Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| collegiality | The doctrine re-emphasized by Vatican II (1962- 5) that government of the Catholic Church is not by the pope alone but by the whole episcopate functioning as a college of bishops. |
| color | A term used loosely to refer to inherited apparent pigmentation. |
| Colored | Non-White, often of mixed blood (White/ Black). |
| colportage | The work of a colporteur. |
| colporteur | A peddler of Bibles, religious books and tracts. |
| colporteur | An itinerant evangelist whose main function is the sale and dissemination of scripture copies; usually in the employ of a Bible society. |
| commercial distribution of scriptures | Annual retail sales of scriptures published by commercial publishing houses, in which prices are not subsidized but are fixed on commercial considerations. |
| commissary | See bishop’s commissary. |
| committed Christians | The inner nucleus of believing, active, practicing Christians of all traditions who have, or claim to have, personal and corporate commitment to Christ and to his church, also known as believing Christians, real Christians, converted Christians, nuclear Christians, authentic Christians, born-again Christians, etc. |
| Common Bible | A modern translation of the Bible into a major language in which Protestants, Catholics and others all co-operate. |
| communauté | (French community) The term used in Zaire for Protestant denominations within the sole legal Protestant church. |
| communautés de base | (French). Basic communities (qv). |
| communicant, communicant member | A church member in good standing who is entitled to partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. |
| communication | The act or action of imparting or transmitting; interchange of thoughts and opinions. |
| communications | The means of communicating: equipment, systems, persons, channels, media, etc. |
| communion | (1) A body of Christians having one common faith and discipline; (2) the eucharist or Lord’s Supper; (3) fellowship. |
| communion | A family of religions or denominations with many common ties and features; often called a confession, or world confessional family. |
| Communism | A system and theory advocating elimination of private ownership of property or capital; a totalitarian system of Marxist government. |
| communist | This term with a small ‘c’ is used in this Encyclopedia for individuals who hold Communist ideology. |
| Communist bloc | A term now in disfavor because the Communist world is, since the Sino-Soviet dispute, no longer a monolithic bloc. |
| Communist world | A term, based on political alignment, for some 30 nations in 1980 which were governed by Communist regimes, or Marxist or Marxist-Socialist regimes. |
| communists | Members of Communist Parties. Global membership: (1989) 88,700,000 members of 79 Parties (48 being illegal or semi-clandestine). 94% of these members live between the river Eloe and the Pacific in the 14 major nations governed by Communist Parties. Numbers greatly reduced after 1990 with collapse of Soviet Union. |
| community | (1) Abody of individuals organized into a local unit, with its own culture; the maximal group of persons who normally reside together in face-to-face association, with moral responsibilities towards each other as well as to the community as a whole (up to 500 persons); the principal focus of associative life, the primary unit of social participation, the distinctive culture-bearing group; with internal divisions or factors usually 2 in number. (2) A monastic body or other unified religious group. (3) A variety of smaller Christian groups: basic communities (qv), spontaneous or charismatic communities, underground communities, et alia. |
| community church | An interdenominational or non-denominational church for community use in areas under North American influence. |
| comparative demographic evangelization | An index (%) of the extent of evangelization among a population. |
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.