John R. Ahern writes,

Rough. Work in progress. Please know I’m being cynical about a lot of things, but I hope to involve a certain amount of accuracy and aptitude at the same time. If I say something patently off the wall, please, comment.

A

ABDICATION, n. See ROWAN WILLIAMS.

ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION, n. An event towards which most Christians in past and present have looked with gleeful anticipation, despite their nominal fear that it should happen in their lifetimes; whereas there is a small faction of Christians, called praeterists, who are allowed to look at with historical satisfaction, having ostensibly occurred in 70 A. D.

ALITURGICAL, adj. Any given Divine Liturgy after Vatican II. See also OREGON CATHOLIC PUBLICATIONS.

ANABAPTIST, adj. A strand of the Radical Reformation believing infant baptism void. (from anab, English acronym: a New American Bible)

ANGELOLOGY, n. The study of angels, most expanded upon by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and St. Thomas Aquinas. Recently and less formally Jacques Maritain and C. S. Lewis have contributed to it, pointing out that the Victorian representation of angels as dazzling females or cuddly babies was nowhere based in reality. On that score, Ogden Nash says in The Cherub,

I like to watch the clouds roll by,
And think of cherubs in the sky;
But when I think of cherubim,
I don’t know if they’re her or him.

The naming of this dictionary after an angel should be purely construed as a response of Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary. The author, however not wishing to give himself airs, finds it hard to imagine either babies or girls, with wings and rosy cheeks complete, to be this cynical.

ART, ECCLESIASTICAL, n. Icons, paintings, sculptures, and architecture of the Church. Different ages and different Churches have had differing artistic styles. Post counter-Reformation, Catholics and Orthodox tended to swing between iconoclastic and pristine art, and the more aesthetically pleasing styles that evolved into Romanesque and Gothic. After the Reformation, the Roman Catholics adopted often Baroque and Neoclassical art for their churches. Most Protestants to this day don’t give a darn. There are a few who do, and these are usually mistaken for Catholics.

ATTRITION, n. (a) The impulse to repentance out of fear of Hell. (b) The decrease of a church’s congregants, laity, or members; in evangelical and/or charismatic circles, a church split; in Calvinism, usually the same pastor for more than two years.