Bible Quiz - History

History

After the Second World War, youth organizations across the United States formed Youth for Christ as an umbrella organization to coordinate their Christian evangelical action. One of Youth for Christ's popular activities in many areas was Bible quizzing in which teams organized according to local high schools competed against one another in local areas, known as rallies. Competition would be between three teams of four players each who would attempt to answer twenty questions, read aloud one at a time. After a player answered five questions correctly or three incorrectly he or she would have to be replaced by another player, and other substitutions were also permitted. In some regions of the United States, the local quiz team champions would travel to compete against champion teams from other areas, and national competitions also were held at the annual Winona Like Bible Conference Youth for Christ conventions in Winona Lake, Indiana, where national Bible quiz team champions were determined. Popularity achieved its zenith in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

One of the unusual features of early Youth for Christ Bible quizzing was the challenge to participants to jump to their feet from a sitting position to win the right to answer each question. At first, judges would determine the first to jump by viewing above index cards to see whose head first "broke the plane." But, as time passed, local Youth for Christ rallies built or purchased special seat cushions with electrical relay switches that lit signal lights on consoles after pressure was removed due to the quizzer jumping up from the seat. In this way, the right to answer went to the first to leave his/her seat rather than the first to appear to have jumped, thus removing any advantage for taller participants. This was one of the earliest mixed gender competitions for teens which depended, in part, upon some athletic ability.

As the format of Youth for Christ activities changed in the late 1960s, Bible quiz teams began to represent individual churches, and groups of churches from the same denomination began to hold competitions limited to those denominations apart from the Youth for Christ supervision.