Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| atheists | Persons who deny the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural. |
| atheists | Militantly anti-religious or anti-Christian agnostics, secularists, or marxists. |
| attendance, church | See church attenders. (Church attendance is not detailed in WCD). |
| attending non-Christians | Non-Christians (Hindus, Muslims, pagans et alii) who, being interested in Christianity, attend church services regularly or occasionally. |
| attending non-members | Nominal Christians (unaffiliated to churches) who occasionally, or in some cases regularly, attend church services. |
| attribute | A quality, character or characteristic of a group. |
| audience, radio | See radio audience. |
| audio gospel | A cassette or tape or recording of a complete Gospel. |
| audio scriptures | Portions (gospels) or selections (verses) on cassette, tape, or recording. |
| audio-visuals | Over 100 significant Christian organizations are at work in this field. |
| Australian Aborigine | An Austro-Asiatic ethnolinguistic family. |
| Austro-Asiatic | One of the 13 ethnic regions of mankind, speaking 440 languages. |
| authentic Christians | See committed Christians. |
| Authentic Orthodox | Paleohemerologites or Old Calendarists (qv). |
| autocephality | The state of ecclesiastical autonomy, of a church that appoints its own chief bishop without outside sanction. |
| autocephalous church | An independent, self-governing church appointing its own chief bishop. |
| autochthonous | Indigenous, native, aboriginal; the original population of an area. |
| auto-evangelization | Self-evangelization; the evangelization by the church of its own children and its younger generation. |
| autoglossonym | Name for a people’s own language as used by the people themselves in their own language; often with prefix or suffix meaning ‘the language of’. |
| automatic writing | See spirit writing. |
| autonomous church | In Eastern Orthodox usage a semi-independent and partially self-governing church; in Anglican usage, an independent and self-governing province or church. |
| autonym | Indigenous or own name for a language; autoglossonym. |
| auxiliary bishop | A titular bishop in the Catholic Church who assists the ordinary of a diocese. |
| average | An arithmetical term derived by dividing the sum of a group of numbers by their total number, arithmetic mean. |
| average income | National income per person (qv). |
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.