Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| cosmoreligion | A universal (non-local) religion open to all, with over 200 million adherents. |
| cost-effectiveness | As a comparative measure, the total cost, to Christians in a country, of baptizing one person. |
| council | An assembly of ecclesiastics or church representatives convened to discuss matters of doctrine, discipline, law, morals, etc. |
| Council for World Mission | Originated as London Missionary Society in 1795; 1955, renamed Congregational Council for World Mission; 1976, renamed Council for World Mission. |
| counseling | A professional service designed to guide an individual to a better understanding of his problems and potentialities by utilizing modern psychological principles |
| country | The land of a person’s origin, birth, residence or citizenship; motherland; a term covering both sovereign nations and non-sovereign territories. |
| country | A term covering both (a) sovereign nations, and (b) nonsovereign territories (dependencies or colonies) which are not integral parts of larger parent nations. |
| country’s population | Defined here as the total present-inarea resident population of a country at a given date or midyear date. |
| countrytrends | A shorthand term for all instruments, measuring devices, and measurements, country by country, of all varieties of variables and changes measured by churches and agencies in the pursuit of their global mission. |
| courier | A person carrying messages, news or information secretly or clandestinely to, within or from underground or illegal churches in anti-Christian lands. |
| covert evangelizers | Active Christians working anonymously or secretly. |
| credit unions | Co-operative savings and credit associations that make small loans to their members at low interest rates; widespread among Catholics. |
| creeds | Brief authoritative doctrinal formulae beginning ‘Credo’ (Latin: I believe) intended to define what a Christian synod or church holds to be true and essential, and to exclude false doctrine. |
| creole | In linguistic terminology, a composite language or pidgin (qv) that has become the standard or native language of a community. |
| Creole | In English usage, a Mulatto or person of mixed Black/White blood, or his language. In Spanish and French usage, a locally-born Spanish-speaking or French-speaking White (in the Antilles, Indian ocean, etc.), or his language. |
| creole | A hybrid or pijin language which has now consolidated into a language with its own mother tongue speakers. |
| Criollo | A Spanish-speaking Creole or Mulatto. |
| crisis theology | Neo-orthodoxy (qv), especially in its pessimistic view of human nature. |
| cross-cultural missionaries | Full-time Christian workers sent by their churches to work among peoples of a different culture, either within their own nations or abroad. |
| cross-cultural missions scale | A computed scale from 0-16 measuring the influence of cross-cultural missionary presence and activity within a people or other segment. |
| crown colony | A colony of Britain over which the British crown through a governor retains some control. |
| crude birth rate | The unstandardized birth rate, not adjusted for influence of age or other variables. |
| crude death rate | The unstandardized death rate, not adjusted for influence of age or other variables. |
| crusade evangelism | Mass evangelism through organized city-wide campaigns with most denominations co-operating. |
| crusades | Organized evangelistic mass campaigns in large cities a week or more in length. |
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.