Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Religion Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| esoteric | Used of sects whose doctrines and rites guard a mystery known only to the initiated. |
| Esoteric Vehicle | Tantrayana, or Tantrism school of Buddhists (qv). |
| ethnic Muslims | A term used to describe the 34 million persons (in 1970) belonging to traditionally Muslim nationalities in the USSR, of whom about 82% profess to be or regard themselves as religious Muslims. |
| ethnic religionists | Followers of local religions tied closely to specific ethnic groups, typically in Africa, with membership restricted to those groups; sometimes termed animists, polytheists, or shamanists. Older terminology: pagans, heathens, tribal religionists, traditional religionists. |
| ethnic religionists | Adherents of major world religions limited in theory or in practice to a particular ethnolinguistic group or groups; including Confucians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Parsis, Shintoists, Sikhs, et alia. |
| ethnic religionists | Followers of a non-Christian or pre-Christian religion tied closely to a specific ethnic group, with membership restricted to that group; usually animists, polytheists, or shamanists. Older terminology: pagans, heathens, tribal religionists, traditional religionists. |
| ethnocultural family | A larger cover name for a cultural collectivity, also termed a microrace, culture cluster, culture complex, ethnic family, single breeding population, culture family, a large grouping of specific cultures. |
| ethnocultural people | A single people in a single country, being an ethnic or racial population or people group defined by its ethnic and cultural behavior and features. |
| ethnolinguistic people | A distinct homogeneous ethnic or racial group within a single country, speaking its own language (one single mother tongue). A large people spread across 2, 3, 4, or several countries is treated here as being 2, 3, 4, or several distinct ethnolinguistic peoples. |
| ethnolinguistics | The study of relations between ethnic terms and terminology and their language or linguistic usages. |
| ethnometrics | The scientific measurement and study of the whole world of ethnicity and specific ethnic peoples. |
| ethnosphere | The world with its populations and cultures seen in terms of its ethnicity. |
| Evangelicals | Churches, denominations, and individuals who identify themselves as evangelicals by membership in denominations linked to evangelical alliances (e.g., World Evangelical Alliance) or by self-identification in polls. |
| experiential religions | Those which lay more emphasis on religious experience than on historical dogma (e.g. mysticism, faith-healing, charismatic renewal, Eastern religions, yoga, TM, etc.). |
| faith | Belief and trust in and loyalty to God in Christ; firm or unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof; orthodox religious belief; also used for religion, creed, credo. |
| fax | Facsimile transmission of digitized pictures or text over telephone lines. |
| fetishist | A believer in magical fetishes (objects believed by primitive peoples to have preternatural power). |
| fieldwork_dates | The dates when interviews were conducted. |
| First World | In the post World War II terminology originated with Charles de Gaulle, the Western world (Europe, Northern America) in contrast to the communist world and the Third World. |
| folk religion | Popular religion, popular religiosity (qv). |
| folk-religionists | Adherents of local cults or religions, often rural, in which elements of major world religions are blended with folk beliefs and customs. |
| follower | A believer in a particular religion, also synonymously termed an adherent, practitioner, disciple, religionist. In Christianity, follower is the preferred translation used by the Contemporary English Version for the NT Greek word mathetes (Latin, discipulus), synonym for ‘disciple’; an adherent with a personal, devoted relationship to Christ. |
| followers | Persons following a great leader’s religious teachings; adherents, disciples, members, et alia. |
| Freemasons | Members of the secret fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, the largest worldwide secret society, spread by the advance of the British empire; 7,500,000 members worldwide (5 million in USA, 1.5 million in British Isles, 15,000 in France, 5,000 in Kenya also strong in Italy, Germany, Liberia, et alia. Strong hostility to the churches especially Catholic Church) in France, Italy, Latin countries; banned in USSR, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Portugal, China, Indonesia, Egypt, et alia. |
| freethinkers | Agnostics, skeptics, unbelievers. |
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.