Introduction
Introduction
It has been said that history is biography, although you wouldn't know it by reading many history books. Too often stories, quotes, and anecdotes are replaced with analysis, statistics, grand social movements, and dates piled upon one another. No wonder people find history boring.
We don't, and that's because the nature of our work—publishing a history magazine for a general audience—continually forces us to ask a simple question: What's really interesting about this? Most of the time, the answer lies in the people who have made history happen, without whom important dates would be just numbers. Here we present 131 of those interesting, and important, people.
Why 131 exactly? We determined first some of the callings Christians have practiced through the ages, then chose the ten (or, in one case, eleven) most important and interesting for each calling. Most of our choices can be easily defended, but we admit some are arbitrary. Space constraints have forced us to leave out some key figures (like poet W. H. Auden, Pentecostal preacher William Seymour, and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, for instance), and personal passions have dictated we include others less well-known (like theologian John of Damascus and adventist William Miller).
As for the adjective Christian: some of the individuals profiled here had, because of their times and circumstances, a limited understanding of the full-orbed faith. But since we see the same limitations in ourselves, it seemed only right that we err on the side of charity in determining who was “Christian.”
This doesn't mean we've chosen the 131 Christians we most admire or with whom we agree. This is a book about 131 Christians everyone should know because of what they've contributed to history and because of their intrinsic interest—not 131 Christians we should all emulate. Though certainly all have something to teach us.
As such, this is not a bad place to begin research, since we've striven to remain accurate throughout, separating myth from history where necessary, and including key dates and quotes. But the book is primarily designed for those who want to have a deeper appreciation of their Christian heritage—and enjoy it.
Mark Galli
Ted Olsen
Christian History