Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Young Men's Christian Association

(Encyclopedia)Young Men's Christian Association, (the Y or YMCA), organization having as its objective the development of values and behaviors that are consistent with Christian principles. Despite its name, member...

Young Women's Christian Association

(Encyclopedia)Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), organization whose stated mission is “to empower women and girls and to eliminate racism.” The movement is nondenominational. It grew out of the homes f...

Woman's Christian Temperance Union

(Encyclopedia)Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), organization that seeks to upgrade moral life, especially through abstinence from alcohol. The National WCTU of the United States was founded (1874) in Cleve...

Stephen, Saint, Christian martyr

(Encyclopedia)Stephen, Saint, d. a.d. 36?, first Christian martyr, stoned at Jerusalem. He was one of the seven deacons. Accused of blasphemy, he was brought before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. His speech defending ...

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

(Encyclopedia)Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), civil-rights organization founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King, Jr., and headed by him until his assassination in 1968. Composed largely of African-Am...

Sibelius, Jean Julius Christian

(Encyclopedia)Sibelius, Jean Julius Christian zhän yo͞oˈlyo͝os krĭsˈtyän sĭbāˈlyo͝os [key], 1865–1957, Finnish composer. Sibelius was a highly personal, romantic composer, yet at the same time he repre...

Early Christian art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)Early Christian art and architecture, works of art exhibiting Christian themes and structures designed for Christian worship created relatively soon after the death of Jesus. Most date from the 4th to...

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

(Encyclopedia)Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), sometimes called Campbellites, a Protestant religious body founded early in the 19th cent. in the United States. Its primary thesis is that the Bible alone shou...

church, aggregation of Christian believers

(Encyclopedia)church [probably Gr.,=divine], aggregation of Christian believers. The traditional belief has the church the community of believers, living and dead, headed by Jesus, who founded it in the apostles. T...

church, building for Christian worship

(Encyclopedia)church [Gr. kuriakon=belonging to the Lord], in architecture, a building for Christian worship. The earliest churches date from the late 3d cent.; before then Christians, because of persecutions, wors...