language cluster (outer language), and (b) inner lingua francas are each a language (inner language), as defined in the World Language Classification. |
| linguametrics | The scientific measurement and study of the whole world of languages (as distinct from linguistics). |
| linguasphere | The global continuum of languages, extended by humankind around the world since the onset of speech; the multilingual structure of human communication; the continuum of all spoken conventions through space and time—lexical, phonological, and grammatical. |
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.