Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| speaking in tongues | Glossolalia (qv). |
| spirit possession | Possession or seizure by evil spirits. |
| spirit writing | Automatic writing held to be produced under the action of spirits; pneumatography. |
| Spirit, Spiritual | Adjectives widely used among African indigenous churches and in their official names, referring to the element of their control by the Holy Spirit. |
| spiritism | Belief in the action or agency of spirits of the dead producing mediumistic phenomena. See high spiritism, low spiritism. |
| Spiritist Catholics | Catholics active in organized high or low spiritism, including syncretistic spirit-possession cults. |
| Spiritist churches | Those claiming the title Christian but believing in the action or agency of spirits of the dead, producing mediumistic phenomena. |
| Spiritists | Non-Christian spiritists or spiritualists, or thaumaturgicalists; high spiritists, as opposed to low spiritists (Afro-American syncretists), followers of medium-religions, medium-religionists. |
| spiritual | Sacred, religious, ecclesiastical; influenced or controlled by the divine Spirit. |
| spiritual healing | Faith-healing (qv). |
| Spiritualists | Followers of a marginal Protestant tradition which holds that the word of God is constantly revealed to man via the mediumship of Spiritualist ministers, and which is nevertheless specifically Christian. |
| spirituality | Sensitivity or attachment to religious values and things of the spirit rather than material or worldly interests. |
| spirit-worshippers | See tribal religionists. |
| split | A schism, secession (qv). |
| spontaneous communities | See basic communities. |
| spontaneous expansion of the church | See people movement. |
| spreading | In evangelization, the act or state or extent of the gospel being spread; reaching or thrusting out, expanding, extending, exposing, distributing, scattering, sowing, strewing, covering, overlaying, publishing, disseminating, making more widely known, diffusing, emitting, unfolding, circulating, propagating, radiating, et alia. |
| staff | (plural, staves). Wooden walking-sticks, symbols of discipleship and office in many African indigenous churches (qv). |
| stake | In Mormon usage, a territorial unit comprising a group of wards (qv) and governed by a stake presidency; equivalent to a diocese or jurisdiction. |
| standalone | This adjective as used here does not refer to individuals but to agencies or global plans which operate organizationally unrelated to the rest of the Great Commission world, i.e. with budget and program unrelated to those of other agencies; also used of a computer or network which serves only its immediate user without being linked or networked to other computers or other networks. |
| standard evangelistic unit (SEU) | A standardized measure of the volume of evangelism, so that 1 SEU=one million evangelistic offers (disciple opportunities). |
| state church | An established church (qv), national church (qv). |
| state departments of religious affairs | Over 75 countries operate government departments or ministries of religion, usually for purposes of control and surveillance of the churches. |
| state religion | An established religion, national religion recognized in law as the official religion of a country. |
| stateless persons | Persons who are citizens of no state at all. |
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.