The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#501
Don Saliers
#34486
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Don E. Saliers is an American theologian specializing in homiletics and liturgics. He was the William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Although he retired from Candler in 2007, Professor Saliers returned to Candler as Theologian-in-Residence in 2015.
Go to Profile#502
Carlos Osoro Sierra
#22606
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Carlos Osoro Sierra is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Madrid from 2014 to 2023. He has been a bishop since 1997 and a cardinal since 2016. Life Osoro was born in Castañeda in northern Spain on 16 May 1945. He studied at the Escuela Normal and taught for a year in Santander. He then entered the seminary for adult vocations in Salamanca, earning licentiates in theology and philosophy at the Pontifical University of Salamanca. He later obtained a licentiate in Exact Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and another in pedagogy from the University of Salamanca.
Go to Profile#503
Raymund Schwager
#19884
Overall Influence
1935 - 2004 (69 years)
Raymund Schwager was a Swiss Roman Catholic priest and theologian, and member of the Society of Jesus. Life Schwager was born on 11 November 1935 in Balterswil into a Swiss farming family as the second of seven children. After primary and secondary school he joined the Society of Jesus in 1955. Following Jesuit custom, he studied philosophy and theology , separated by educational work as a prefect in a Jesuit boarding school .
Go to Profile#504
Chad Van Dixhoorn
#42172
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Chad B. Van Dixhoorn , a Canadian-born theologian and historian, is the editor of the five-volume The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly: 1643-1652 published by Oxford University Press in 2012. In 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of his work on the Westminster assembly. In 2014 Banner of Truth Trust published Van Dixhoorn's second work, Confessing the Faith: a reader's guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Go to Profile#505
Franz Kamphaus
#18167
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Franz Kamphaus is a German Catholic priest, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of Limburg. He was bishop of the diocese from 1982 to 2007. He was the only German bishop to oppose Pope John Paul II in the matter of counseling pregnant women in conflict situations. Before being bishop, he taught pastoral theology and homiletics at the University of Münster; afterwards he became minister of a home for people with physical and mental disabilities in Aulhausen.
Go to Profile#506
Javier Echevarría Rodríguez
#20576
Overall Influence
1932 - 2016 (84 years)
Javier Echevarría Rodríguez was a Spanish bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Until his death, he was the head of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei. He held doctorates in both civil and canon law.
Go to Profile#507
Colin Gunton
#32317
Overall Influence
1941 - 2003 (62 years)
Colin Ewart Gunton was an English Reformed systematic theologian. He made contributions to the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of the Trinity. He was Professor of Christian Doctrine at King's College, London, from 1984 and co-founder with Christoph Schwoebel of the Research Institute for Systematic Theology in 1988. Gunton was actively involved in the United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom where he had been a minister since 1972.
Go to Profile#508
William Edgar
#34902
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
William "Bill" Edgar is an American apologist and was professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary. He has been called by Charles Colson "one of evangelicalism's most valued scholars and apologists".
Go to Profile#509
Suhaib Webb
#20792
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Suhaib Webb is an American Muslim imam who converted from Christianity to Islam in 1992. He has previously been the imam of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center . Biography Early life He was born William Webb in 1972 in Oklahoma to a Christian family, including a grandfather who served as a preacher. At age 14, he lost interest in religion, going through a self-described spiritual crisis. He also began engaging in delinquency by joining a local gang and became a local hip hop DJ and producer, making records with various artists.
Go to Profile#510
Nancey Murphy
#10977
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Nancey Murphy is an American philosopher and theologian who is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. She received the B.A. from Creighton University in 1973, the Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 1980, and the Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in 1987.
Go to Profile#511
Bryan Chapell
#33724
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Bryan Chapell is an American pastor and theologian who currently serves as the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America. He was previously the senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois. Prior to that he was president and chancellor of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri for twenty years. Chapell is also an author, lecturer, and conference speaker specializing in homiletics. He served as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America in 2014.
Go to Profile#512
R. Scott Clark
#38041
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Robert Scott Clark is an American Reformed pastor and seminary professor. He is the author of several books, including his most recent work, Recovering the Reformed Confession. Biography Clark earned a B.A. from the University of Nebraska, Master of Divinity from Westminster Seminary California, and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. Since 1997 he has been teaching at Westminster Seminary California, where he served as academic dean from 1997 to 2001; currently he is professor of church history and historical theology. He has also taught at Wheaton College , Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, and Concordia University, Irvine.
Go to Profile#513
Albrecht Goes
#31133
Overall Influence
1908 - 2000 (92 years)
Albrecht Goes was a German writer and Protestant theologian. Life Albrecht Goes was born in 1908 in the Protestant rectory in Langenbeutingen. He spent his childhood there, but his mother died in 1911 and in 1915 he went to live with his grandmother in Berlin-Steglitz. He went to school there until 1919, when he moved to a school in Göppingen. In 1922, he entered the theological seminary in Urach, and from 1922 to 1923 he attended the seminary in Schöntal. His room-mate there was Gerd Gaiser. He passed his university exams and in 1924 entered the advanced seminary in Urach.
Go to Profile#514
Jay W. Richards
#21390
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Jay Wesley Richards is an American analytic philosopher who focuses on the intersection of politics, philosophy, and religion. He is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in Heritage’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. He serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Business at the Catholic University of America and the executive editor of The Stream and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. A former Presbyterian, Richards is now a Catholic.
Go to Profile#515
Wilton Daniel Gregory
#15596
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Wilton Daniel Gregory is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has been serving as the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington since 2019. Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of cardinal on November 28, 2020. He is the first African-American cardinal.
Go to Profile#516
Joel B. Green
#25759
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Joel B. Green is an American New Testament scholar, theologian, author, Associate Dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Study, and Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Green is a prolific author who has written on a diverse range of topics related to both New Testament scholarship and theology. He is an ordained elder of the United Methodist Church.
Go to Profile#517
Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru
#33741
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who has been secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts since 15 February 2007. A bishop since 2008, he has held several other appointments in the Roman Curia.
Go to Profile#518
Wojciech Polak
#29710
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Wojciech Polak is the Roman Catholic archbishop of Gniezno, Poland, since his appointment on 17 May 2014. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of Gniezno. Biography Early life Polak was born in 1964 in Inowrocław, within the territory of the archdiocese. After passing his exams in 1983, he was admitted to the Major Seminary of Gniezno and on 13 May 1989 he was ordained to the priesthood. In the years 1989–1991 was an assistant priest at St. Martin and Nicholas' Church in Bydgoszcz.
Go to Profile#519
Sasagu Arai
#36412
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Sasagu Arai is a Japanese researcher of early Christianity and Gnosticism. Arai is a Doctor of Theology Professor emeritus of University of Tokyo and Keisen University, and a member of the Japan Academy. He graduated at Erlangen-Nürnberg University in Germany.
Go to Profile#520
Arvind P. Nirmal
#45282
Overall Influence
1936 - 1995 (59 years)
Arvind P. Nirmal, was a Dalit Christian theologian and a minister of the Church of North India. He questioned the Christian conversion of the upper castes, especially the Brahmin. A major proponent of Dalit theology, Nirmal argued that Jesus himself was a Dalit and that Christian theology should therefore reflect Dalit concerns.
Go to Profile#521
Zbigniew Kiernikowski
#43319
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Zbigniew Kiernikowski is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church who was bishop of Legnica from 2014 to 2021 and of Siedlce from 2002 to 2014. Biography Kiernikowski was ordained to the priesthood on 6 June 1971.
Go to Profile#522
Antonio Cañizares Llovera
#19675
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Antonio Cañizares Llovera is a Spanish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who was the Archbishop of Valencia from 2014 to 2022. He was prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2008 to 2014, and archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain from 2002 to 2008. He was made a cardinal in 2006.
Go to Profile#523
Raffaele Farina
#19585
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Raffaele Farina SDB is an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives, Librarian of the Vatican Library, and president of Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica. Farina was elevated to the cardinalate in 2007.
Go to Profile#524
Servais-Théodore Pinckaers
#20865
Overall Influence
1925 - 2008 (83 years)
Servais-Théodore Pinckaers OP was a noted moral theologian, Roman Catholic priest, and member of the Dominican Order . He has been especially influential in the renewal of a theological and Christological approach to Christian virtue ethics.
Go to Profile#525
Mark Goodacre
#27388
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Mark S. Goodacre is a New Testament scholar and Professor at Duke University's Department of Religion. He has written extensively on the Synoptic Problem; that is, the origins of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He has defended the Farrer hypothesis, and thus accepts Markan priority but rejects Q.
Go to Profile#526
Edward Heppenstall
#39692
Overall Influence
1901 - 1994 (93 years)
Edward E. Heppenstall was a leading Bible scholar and theologian of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A 1985 questionnaire of North American Adventist lecturers revealed Heppenstall was the Adventist writer who had most influenced them.
Go to Profile#527
Paul van Buren
#37326
Overall Influence
1924 - 1998 (74 years)
Paul Matthews van Buren was a Christian theologian and author. An ordained Episcopal priest, he was a Professor of religion at Temple University, Philadelphia for 22 years. He was a Director [NYT obituary says "Associate"] of the Center of Ethics and Religious Pluralism at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#528
Johannes Aagaard
#29151
Overall Influence
1928 - 2007 (79 years)
Johannes Monrad Aagaard was a Danish theologian and evangelist. He was a professor of missiology at the University of Aarhus. He founded the Department of Missiology and Ecumenical Theology and the Center for New Religious Studies at the University of Aarhus. He was active in the Christian countercult movement as the founder of the Dialog Center International, an international educational organization concerned with groups it defines as cults and other new religious movements. He was a former president of the International Association for Mission Studies. He was a member of the Faith and Order Commission and was on the board of the Theological Educational Fund.
Go to Profile#529
Ross Clifford
#31135
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Ross Richard Clifford AM is an Australian Baptist theologian, political commentator, radio personality and author. A former lawyer who later joined the ministry, Clifford became a campaigner on moral issues while a suburban Sydney pastor in the 1980s. He has served as head of several religious organisations and as an occasional media spokesperson. He unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council in 2003 for the Christian Democratic Party. Until mid-2010 he had a radio program on Sydney station 2CH.
Go to Profile#530
George C. Fuller
#33483
Overall Influence
George C. Fuller . was Professor of Practical Theology, Emeritus, and former president of Westminster Theological Seminary. He served as president from 1984 to 1991. Fuller was a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America .
Go to Profile#531
Denis Lamoureux
#26245
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Denis O. Lamoureux holds a professorial chair of science and religion at St. Joseph's College at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He has doctoral degrees in dentistry, theology, and biology. The author of Evolutionary Creation and of I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution, he has also written Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate on Biological Origins, on the creation–evolution controversy .
Go to Profile#532
Jean-Louis Bruguès
#17538
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Jean-Louis Bruguès, OP is a French archbishop of the Catholic Church. He was the Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church from 2012 to 2018. Biography Bruguès was born at Bagnères de Bigorre, in the diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes. He studied at the Faculty of Law of Montpellier and the Faculty of Arts of Madrid , graduating with Law and Economics degrees. He graduated from the School of Political Science in 1966 with a degree in Political Science. He was selected for the entrance exam to the elite École nationale d'administration, but instead completed a doctorate in theology.
Go to Profile#533
Emilie Townes
#14668
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Emilie Maureen Townes is an American Christian social ethicist and theologian. She is currently Dean and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Townes was the first African-American woman to be elected president of the American Academy of Religion in 2008 and served as president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012–2016.
Go to Profile#534
Charles L. Feinberg
#27315
Overall Influence
1909 - 1995 (86 years)
Charles Lee Feinberg was an American biblical scholar and professor of Semitics and Old Testament. He was an authority on the Jewish history, languages and customs of the Old Testament and biblical prophecies.
Go to Profile#535
François Bovon
#25608
Overall Influence
1938 - 2013 (75 years)
François Bovon was a Swiss biblical scholar and historian of early Christianity. He was the Frothingham Professor Emeritus of the History of Religion at Harvard Divinity School. Bovon was a graduate of the University of Lausanne and held a doctorate in theology from the University of Basel . From 1967 to 1993, he taught in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva. Bovon was an honorary professor at the University of Geneva and in 1993 he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden. He was president of the Swiss Society of Theology from...
Go to Profile#536
Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley
#26788
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley is an American religious studies scholar and historian of religion known for her work on Mandaeism and Gnosticism. She was a former Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College. She is known for translating the Scroll of Exalted Kingship and other Mandaean texts, as well as for her various books on the Mandaean religion and people.
Go to Profile#537
Engelbert Mveng
#24421
Overall Influence
1930 - 1995 (65 years)
Engelbert Mveng, SJ , was a Cameroonian Jesuit priest, artist, historian, theologian, and anthropologist. Early life and religious education Born in a Presbyterian family but baptized in a Catholic church, Mveng received a Christian education from his parents. His intelligence was noticed by a priest, Father Herbard, who sent him to school in Efok, Cameroon from 1943 to 1944. As a teenager, his talent for draftsmanship led him to tutor younger students at a nearby mission school in Minlaba. The next stage of his studies followed in the minor seminary of Akono from 1944 to 1949.
Go to Profile#538
Joseph E. B. Lumbard
#25031
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Joseph E.B. Lumbard is an American Muslim scholar of Islamic studies and associate professor of Quranic studies at the College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. He is the author, editor, and translator of several scholarly books and many articles on Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and Quranic studies.
Go to Profile#539
Nigel Biggar
#19626
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Nigel John Biggar is a British Anglican priest, theologian, and ethicist. From 2007 to 2022, he was the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford. Early life Biggar was born on 14 March 1955 in Castle Douglas, Scotland. He was educated at Monkton Combe School, a private school near Bath, Somerset. He studied modern history at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1976. As per tradition, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts degree in 1988. He attended the University of Chicago, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in re...
Go to Profile#540
E. Earle Ellis
#35409
Overall Influence
1926 - 2010 (84 years)
Edward Earle Ellis was an American biblical scholar. Ellis served as Research Professor of Theology Emeritus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, joining the institution in 1985.
Go to Profile#541
Duane Litfin
#27586
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
A. Duane Litfin is an American academic administrator and evangelical minister. He was the seventh president of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Early life and education Litfin was born on November 14, 1945. He holds an undergraduate degree in biblical studies from the Philadelphia College of Bible and a master's degree in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. His two doctoral degrees are from Purdue University and Oxford . He came to Wheaton in 1993 from Memphis, Tennessee, where he served the First Evangelical Church as senior pastor. Prior to that, he was an associate professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#542
Laurie L. Patton
#9257
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Laurie L. Patton is an American academic, author, and poet who serves as the 17th president of Middlebury College. Early life and education Patton was raised in Danvers, Massachusetts, and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, a doctorate from the University of Chicago, and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2000.
Go to Profile#543
Daniel Horan
#26653
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Daniel Patrick Horan is an American Franciscan friar, Catholic priest, theologian, and author. He is currently the director of the Center for Spirituality and professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Theology at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. He previously held the Duns Scotus Chair of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He is a columnist for National Catholic Reporter.
Go to Profile#544
G. C. Berkouwer
#34671
Overall Influence
1903 - 1996 (93 years)
Gerrit Cornelis "G.C." Berkouwer was for years the leading theologian of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands . He occupied the chair in systematic theology of the Faculty of Theology, Free University in Amsterdam.
Go to Profile#545
Daniel Sperber
#12326
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Daniel Sperber is a British-born Israeli academic and centrist orthodox rabbi. He is a professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and an expert in classical philology, history of Jewish customs, Jewish art history, Jewish education, and Talmudic studies.
Go to Profile#546
Candido Amantini
#39709
Overall Influence
1914 - 1992 (78 years)
Candido Amantini, CP, , was an Italian Passionist priest. For 36 years Amantini was the exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, stationed at the Pontifical Sanctuary of the Holy Stairs. He also taught Sacred Scripture and Moral Theology and wrote a book entitled Il Mistero di Maria, about the Virgin Mary.
Go to Profile#547
Peter Hocken
#35936
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Peter Hocken was a British theologian and historian of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Pentecostal movement in the twentieth century. Born in Brighton, England, Hocken was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Northampton in 1964. He lectured in moral theology at Oscott College, Birmingham, England . He obtained permission to leave the country in order to join the Mother of God Community, Washington, United States, where he was an active member between 1976 and 1996. He regularly contributed to the community's devotional magazine, "The Word Among Us". I...
Go to Profile#548
Robert S. Ellwood
#6381
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Robert S. Ellwood is an American academic, author and expert on world religions. He was educated at the University of Colorado, Berkeley Divinity School and was awarded a PhD in History of Religions from the University of Chicago in 1967. He was Professor of World Religions at the University of Southern California from 1967 until 1997 and is now professor emeritus.
Go to Profile#549
Heiner Koch
#33829
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Heiner Koch is a German prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been the Archbishop of Berlin since September 2015. He was an auxiliary bishop in Cologne from 2006 to 2013 and Bishop of Dresden-Meissen from 2013 to 2015.
Go to Profile#550
Blase J. Cupich
#13052
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Blase Joseph Cupich is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, a cardinal who serves as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Cupich was ordained a priest there in 1975. He was named Bishop of Rapid City in South Dakota, by Pope John Paul II in 1998. Cupich was then named bishop of the Diocese of Spokane in Washington State by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. After being chosen by Pope Francis to succeed Cardinal Francis George as Archbishop of Chicago, Cupich was installed there in 2014. He was subsequently also appointed to the Roman Curia's Congregation for Bishops, which plays a role in advising the pope on episcopal matters, including appointments.
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