Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| separatism | A disposition towards secession or schism. |
| separatist | A dissenter or schismatic out of an established church; a nonconformist. |
| separatist church | A group of Christians who have separated from their parent church because of disagreement on some issue and who have formed themselves into a new and separate denomination. |
| Sephardis | See Sefardis. |
| Serbian/Slavonic | Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition (Serbian Orthodox Church). |
| sermon | A religious discourse delivered in public usually by a clergyman or minister, as part of a worship service. |
| serology | The science that treats of serums, their reactions and properties; necessary for the classification of races and peoples. |
| service | The performance of religious worship according to settled public forms or conventions. |
| service agencies | Major national, international or countrywide bodies, para-church organizations and agencies which assist or serve the churches but are not themselves denominations or church-planting missions. |
| service agency | Major national, international or country-wide bodies, parachurch organizations and agencies which assist or serve the churches but are not themselves denominations or church-planting missions. |
| session | The ruling body of a Presbyterian congregation consisting of the elders in active service moderated by the pastor; consistory, presbytery. |
| settler | A person who settles down in a new region or colony. |
| Seveners | Ismailis (qv). |
| Shaffiites | Followers of Shafiiya, one of the 4 schools or rites of Sunni Muslim law. |
| Shaivites | Worshippers of Shiva (Siva) in several schools, including Pasupata, Kashmiri, Siddha, Gorakhnatha, Vira; also diversity according to geographic location in India. |
| shakubuku | (Japanese). The aggressive-conversion process practiced by the New Religious movement, Soka Gakkai. |
| shaman | A priest-doctor who uses magic to cure the sick, to divine the hidden, and to control events that affect people’s welfare. |
| shamanists | Followers of Ural-Altaic, Amerindian, Korean and other religions which believe that the unseen world of gods, demons, and ancestral spirits is responsive only to shamans. |
| shamanists | Ethnoreligionists with a hierarchy of shamans and healers. |
| sharia | (Arabic). Islamic law. |
| sharing countries | 12 countries across the world which both send and receive large numbers of foreign missionaries and personnel. |
| sheik, sheikh | Muslim religious leader or cleric or scholar; an Arab chief. |
| shepherding | In the modern charismatic movement, the practice of a leader exercising strict or extensive authority over his flock of immediate followers. |
| shepherds | Apostles in charismatic bodies. |
| Shias | (Shi’is). Followers of the smaller of the 2 great divisions of Islam, rejecting the Sunna and holding that Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali was the Prophet’s successor and itself divided into the Ithna-Ashari Ismaili, Alawite and Zaydi sects. |
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.