Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| household size | Standard size, for statistical purposes, of a family, composed of 2 spouses, 2 children (under 15), and one adult (15 or over). |
| hovercraft | Land-water craft supported by cushion of air; used by Missionary Aviation Fellowship and other mission bodies. |
| Huguenots | A historical name, since 1560, for French Calvinists. |
| human network | The linking together of people as nodes horizontally (as equals, without hierarchy or executive authority); the linking of numbers of individuals or organizations to address common interests or problems. |
| human rights | The whole range of the rights of individuals, families, communities, religious persons, as set out in the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights (especially the detailing of religious freedoms). |
| humanism | A philosophy based on agnosticism that rejects supernaturalism and revelation, regards man as a natural object only, and asserts the essential dignity and worth of man and his capacity to achieve self-realization and self-fulfillment through the use of reason and scientific method; naturalistic humanism, scientific humanism. |
| humanism, Christian | See religious humanism. |
| humanism, religious | See religious humanism. |
| humanist | A person who subscribes to humanism. |
| Hungarian rite | Catholics following the Hungarian rite. |
| Hungarian/Slavonic | Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition using Hungarian and Slavonic in the liturgy. Membership: (1970) 10 churches with 5,200 adult members, 40,400 total community. |
| hymnody, hymnology | The study of hymns (songs of praise to God) and their composition; a body of hymns of a particular period or region. ‘I found it’ campaigns. A global series of evangelistic campaigns (Here’s Life World) employing this deliberately-ambiguous slogan (‘It’ being New Life in Christ). |
| Ibadis, Ibadites | Kharijites (qv). |
| icon, ikon | A flat painted sacred picture. |
| iconoclasm | Anti-icon campaign at Constantinople, AD 726- 842 |
| iconography | Art representing religious subjects by conventional images and symbols, the study of religious art and symbolism. |
| iconostasis | Screen separating nave from sanctuary, adorned with icons, in Orthodox churches. |
| ideology | The science of ideas, their origin and nature; a particular sociopolitical set of theories. |
| idiom | A language whose speech community regards it and its autoglossonym as their mother tongue and which shares less than 95% common vocabulary with any other idiom. |
| illiterate | A person who can neither read nor write. |
| imam | (Arabic, divine guide). AMuslim religious practitioner or cleric. |
| Imamis, Imamites | Ithna-Asharis (qv), Ismailis (qv) and other Shias. |
| immediately subject | (Italian, immediate soggette alla Santa Sede). Used of Catholic jurisdictions which are not attached to any ecclesiastical province in their own country but are immediately subject to the Holy See itself. |
| immigrant religion | A religion absent from a country until brought in by recent immigrants. |
| immigration | The movement of immigrants into a particular territory. |
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.