Search People Result | Academic Influence

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.

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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,

#1351

John Lowden Knight

#53421

Overall Influence

1915 - 2001 (86 years)

John Lowden Knight was a professor, university administrator, and a Methodist theologian. He was President of Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, Nebraska; the fourth president of Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio; and the eighth president of the Wesley Theological Seminary, in Washington, D.C..

#1352

Ursula King

#39892

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Ursula King is a German theologian and scholar of religion, who specialises in gender and religion, feminist theology, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Academic career King was Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol from 1989 to 2002, and then President of Catherine of Siena College, University of Roehampton from 2008 to 2015. She had previously been a lecturer at the Coloma College of Education and at the University of Leeds. She has held multiple visiting appointments: visiting lecturer at the University of Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology, and the Ind...

#1353

Edward Janiak

#94000

Overall Influence

1952 - 2021 (69 years)

Edward Janiak was a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church, who served as the bishop of the Diocese of Kalisz from 2012 to 2020. He was previously an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Wrocław and titular bishop of Scillium from 1996 to 2012. In 2020, after allegations and an investigation of sexual abuse cover-up by Janiak, Pope Francis permanently removed Janiak from ministry and banned him from the diocese of Kalisz. Janiak died less than a year later in 2021 due to lung cancer.

#1354

Roger Stronstad

#91678

Overall Influence

Roger J. Stronstad was a Canadian Pentecostal Bible scholar and theologian. He was an Associate Professor in Bible and Theology at Summit Pacific College in Abbotsford, British Columbia, having retired from there in 2017. He also published six books.

#1355

Pietro Parolin

#51497

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Pietro Parolin OMRI is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. A cardinal since February 2014, he has served as the Vatican's Secretary of State since October 2013 and a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers since July 2014. Before that, he worked in the diplomatic service of the Holy See for thirty years, where his assignments included terms in Nigeria, Mexico and Venezuela, as well as more than six years as Undersecretary of State for Relations with States.

#1356

Anton Bodem

#98805

Overall Influence

1925 - 2007 (82 years)

Anton Bodem SDB was a Catholic theologian and a former member of the Salesians of Don Bosco. Bodem initially was trained as a businessman. After the Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, he joined the Congregation of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Ensdorf in September 1948. In 1952, he placed first professed and studied theology at the University of His Order of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Benediktbeuern. On June 29, 1961, he received his priesthood. After further study visits to the University of Würzburg and the University of Mainz, he graduated in 1969 with a thesis on Thomas Cajetan to his doctorate.

#1357

John Pritchard

#62849

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

John Lawrence Pritchard is a Church of England bishop. He was the Bishop of Oxford from 2007 to 2014. He is in the Open Evangelical tradition. Early life Pritchard was born in Salford, Lancashire. He was educated at Arnold School, then an all-boys direct grant grammar school in Blackpool, Lancashire. He read jurisprudence at St Peter's College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970; as per tradition, his BA was promoted to an Oxford Master of Arts in 1973.

#1358

Jonathan Silk

#92819

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Jonathan Alan Silk is an American academic specialising in Buddhism. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Buddhist Studies at Leiden University. Career Born in 1960, Silk studied at Oberlin College and then spent five years studying with a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. He then attended the University of Michigan , where he completed doctoral studies; in 1989, he received a one-year Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, and then received fellowships to study Buddhism in Japan between 1991 and 1993. Michigan awarded him a PhD in 1994 for his thesis "The Origins and Early ...

#1359

Kenneth Cracknell

#84973

Overall Influence

1935 - 2013 (78 years)

Kenneth R. Cracknell was a British theologian who specialised in interfaith dialogue and the Christian theology of religions. Cracknell has written many articles and books on interfaith dialogue and other subjects, including Towards a New Relationship , Justice Courtesy and Love , An Introduction to World Methodism , and In Good and Generous Faith . A festschrift, A Great Commission edited by Martin Forward, Stephen Plant and Susan White, includes scholarly articles by numerous friends and colleagues on the occasion of Cracknell's 65th birthday. He has pioneered a sensitive and respectful C...

#1360

Alison Milbank

#48907

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Alison Grant Milbank is a British Anglican priest and literary scholar specialising in religion and culture. She is Canon Theologian at Southwell Minster and a professor at the University of Nottingham in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.

#1361

Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

#22729

Overall Influence

Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is an American priest of the Melkite Catholic Church, as well as a peace activist and author. He has been a Melkite Catholic priest since August 9, 1981, when he was ordained in Damascus, Syria. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree with majors in philosophy and English from the University of Notre Dame in 1962. He received Masters Degrees in English and in Theology from the same university. He earned his Doctorate in Jurisprudence from Boston College Law School in 1967 and was soon after admitted to the Massachusetts Bar for the practice of law.

#1362

Andrew McGowan

#60542

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Andrew Brian McGowan is an Australian scholar of early Christianity and an Anglican priest. He is McFaddin Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School and dean and president of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.

#1363

Adrian Hastings

#67409

Overall Influence

1929 - 2001 (72 years)

Adrian Hastings was a Roman Catholic priest, historian and author. He wrote a book about the Wiriyamu Massacre during the Mozambican War of Independence and became an influential scholar of Christian history in Africa.

#1364

Jerome Hanus

#77125

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Jerome George Hanus, O.S.B. is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, presiding as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in Iowa from 1995 until 2013. A member of the Order of Saint Benedict, Hanus served as abbot of Conception Abbey from 1977 to 1987. He also served as bishop of the Diocese of Saint Cloud in Minnesota from 1987 to 1994 and coadjutor archbishop of the Archdiocese of Dubuque from 1994 to 1995.

#1365

Markus Mühling

#61067

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Markus Mühling is a Protestant systematic theologian and philosopher of religion whose work focuses largely on the doctrine of God, eschatology, the atonement and the dialogue between the natural sciences and theology.

#1366

Martin Samuel Cohen

#62393

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Martin Samuel Cohen is rabbi of the Shelter Rock Jewish Center in Roslyn, New York. Biography Cohen was educated at the City University of New York and at Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was ordained a rabbi and received his Ph.D. in ancient Judaism. His dissertation dealt with the early Jewish mystical work Shiur Komah. At that time he also studied the legal writings of Maimonides together with his friend Rabbi Dr. Zvi Leshem, currently the director of the Gershom Scholem Collection at the National Library of Israel.

#1367

Laurie Green

#89850

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Laurence Alexander "Laurie" Green is a retired British Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of Bradwell from 1993 to 2011. Early career and ministry Laurie Green was born in Newham in the East End of London, the son of a bus driver and factory worker. As a young man he worked in a jellied-eel factory and then as a hairdresser. He was educated at East Ham Grammar School and King's College London and then at the New York Theological Seminary . There he studied the dynamics of East Harlem gangs and attained his master's degree in psychology and pastoral studies. After further studies at St Augustine's College, Canterbury, he was ordained in 1970.

#1368

William Bodiford

#68948

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

William Marvin Bodiford is an American professor and author. He teaches Buddhist Studies and religion in the cultures of Japan and East Asia at the University of California, Los Angeles. Education and early career In his section "Acknowledgments" in his book Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan, Bodiford thanks the monks of the Eihei-ji temple in Japan who "kindly broke the rules" to teach him, before his university education began, about Sōtō Zen and Japanese beer.

#1369

Ioan Petru Culianu

Ioan Petru Culianu

#19536

Overall Influence

1950 - 1991 (41 years)

Ioan Petru Culianu or Couliano was a Romanian historian of religion, culture, and ideas, a philosopher and political essayist, and a short story writer. He served as professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago from 1988 to his death, and had previously taught the history of Romanian culture at the University of Groningen.

#1370

Sam Korankye Ankrah

#55647

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Reverend Sam Korankye Ankrah is a Ghanaian minister and televangelist who serves as the Apostle General of the Royalhouse Chapel International, a church in Ghana with more than 30,000 members. He is also the first vice president of the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council.

#1371

Kenneth J. Collins

#92077

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Kenneth J. Collins is an American Wesleyan theologian and ordained minister in the Global Methodist Church. He is a professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is a leader in Wesley Studies, and his work The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace has been translated into Portuguese and Korean. He is the Director of the Wesleyan Studies Summer Seminar.

#1372

Dieudonné Nzapalainga

Dieudonné Nzapalainga

#27563

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Dieudonné Nzapalainga, CSSp is a Central African Catholic cardinal, the Archbishop of Bangui and a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. Nzapalainga served as the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Bangui from 2009 until mid-2012 when Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as its metropolitan archbishop; since 2013 he has served as the President of the Central African Episcopal Conference.

#1373

Joseph Pathrapankal

#90332

Overall Influence

1930 - 2022 (92 years)

Joseph Pathrapankal was an Indian New Testament Scholar and Syro-Malabar priest belonging to the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. He first studied at the Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth in Pune and then went to the Pontifical Biblical Institute where he obtained a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture in 1960. He then became a Lecturer then Professor of New Testament, and from 1976 to 1979 and 1979 to 1985 the Vice-President and President at Dharmārām Vidya Kshetram , Bengaluru. On May 30, 1997 Pathrapankal received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden.

#1374

Graham Kings

#78093

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Graham Kings is an English Church of England bishop, theologian and poet. In retirement in Cambridge, having served as Bishop of Sherborne and then Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion, he is an Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely and Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, which he founded in 1996. His latest books are: Nourishing Connections , Nourishing Mission: Theological Settings , Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward , edited with Ian Randall.

#1375

Philip L. Quinn

#30097

Overall Influence

1940 - 2004 (64 years)

Philip L. Quinn was a philosopher and theologian. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1962 and went on to earn a master's degree in physics from the University of Delaware in 1966. He then attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he received his master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy. Quinn joined the faculty of Brown University. At Brown, he was very popular and taught courses in the philosophy of physics, ethics, and related fields. In 1985, he assumed a position as the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Quinn served in 1994–1995 a...

#1376

Denton Lotz

#97576

Overall Influence

1939 - 2019 (80 years)

Denton Lotz was the general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance from 1988 to 2007 and the senior pastor of Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston from 2007 to 2017. Biography Lotz held a bachelor of sacred theology degree from Harvard Divinity School and a doctor of theology degree from the University of Hamburg. He was married to Janice Lotz.

#1377

Hermann Spieckermann

Hermann Spieckermann

#48266

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Hermann Spieckermann is a German biblical scholar, historian of ancient Near Eastern religion, and Protestant theologian. He currently holds a chair for Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Göttingen, in Germany. Through extensive authorial, editorial, and organizational undertakings, Spieckermann has exerted considerable influence on Hebrew Bible research.

#1378

Bruce McCormack

#84402

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Bruce Lindley McCormack is Charles Hodge Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His work focuses on the history of modern theology. McCormack has proposed that Karl Barth's view of Scripture has been misinterpreted, and has proposed a "Neo-Barthian" interpretation.

#1379

Yehuda Liebes

#40010

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Yehuda Liebes is an Israeli academic and scholar. He is the Gershom Scholem Professor Emeritus of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is considered a leading scholar of Kabbalah; his other research interests include Jewish myth, Sabbateanism, and the links between Judaism and ancient Greek religion, Christianity, and Islam. He is the recipient of the 1997 Bialik Prize, the 1999 Gershom Scholem Prize for Kabbalah Research, the 2006 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, and the 2017 Israel Prize in Jewish thought.

#1380

Adolf Holl

#51724

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Adolf Holl was an Austrian Catholic writer and theologian. He lived in Vienna, where he was Chaplain of the University of Vienna and a lecturer in its Department of Catholic Theology. Because of conflicts with Church authorities, he was suspended from his teaching and priestly duties. He wrote many books, including Jesus in Bad Company and The Last Christian: A Biography of Francis of Assisi.

#1381

Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

#63902

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Heinrich Bedford-Strohm is a German Lutheran bishop. Life His father was a Lutheran priest in Memmingen. Bedford-Strohm studied Lutheran theology at Erlangen, Heidelberg and Berkeley. In 1997, he became a pastor. From 2004 until 2011, he worked at the University of Bamberg. In 2011, he became bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. From 2014 to 2021 he was the chairman of the council of Evangelical Church in Germany, succeeding Nikolaus Schneider.

#1382

William John Lyons

William John Lyons

#92984

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

William John Lyons , aka John Lyons, is a reader in religion and history in the Department of History at the University of Bristol. He holds a BA in biblical studies , an MA in biblical studies , and a PhD in biblical studies , all from the University of Sheffield. He was appointed lecturer in New Testament studies at the University of Bristol in 2001 and then senior lecturer in biblical Interpretation in 2007.

#1383

Johan Heyns

#32945

Overall Influence

1928 - 1994 (66 years)

Johan Adam Heyns was an Afrikaner Calvinist theologian and moderator of the general synod of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk in South Africa. He was assassinated at his home in Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria.

#1384

Robert Spitzer

#25831

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Robert J. Spitzer is a Jesuit priest, philosopher, educator, author, speaker, and retired President of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Spitzer is founder and currently active as president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing educational materials on the complementarity of science, philosophy, and faith. He is also president of the Spitzer Center of Ethical Leadership, dedicated to helping Catholic and for-profit organizations develop leadership, constructive cultures, and virtue ethics.

#1385

Ron Benefiel

#74569

Overall Influence

Ron Benefiel was the eighth president of Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. His term as president was July 2000 – June 2011. Benefiel currently serves as the Dean of the School of Theology and Christian Ministry at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego California.

#1386

Van A. Harvey

#75620

Overall Influence

1926 - 2021 (95 years)

Van A. Harvey was George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Born in Hankow, China, he served in the U.S. Navy , and was awarded a BA in Philosophy from Occidental College . After attending Princeton Theological Seminary for one year, he received a B.D. from Yale Divinity School in 1951 and a PhD. from Yale University in 1957 in post-Enlightenment religious thought. His thesis was entitled "Myth, Faith, and History" and his thesis supervisor was H. Richard Niebuhr.

#1387

Max Lackmann

#78732

Overall Influence

1910 - 2000 (90 years)

Max Lackmann was a German Lutheran ecumenist. Lackmann studied theology at Bonn and Basel as a pupil of Karl Barth. He wrote against Nazi ideology, and he had to move from Germany to Basel. When he returned to Germany, he was ordained in 1940 and became pastor in Confessing Church. His preaching in criticism of Nazi regime caused him to be sent to Dachau concentration camp. In there his stay in the "priest block" became to him a profound ecumenical experience, which led him later to dedicate his work to the reunion of the Christendom.

#1388

Alan Kreider

#59268

Overall Influence

1941 - 2017 (76 years)

Alan Kreider was an American Mennonite historian. He was the American Professor Emeritus of Church History and Mission at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. His main interests were mission, worship, peace, and ecclesiastical history . Kreider continued to speak, write and publish in these areas of interest until his death in May 2017.

#1389

Atle Sommerfeldt

Atle Sommerfeldt

#105065

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Atle Sommerfeldt is a Norwegian prelate, who resigned from being the Bishop of Borg late in 2021. Prior to becoming a bishop, he was Secretary General of the Norwegian Church Aid from 1994 to 2012. Biography Sommerfeldt was appointed Bishop of Borg on 28 October 2011 and was consecrated bishop on 29 January 2012 in Fredrikstad Cathedral. Sommerfeldt holds a degree in theology gained in 1980. He has previously been a priest in the Diocese of Oslo , general secretary of the Botswana Christian Council and general secretary of the Council on Ecumenical and International Relations of the Church o...

#1390

Alexa Suelzer

#64795

Overall Influence

1918 - 2015 (97 years)

Alexa Suelzer was an American author, educator and theologian known for her Old Testament criticism. A Roman Catholic religious sister, she was a member of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. One of her most cited works is her essay "Modern Old Testament Criticism" in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. In addition to her writing, she taught for twenty years at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

#1391

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley

#64944

Overall Influence

1932 - 2023 (91 years)

Charles Frazier Stanley was an American Southern Baptist pastor and writer. He was senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta for 49 years and took on emeritus status in 2020. He founded and was president of In Touch Ministries, which widely broadcasts his sermons through television and radio. He also served two one-year terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, from 1984 to 1986.

#1392

Michael Bauman

#44002

Overall Influence

1950 - 2019 (69 years)

Michael E. Bauman was a Professor of Theology and Culture and Director of Christian Studies at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. He was also a member of the faculty of Summit Ministries, in Manitou Springs, Colorado. He was for eight years Lecturer and Tutor in Renaissance Theology and Literature at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford, where he also was Associate Dean of the Summer School.

#1393

Steven J. Schloeder

#49336

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Steven J. Schloeder is a theologian, architect, and author. Early life and career Steven Joseph Schloeder received the bachelor of architecture cum laude from Arizona State University in 1984. After acquiring professional registration in the State of Arizona, Schloeder received the Rotary International Graduate Scholarship and completed the Master in Architecture degree at the University of Bath, studying under Prof. Michael Brawne. His thesis, The Architecture of the Vatican Two Church, established a theory of sacramental architecture in criticism and rejection of the tenets of architectural...

#1394

Thomas Rausch

#58884

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Thomas Peter Rausch is the T. Marie Chilton Professor of Catholic Theology and professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, having received his doctorate from Duke University.

#1395

Lorenz Bruno Puntel

#33517

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Lorenz Bruno Puntel is a Brazilian philosopher based in Germany, who established the school of Structural-systematic philosophy. Professor emeritus at the University of Munich, Puntel has been named as one of the great contemporary philosophers, articulating his ideas from the most varied traditions.

#1396

Tomáš Petráček

#71232

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Tomáš Petráček is a Czech public intellectual, Roman Catholic priest, and scholar. He is considered one of the country's leading church and social historians. He works at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hradec Králové in East Bohemia, and at the Institute for the History of Christian Art at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague. He is the author of seven monographs and more than 80 articles, studies and papers not only in Czech but also in English, French, German and Polish. He is an active member of ...

#1397

Harm Klueting

#48444

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Harm Klueting is a German historian, theologian, university professor and a Roman Catholic priest converted from Lutheranism. His research focuses on church history and general history of the early modern period. But he also has books on the history of Westphalia presented.

#1398

Gabriel Moran

#67578

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Gabriel Moran, AFSC was an American scholar and teacher in the fields of Christian theology and religious education. His writings made significant contributions to the development of Catholic theology in the years following the Second Vatican Council. His writings have been translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. He held the title of Professor Emeritus in the Department of Humanities and the Social Sciences at New York University, where he also served as the co-director of the Philosophy of Education Program.

#1399

Georges Tamer

#64977

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Georges Nicolas Tamer holds the Chair of Oriental Philology and Islamic Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Until September 2012, he was professor of Arabic and Islamic studies and the holder of the M.S. Sofia Chair in Arabic Studies at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. A scholar of religion, philosophy, and Arabic and Islamic literature and culture, his fields of specialization include Qur'anic studies, Arabic philosophy, Christian- and Judeo-Arabic thought, and Islam in modernity. He has previously taught at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Universi...

#1400

James L. Crenshaw

#57437

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

James L. Crenshaw is the Robert L. Flowers Professor of the Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School. He is one of the world’s leading scholars in Old Testament Wisdom literature. He proposes that much of Proverbs was brought together at a time well after Solomon. He has been described as "a highly respected scholar" and an "excellent teacher".

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