John Winthrop
I have vague memories of John Winthrop from my History of American Christianity seminary class. Confessionally, I was much more interested in Old & New Testament (probably a good thing), and much less so in religious history. Now, though, I'm much more interested in religious history now...enough to watch the PBS special God In America, where Winthrop is featured. But I was almost totally derailed by his being portrayed by LOST's Ben Linus (actor Michael Emerson) on this documentary. I may still use this as an excuse to re-launch the LOST epic via DVD.
Turns out, Winthrop was a prolific Puritan...he wrote the authoritative history of New England, was Massachusetts's first governor, and has thousands of descendants. He also famous for his A Model of Christian Charity sermon. Apparently, you can get a lot done while wearing one of those collars designed to keep dogs from chewing off their own stitches.
