American evangelicals

John Garrett Olerud, Jr. (; born August 5, 1968), nicknamed "Johnny O", is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from 1989 through 2005, most notably as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays team that won two consecutive World Series championships in 1992 and 1993. He also played for the New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox.
A two-time All-Star, Olerud was a patient, productive hitter throughout his career, winning the American League batting title in 1993, and finishing as runner-up for the National League batting title in 1998. Olerud was also an excellent defensive first baseman, and won three Gold Glove Awards. In 1999, he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated titled "The Best Infield Ever?" along with Edgardo Alfonzo, Rey Ordóñez, and Robin Ventura, when he played for the Mets. Olerud was notable for wearing a helmet while on defense, due to him suffering from a brain aneurysm in college.

James Ronald Ryun (born April 29, 1947) is an American former Republican politician and Olympic track and field athlete, who at his peak was widely considered the world's top middle-distance runner. He won a silver medal in the 1500 m at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and was the first high school athlete to run a mile in under four minutes. He is the last American to hold the world record in the mile run. Ryun later served in the United States House of Representatives from 1996 to 2007, representing Kansas's 2nd congressional district.

Gavin MacLeod ( mə-KLOWD; born Allan George See; February 28, 1931 – May 29, 2021) was an American actor best known for his roles as news writer Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and ship's captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat. After growing up Catholic, MacLeod became an evangelical Christian in 1984. His career, which spanned six decades, included work as a Christian television host, author, and guest on several talk, variety, and religious programs.
MacLeod's career began in films in 1957. In 1965, he starred in The Sword of Ali Baba. He went on to appear in A Man Called Gannon (1968), in The Thousand Plane Raid (1969), and in Kelly's Heroes (1970).
MacLeod also achieved continuing television success co-starring alongside Ernest Borgnine on McHale's Navy (1962–1964) as Joseph "Happy" Haines.

Russell S. Doughten Jr. (February 16, 1927 – August 19, 2013) was an American filmmaker and producer of numerous short and feature-length films. His film work is credited under numerous variations of his name: with or without the "Jr." suffix or middle initial, and sometimes using the informal "Russ" instead of "Russell".
Doughten made both secular and Christian films. His work included the 1958 science fiction classic The Blob. He was best known for his four-part series A Thief in the Night. Nearly all of his Christian films were shot in various locales in his home state of Iowa.He has been referred to as "the godfather of independent film in Iowa" and his body of work ranks him as the leading filmmaker in that state. He mentored many indie filmmakers in Iowa.

Ralph Dana Winter (December 8, 1924 – May 20, 2009) was an American missiologist and Presbyterian missionary who helped pioneer Theological Education by Extension, raised the debate about the role of the church and mission structures and became well known as the advocate for pioneer outreach among unreached people groups. He was the founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission (USCWM, now Frontier Ventures), William Carey International University, and the International Society for Frontier Missiology.His 1974 presentation at the Congress for World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland – an event organized by American evangelist Billy Graham – was a watershed moment for global mission.It was during this presentation that Winter shifted global mission strategy from a focus on political boundaries to a focus on distinct people groups. Winter argued that instead of targeting countries, mission agencies needed to target the thousands of people groups worldwide, over half of which have not been reached with the gospel message.
Billy Graham once wrote: “Ralph Winter has not only helped promote evangelism among many mission boards around the world, but by his research, training and publishing he has accelerated world evangelization."In 2005, Winter was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Dr. Ray Tallman, shortly after Winter's death, described him as "perhaps the most influential person in missions of the last 50 years and has influenced missions globally more than anyone I can think of."

Jack Frasure Hyles (September 25, 1926 – February 6, 2001) was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.

Charles Rozell Swindoll (born October 18, 1934) is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator, and radio preacher. He founded Insight for Living, headquartered in Frisco, Texas, which airs a radio program of the same name on more than 2,000 stations around the world in 15 languages. He is currently senior pastor at Stonebriar Community Church, in Frisco, Texas.

Herman Paul Pressler III (born June 4, 1930), is an American judge who was a justice of the Texas 14th Circuit Court of Appeals in his native Houston, Texas. Pressler was a key figure in the conservative resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention, which he initiated in 1978. He has been accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least six men, some of whom were underage at the time of the alleged activity.

Jack Thomas Chick (April 13, 1924 – October 23, 2016) was an American cartoonist and publisher, best known for his fundamentalist Christian "Chick tracts". He expressed his perspective on a variety of issues through sequential-art morality plays.
Many of his tracts accused Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, and many other groups of murder and conspiracies. His comics have been described by Robert Ito, in Los Angeles magazine, as "equal parts hate literature and fire-and-brimstone sermonizing".Chick's views have been spread mostly through the tracts and, more recently, online. His company, Chick Publications, says it has sold over 750 million tracts, comic books, videos, books, and posters designed to promote Evangelical Protestantism from a Christian fundamentalist perspective. They have been translated into more than 100 languages.Chick was an Independent Baptist who followed a dispensationalist view of the End Times. He was a believer in the King James Only movement, which posits that every English translation of the Bible more recent than 1611 promotes heresy or immorality.

Demos Shakarian (Armenian: Դեմոս Շաքարյան; 21 July 1913 – 23 July 1993) was an American businessman of Armenian origin from Los Angeles who founded the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International (FGBMFI). His story and the story of FGBMFI is the subject of the book The Happiest People on Earth, written by John and Elizabeth Sherrill (Guideposts Magazine) and published in 1975.