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,
#801
James Alison
#22601
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
James Alison is an English Catholic priest and theologian. Alison is noted for his application of René Girard's anthropological theory to Christian systematic theology and for his work on LGBT issues.
Go to Profile#802
Jon Zens
#39869
Overall Influence
Jon Zens is an American author, speaker, scholar and theologian on Christian topics. Zens is best known for pioneering New Covenant Theology. Zens is also an expert on the Anabaptist history and theology.
Go to Profile#803
Olivier Clément
#30632
Overall Influence
1921 - 2009 (88 years)
Olivier-Maurice Clément was a French Eastern Orthodox theologian who taught at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, France. He actively promoted the reunification of Christians , dialogue between Christians and people of other beliefs, and the engagement of Christian thinkers with modern thought and society.
Go to Profile#804
Stephen Joseph Rossetti
#34792
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Stephen Joseph Rossetti is an American Catholic priest, author, educator, licensed psychologist and expert on psychological and spiritual wellness issues for Catholic priests. He has appeared on such television shows as Meet the Press and Larry King Live. He served as president and CEO of Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland from 1996 to 2009 and as president from 2013 to 2014. In October, 2009 Rossetti stepped down from this position and in January 2010, joined the faculty of The Catholic University of America to teach in the School of Theology and Religious Studies. Since 2009, h...
Go to Profile#805
John T. Pawlikowski
#43801
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M. is a Servite Friar priest, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, and Former Director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program, part of The Bernardin Center for Theology and Ministry, at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He is currently in residence at Assumption Church in the River North section of Chicago.
Go to Profile#806
John J. Collins
#38922
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
John J. Collins is the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. He is noted for his research in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the apocryphal works of the Second Temple period including the sectarian works found in Dead Sea Scrolls and their relation to Christian origins. Collins has published and edited over 300 scholarly works, and a number of popular level articles and books. Among his best known works are the Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora ; Daniel in the Hermeneia commentary series ; The Scepter and the Star.
Go to Profile#807
Brian E. Daley
#37840
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Brian Edward Daley, S.J. is an American Catholic priest, Jesuit, and theologian. He is currently the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and was the recipient of a Ratzinger Prize for Theology in 2012.
Go to Profile#808
Thomas Weinandy
#38289
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Thomas Gerard Weinandy is an American Roman Catholic priest and a leading scholar. He is a prolific writer in both academic and popular works, including articles, books, and study courses. Biography Weinandy entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in 1966, was solemnly professed in 1970, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1972. He earned a BA in philosophy at St. Fidelis College, Herman, Pennsylvania, in 1969, an MA in systematic theology at Washington Theological Union in 1972, and a doctorate in historical theology at King's College London in 1975. He lived in and was an active memb...
Go to Profile#809
J. Cheryl Exum
#51343
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Jo Cheryl Exum is a feminist biblical scholar. She is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Sheffield. Education and career Exum studied at Wake Forest University, where she received her BA, and Columbia University, where she received her MA and PhD. Previously, she taught at Boston College. She served as part of the translation team for the New Revised Standard Version. While at Sheffield, Exum served as Director of the university's Centre for the Study of the Bible in the Modern World. In 2004, Exum co-founded Sheffield Phoenix Press, an academic publisher of books in biblical studies, along with David J.
Go to Profile#810
Cahal Daly
#22194
Overall Influence
1917 - 2009 (92 years)
Cahal Brendan Cardinal Daly KGCHS was a Roman Catholic prelate, theologian and writer from Northern Ireland. Daly served as the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh from late 1990 to 1996, the oldest man to take up this role for nearly 200 years. He was later created a Cardinal-Priest of S. Patrizio by Pope John Paul II in the consistory of 28 June 1991.
Go to Profile#811
Lee A. Piché
#35025
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Lee Anthony Piché is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota beginning in 2009, retired from public ministry in 2015, and returned to public ministry in 2023 as vicar for retired priests.
Go to Profile#812
Martyn Percy
#29644
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Martyn William Percy is a British academic, educator, social scientist and theologian. Ordained as a priest in the Church of England, in 2022 he announced that he was leaving the Church of England, though remains Episcopalian-Anglican. He had been Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, from 2014 to 2022 and principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, from 2004 to 2014.
Go to Profile#813
Bryan Stone
#49531
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Bryan P. Stone is an American theologian who is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Boston University School of Theology, and a Co-director of the Center for Practical Theology. Stone writes on topics related to both systematic theology and practical theology. He is associated with both postliberalism and Christian pacifism, having been influenced by thinkers such as John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John Wesley, and in his earliest work with liberation theology and process theology.
Go to Profile#814
Adele Berlin
#48285
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Adele Berlin is an American biblical scholar and Hebraist. Before her retirement, she was Robert H. Smith Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Maryland. Berlin is best known for 1994 work Poetics and interpretation of biblical narrative . She has also written commentaries on Zephaniah, Esther, and Lamentations. A Festschrift in her honor, "Built by Wisdom, Established by Understanding": Essays in Honor of Adele Berlin, was published in 2013.
Go to Profile#815
Peter Vardy
#14108
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Peter Christian Vardy is a British theologian. The author or co-author of 18 books about religion and ethics, Vardy was vice-principal of Heythrop College, a Jesuit college in London, from 1999 to 2011. He is known for the religious-studies conferences he runs in the UK for schools.
Go to Profile#816
Keith Mathison
#52196
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Keith A. Mathison is an American Reformed theologian. Mathison grew up near Houston, Texas. He began graduate studies at Dallas Theological Seminary before transferring to Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando. After completing his M.A. at RTS, he began working at Ligonier Ministries, where he served as an associate editor of the Reformation Study Bible. He obtained a Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary and currently serves as professor of systematic theology at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida.
Go to Profile#817
Jan Willis
#54170
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Janice Dean Willis, or Jan Willis is Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University, where she has taught since 1977; and the author of books on Tibetan Buddhism. She has been called influential by Time Magazine, Newsweek , and Ebony Magazine. Aetna Inc.'s 2011 African American History Calendar features professor Willis as one of thirteen distinguished leaders of faith-based health initiatives in the United States.
Go to Profile#818
Mercy Oduyoye
#58669
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye is a Ghanaian Methodist theologian known for her work in African women's theologies and theological anthropology. She is currently the Director of the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana. She founded the Circle of Concerned African Theologians in Ghana in 1987 to promote the visibility and publishing agenda of African women Theologians.
Go to Profile#819
G. I. Williamson
#34547
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (99 years)
Gerald Irvin Williamson was an American Reformed theologian, pastor, and author. Biography G. I. Williamson was a Christian minister for fifty years. He retired from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church ministry in 2011. Having learned to play clarinet and saxophone because of his enthusiasm for the music of famous dance bands such as Glenn Miller and the Dorsey brothers, Tommy and Jimmy he became a professional musician. After serving in the army during World War II and while working as a dance hall musician, Williamson converted to Christianity at age 21. He attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan for one year and then transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Go to Profile#820
Leslie Houlden
#59180
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
James Leslie Houlden was a British Anglican priest and academic. He served as Principal of Cuddesdon Theological College from 1970 to 1975, and then, after its amalgamation with Ripon Hall, Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon from 1975 to 1977. He then joined the staff of King's College, London, rising to become Professor of Theology between 1987 and 1994.
Go to Profile#821
Mal Couch
#46794
Overall Influence
1938 - 2013 (75 years)
Malcom Ollie "Mal" Couch, Jr. was the founder and first president of the Tyndale Theological Seminary. He was a pastor, an author of many books, and writer of 40 documentaries on Bible prophecies and biblical issues. While president of Tyndale Theological Seminary Couch recruited some very well known scholars and Bible teachers to teach the student body. Dr. Norman Geisler, Dr. Paige Patterson, Dr. Robert Lightner, Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, and Paul Enns were used in the educational endeavors at Tyndale Seminary. After Dr. Couch retired from Tyndale Seminary he became a Vice President of th...
Go to Profile#822
Gerhard Lohfink
#59684
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Gerhard Lohfink is a German Catholic priest and theologian. He was born in Frankfurt am Main and was professor of New Testament at the University of Tübingen until 1986. Lohfink works as a theologian in the Catholic Integrated Community . He is the younger brother of Norbert Lohfink, professor of Old Testament.
Go to Profile#823
Allan MacRae
#42231
Overall Influence
1902 - 1997 (95 years)
Allan Alexander MacRae was an evangelical Christian scholar who, with Harold S. Laird, Carl McIntire, Roland K. Armes, and several other conservative Presbyterians, helped found Faith Theological Seminary and, with Jack Murray, Biblical Theological Seminary. Because of his longevity, MacRae engaged in both the battles of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and with the rise of Neo-evangelicalism in mid-20th century America, playing important roles in the establishment of three conservative American seminaries.
Go to Profile#824
Deok-Kyo Oh
#54897
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Deok-Kyo Oh is a South Korean theologian who served as the president of Hapdong Theological Seminary in South Korea and the president of the International University of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia., and is a member of South Korea's National Unification Advisory Council since 2014.
Go to Profile#825
Jakob Josef Petuchowski
#45199
Overall Influence
1925 - 1991 (66 years)
Jakob Josef Petuchowski was an American research professor of Jewish Theology and Liturgy and the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professor of Judeo-Christian Studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio. He was born on July 25, 1925 in Berlin and died November 12, 1991 in Cincinnati.
Go to Profile#826
Rich Nathan
#46702
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Rich Nathan is an American pastor and author who has been the senior Pastor of Vineyard Columbus since 1987. In January 2021, Pastor Nathan handed the Senior Pastor role to Eric and Julia Pickerill. He is still on staff as Founding Pastor and in charge of the Pastors Residency Program.
Go to Profile#827
Brikha Nasoraia
#45450
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Rabbi Prof. Brikha H. S. Nasoraia is a Mandaean priest and scholar based in Sydney, Australia. He is affiliated with the University of Sydney and Mardin Artuklu University. He is currently a Professor of Comparative Semitics, Literature and Art History.
Go to Profile#828
Jon Dybdahl
#24695
Overall Influence
Jon L. Dybdahl is a professor of theology and a college administrator. Inaugurated in 2002, he is the immediate past president of Walla Walla University in College Place, Washington. In 2006, he announced his retirement from that position, effective the end of the 2005–2006 academic year.
Go to Profile#829
Michael Banner
#21297
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Michael Banner is Dean and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. From 2004–2006 he was Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Genomics Research Forum and Professor of Public Policy and Ethics in the Life Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, and from 1994 to 2004 F.D. Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology, King’s College, London. Well known in science and public policy arenas, he was also a member of the Human Tissue Authority, Chairman of the Home Office Animal Procedures Committee from 1998 to 2006 and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 2014 to...
Go to Profile#830
Richard Lints
#48868
Overall Influence
Richard Lints is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Hamilton Campus. He is also the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell and is an author. Lints has been with Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary since 1986.
Go to Profile#831
Jacob Jervell
#57020
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Jacob Stephan Jervell was a Norwegian theologian, professor emeritus, author and priest. Biography Jervell was born at Fauske in Nordland county, Norway. He was the son of Sverre Jervell and Thora Mejdell . His father was a parish priest. Jervell grew up in Bergen, Stavanger and Hamar. He graduated artium at Hamar Cathedral School in 1944. After a year as a teacher at Andøya, he began studying theology at the University of Oslo in 1945, where he became Cand.theol. in 1951. He studied in Germany from 1953 to 1955. He was awarded his D.Theol. in 1959.
Go to Profile#832
Anscar Chupungco
#40160
Overall Influence
1939 - 2013 (74 years)
Dom Anscar Chupungco, O.S.B., STD was a Filipino Benedictine monk, who was a noted liturgist, theologian and a mentor to all Filipino liturgists and countless students of the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome and San Beda University in Manila. He was known for integrating local customs and traditions into the Catholic Mass.
Go to Profile#833
Donald A. Crosby
#25634
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Donald Allen Crosby is an American theologian who is professor emeritus of philosophy at Colorado State University, since January 2000. Crosby's interests focus on metaphysics, American pragmatism, philosophy of nature, existentialism, and philosophy of religion. He is a member of the Highlands Institute of American Religious and Philosophical Thought and has been a leader in the discussions on Religious Naturalism.
Go to Profile#834
Józef Życiński
#38276
Overall Influence
1948 - 2011 (63 years)
Józef Mirosław Życiński was a Polish philosopher, publicist, the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Lublin and a Professor of the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Rome, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Cracow and Catholic University of Lublin.
Go to Profile#835
Richard Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth
#28973
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Richard Douglas Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth, FLSW is a retired bishop of the Church of England and former British Army officer. He was the Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. From 2008 until 2012 he was the Gresham Professor of Divinity.
Go to Profile#836
David Allan Hubbard
#46840
Overall Influence
1928 - 1996 (68 years)
David Allan Hubbard was the 3rd President of Fuller Theological Seminary and an Old Testament scholar. Under his leadership, Fuller became the world's largest multidenominational seminary and an important center for mainstream evangelical thought.
Go to Profile#837
Rudolph F. Peters
#17912
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Rudolph "Ruud" F. Peters was a scholar of Islamic Law at the University of Amsterdam. Rudolph Peters studied Law, Arabic and Turkish in Amsterdam and Leiden and was appointed as lecturer at the department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 1968. He completed his PhD in 1979, titled Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History. He served as the director of the Netherlands Institute for Archeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo from 1982 to 1987, and was appointed professor to the UvA in 1992.
Go to Profile#838
John Francis Donoghue
#43354
Overall Influence
1928 - 2011 (83 years)
John Francis Donoghue was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the second bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte in North Carolina from 1984 to 1993 and as the fifth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in Georgia from 1993 to 2004.
Go to Profile#839
Angelo Sodano
#41854
Overall Influence
1927 - 2022 (95 years)
Angelo Raffaele Sodano, GCC was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church and, from 1991 onward, a cardinal. He was the Dean of the College of Cardinals from 2005 to 2019 and Cardinal Secretary of State from 1991 to 2006; Sodano was the first person since 1828 to serve simultaneously as Dean and Secretary of State.
Go to Profile#840
Christopher Morse
#48973
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Christopher Ludwig Morse is an American Christian theologian. He is Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Theology and Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Early life and education Born in 1935 and raised in Virginia, Morse received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Randolph–Macon College, a degree from Yale Divinity School, and Master of Sacred Theology and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Union Theological Seminary. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.
Go to Profile#841
David Berger
#47533
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
David Berger is a German theologian, author and gay activist. Biography From 1991 to 1998, Berger studied philosophy, Catholic theology and German language and literature in Würzburg, Cologne and Dortmund. Berger is a German neo-Thomist and took a critical stance to the work of Karl Rahner. Berger was a professor of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and also worked as a religious education teacher at a high school in Erftstadt, Germany. The Catholic Church has since revoked his licence to teach.
Go to Profile#842
Christoph Schwöbel
#44766
Overall Influence
1955 - 2021 (66 years)
Christoph Schwöbel was a German Lutheran Theologian and Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Life Christoph Schwöbel was born in Frankfurt am Main. He studied Lutheran Theology and Philosophy at the Kirchliche Hochschule, Bethel, and at Philipps-Universität Marburg, received his doctorate in 1978 in Marburg and qualified there as a professor, through his Habilitation, in 1990. He was ordained a minister of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1994.
Go to Profile#843
Beyers Naudé
#13041
Overall Influence
1915 - 2004 (89 years)
Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé was a South African Afrikaner Calvinist Dominee, theologian and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist. He was known simply as Beyers Naudé, or more colloquially, Oom Bey .
Go to Profile#844
Paula Gooder
#47586
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Paula Gooder is a British theologian and Anglican lay reader, who specialises in the New Testament. She is Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral. She has previously taught at two theological colleges, Ripon College Cuddesdon and The Queen's Foundation, served as Theologian in Residence for the Bible Society , and as Director of Mission, Learning and Development in the Diocese of Birmingham . She is a freelance writer and speaker.
Go to Profile#845
Langdon Gilkey
#35824
Overall Influence
1919 - 2004 (85 years)
Langdon Brown Gilkey was an American Protestant ecumenical theologian. Early life and education A grandson of Clarence Talmadge Brown, the first Protestant minister to gather a congregation in Salt Lake City, Gilkey grew up in Hyde Park, Chicago. His father Charles Whitney Gilkey was a liberal theologian and the first Dean of the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel; his mother was Geraldine Gunsaulus Brown who was a well known feminist and leader of the YWCA.
Go to Profile#846
Robin Boyd
#56321
Overall Influence
1924 - 2018 (94 years)
Robin H. S. Boyd was an Irish theologian and missionary to India, ordained in the Irish Presbyterian Church. He also worked with the Student Christian Movement and was a presbyter in the Church of North India.
Go to Profile#847
R. E. Clements
#65646
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Ronald Ernest Clements is a British Old Testament scholar. Clements was a fellow of Fitzwilliam College and Lecturer in Old Testament Literature and Theology at the University of Cambridge, before becoming Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament at King's College London.
Go to Profile#848
Darrell Guder
#67112
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Darrell Likens Guder is a theologian and missiologist who is Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. Biography Guder received his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, he served as a student outreach pastor and as a faculty member of the Karlshohe College in the German Lutheran Church.
Go to Profile#849
Bruce Lawrence
#28703
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Bruce Bennett Lawrence is the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion at Duke University. He has taught at Duke since 1971. Education A graduate of Fay School and Princeton University, with a Master of Divinity from Episcopal Divinity School , he earned his doctorate at Yale University in History of Religions. There he was trained to engage West Asia and South Asia, with particular reference to the cultures and languages, the history and religious practices marked as Muslim. But he also concerns himself with the non-Muslim religious traditions of Asia, especially Hinduism, ...
Go to Profile#850
Klyne Snodgrass
#35864
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Klyne Ryland Snodgrass is an American theologian and author, who served as professor of New Testament Studies at the North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois from 1974 to 2015. His publication Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus garnered a 2009 Christianity Today Book Award.
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