Guess Who?

In our current issue, "The Ten Most Influential Christians of the Twentieth Century," we had some fun with the "Did You Know?" page. We dug up little-known photos of each person and asked readers to identify them. Unfortunately, we can't include the photos in this newsletter, but we'd still like to give our newsletter subscribers (most of whom don't get the magazine … yet) a chance to play the guessing game. With the following hints, see how many of the notables (listed in no particular order) you can name:

1. After graduating from high school, he became a Fuller Brush salesman. He later remarked, "Selling those brushes became a cause to me. … I felt that every family ought to have Fuller brushes as a matter of principle." By summer's end, he was the leading salesman in his two-state area. (Hint: The one man no CTi publication could possibly leave off its list.)

2. He was one of the first pastors in his region to own a bicycle, which he used to peddle to ministerial meetings. There, he later said, he and his colleagues would "talk and brood a lot; sometimes we would mock other people and laugh at them. We would smoke a variety of cigars." (Hint: He revived orthodoxy when mere moralism and humanism had seemingly won over the theological world.)

3. As a child, he once became convinced that a pot of gold was buried beneath the path to his house. He dug a big hole, which his father unhappily fell into after a long day at work. (Hint: He was an atheist scholar who became an Anglican, an apologist, and a "patron saint" of Christians everywhere.)

4. In her youth, she played the mandolin, was described as "plump, round, and tidy," and was given the nickname "Flowerbud." (Hint: She stirred a generation by touching the untouchables.)

5. He grew up in a farming family who shared the ground floor of their house with six cows; during World War I he served as a sergeant and chaplain in the medical corps. (Hint: Elected to be a caretaker pope, he decided instead to revolutionize Catholicism.)

6. After his first date with the woman who would become his wife, he said, "The four things I look for in a wife are character, intelligence, personality, and beauty. And you have them all. I want to see you again." (Hint: No Christian played a more prominent role in the century's most significant social justice movement.)

7. He committed himself to foreign missions at D.L. Moody's famous 1889 Northfield Conference and was later invited to manage the evangelist's new Bible training school (later Moody Bible Institute) in Chicago. (Hint: Edinburgh, 1910. If that doesn't ring a bell, you've never heard of him.)

8. Early on, he exhibited a passion both for the mystical, especially for the writings of John of the Cross, and the athletic, including kayaking, hiking, swimming, and skiing. (Hint: In issuing more significant encyclicals and visiting more nations than any other pope in history, he's shown that Christianity remains a world force.)

9. Returning to a new church after preaching his first sermon there, he found the doors padlocked against him and his revolutionary message. (Hint: What scoffers viewed as a "weird babble of tongues" became a world phenomenon after his Los Angeles revival.)

10. He was raised in a family of intellectuals, majored in mathematics, and rose to the rank of captain in the army—then he was arrested.

(Hint: The high school physics-teacher-turned-novelist whose writings shook an empire.)We'll be featuring each of these people at our Web site over the next ten weeks, so take your best guesses, then check back to find out who we picked. If you just can't stand the suspense, see if the nice folks at 1-800-873-6986 can hook you up with a subscription.

Related Elsewhere

More Christian History, including a listing of events that occurred this week in the church's past, is available at ChristianHistory.netWant to know more about the ten most influential Christians of the twentieth century? Christian History's issue on the subject (Issue 65) is available now by subscribing to the magazine.

Christian History Corner appears every Friday at ChristianityToday.com. Previous Christian History Corners include:

The Caged Bird Wrote | If only CBS had chosen a true heroine for Black History Month … (Feb. 11, 2000)

A Cave of One's Own | Who were the early church's 'desert mothers'? (Feb. 4, 2000)

For Better or Worse | The Church of England's current wrestling with divorce echoes its inception (Jan 28, 2000)

Out with the Old? | As rumors of Pope John Paul II's retirement circulate, it's worth remembering the story of the last pope to resign (Jan. 21, 2000)

Roman, Lend Me Your Ear | When a bishop rebuked a Christian emperor, who had the final word? (Jan. 14, 2000)

Good King, Bad King | How Christian was the king whose name is almost always associated with the Bible? (Jan. 7, 2000)