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,
#451
Robert L. Saucy
#23122
Overall Influence
1930 - 2015 (85 years)
Robert Lloyd Saucy was an American biblical scholar and professor of systematic theology. Biography Saucy was born in Salem, Oregon, and educated at George Fox College and Westmont College , earning his A.B. in history. He went on to earn both his Th.M. and Th.D. in systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary. While completing his graduate studies at Dallas, Saucy served as part-time instructor at the Southern Bible Training Institute, and as part-time pastor at Milligan Bible Church. He was ordained as a minister in the North American Baptist General Conference.
Go to Profile#452
Alan Torrance
#26806
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Alan Torrance is professor of systematic theology at St Mary's College of the University of St Andrews. Previously he lectured at King's College London from 1993–1998, where he was also Director of the Research Institute in Systematic Theology. During this time he served as Senior Research Fellow at the Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame. He previously lectured at Knox Theological Hall and the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Go to Profile#453
Aloys Grillmeier
#16985
Overall Influence
1910 - 1998 (88 years)
Aloys Grillmeier was a German Jesuit priest, theologian and cardinal-deacon of the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II created him cardinal-deacon of San Nicola in Carcere on 26 November 1994. Life Aloys Grillmeier was born in Pechbrunn in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1910 to Joseph Grillmeier and Maria Weidner. He entered the Jesuit Order in April 1929 after completing grammar school in Regensburg. He studied philosophy in Munich and theology in Valkenburg in the Netherlands. He was ordained priest on 24 June 1937 in the middle of further theological studies in Frankfurt am Main. After studyin...
Go to Profile#454
William J. Abraham
#20871
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
William James Abraham was a Northern Irish theologian, analytic philosopher, and Methodist pastor known for his contributions to the philosophy of religion, religious epistemology, evangelism, and church renewal. Abraham spent most of his career in the United States and was the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. He previously taught at Seattle Pacific University and was a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School. Abraham was associated with the Confessing Movement in the United Methodist Church and was a propone...
Go to Profile#455
Peter Masters
#42887
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Peter Masters has been the Minister of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in central London since 1970. He founded the Evangelical Times, an evangelical newspaper, in 1967. He also directs the School of Theology, an annual conference for pastors and Christian workers at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Go to Profile#456
Frederick Ferré
#15896
Overall Influence
1933 - 2013 (80 years)
Frederick Pond Ferré was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at The University of Georgia. He was a past president of the Metaphysical Society of America. Much of his work concerned how metaphysics is entwined with practical questions about how we live our life, including the ethical dimensions of life.
Go to Profile#457
Bruce Chilton
#31246
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Bruce D. Chilton is an American scholar of early Christianity and Judaism, and an Episcopalian priest. He is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, formerly Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament at Yale University, and Rector of the Church of St John the Evangelist He holds a PhD in New Testament from Cambridge University . He has previously held academic positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Münster.
Go to Profile#458
Clodovis Boff
#28799
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Clodovis Boff is a Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, writer and professor. Biography Clodovis Boff is grandson of Italian immigrants who arrived from Veneto region to Rio Grande do Sul in the late nineteenth century. He did his primary and secondary studies in Concordia, Rio Negro and Agudos. Boff studied philosophy in Mogi das Cruzes and obtained a doctorate in theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. As early as 1986 Clodovis Boff declared that the acquisition of Marxist categories have performed in the early stages of liberation theology an attitude of carelessness and exaggeration.
Go to Profile#459
Angelo Bagnasco
#15398
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Angelo Bagnasco is an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Genoa from 2006 to 2020. He was President of the Italian Episcopal Conference from 2007 to 2017 and was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 2007. He was President of the Council of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe from 2016 to 2021.
Go to Profile#460
Douglas J. Moo
#25750
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Douglas J. Moo is a Reformed New Testament scholar who, after teaching for more than twenty years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, served as Blanchard Professor of New Testament at the Wheaton College Graduate School from 2000 until his retirement in 2023. He received his Ph.D. at the University of St. Andrews, in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Go to Profile#461
Leo Scheffczyk
#25974
Overall Influence
1920 - 2005 (85 years)
Leo Scheffczyk was a German cardinal and theologian. He was a long-time theologian at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and one of the strongest advocates for orthodoxy during the long pontificate of John Paul II. During the 1980s and 1990s, he severely criticized some of his former students, e.g. Leonardo Boff, who advocated a Marxist version of liberation theology. Scheffczyk likely played a major role in drafting the most controversial documents, such as Ordinatio sacerdotalis and Ad tuendam fidem. He was made a cardinal in 2001. He was regarded as an important thinker in late...
Go to Profile#462
Paul Fiddes
#28035
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Paul Stuart Fiddes is an English Baptist theologian and novelist. Fiddes is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford, Principal Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow of Regent's Park College, Oxford , and a former Chairman of the Oxford Faculty of Theology.
Go to Profile#463
Birger A. Pearson
#19431
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Birger A. Pearson is an American scholar and professor studying early Christianity and Gnosticism. He currently holds the positions of Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Professor and Interim Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#464
Duncan B. Forrester
#13082
Overall Influence
1933 - 2016 (83 years)
Duncan Baillie Forrester was a Scottish theologian and the founder of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at New College, University of Edinburgh. He was latterly honorary fellow and professor emeritus at New College.
Go to Profile#465
Hiro Sachiya
#33696
Overall Influence
1936 - 2022 (86 years)
Hiro Sachiya was a Japanese religious scholar and a popular contemporary writer of Buddhism. His birth name is Yoshihiko Masuhara. He was born in Osaka Prefecture and studied Indian philosophy at University of Tokyo, graduating in 1960. Under the pen name Hiro Sachiya , he has written more than 400 books and articles. His interest in religion is not limited to Buddhism. He is mostly known for his comparative studies in all religions including Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism.
Go to Profile#466
Paulo Evaristo Arns
#10520
Overall Influence
1921 - 2016 (95 years)
Paulo Evaristo Arns OFM was a Brazilian prelate of the Catholic Church, who was made a cardinal and the Archbishop of São Paulo by Pope Paul VI, and later became cardinal protopriest. His ministry began with a twenty-year academic career, but when charged with responsibility for the Sao Paulo Archdiocese he proved a relentless opponent of Brazil's military dictatorship and its use of torture as well as an advocate for the poor and a vocal defender of liberation theology. In his later years he openly criticized the way Pope John Paul II governed the Catholic Church through the Roman Curia and ...
Go to Profile#467
Timothy Radcliffe
#9711
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, OP is an English Catholic priest and Dominican friar who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. He is the only member of the order's English Province to hold that office.
Go to Profile#468
Omid Safi
#16228
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Omid Safi is a Shia, Iranian-American Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. He served as the Director of Duke Islamic Studies Center from July 2014 to June 2019 and was a columnist for On Being. Safi specializes in Islamic mysticism , contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. He has served on the board of the Pluralism project at Harvard University and served as the co-chair of the steering committee for the Study of Islam and the Islamic Mysticism Group at the American Academy of Religion. Before joining Duke University, Safi was a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Go to Profile#469
William Dyrness
#26310
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
William A. Dyrness is an American theologian and professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. He teaches courses in theology, culture, and the arts, and is a founding member of the Brehm Center.
Go to Profile#470
Greg Boyd
#27648
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Gregory A. Boyd is an American theologian, pastor, and author. Boyd is Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and President of Reknew.org. He is one of the leading spokesmen in the growing Neo-Anabaptism movement, which is based in the tradition of Anabaptism and advocates Christian pacifism and a non-violent understanding of God.
Go to Profile#471
Candida Moss
#16606
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Candida R. Moss is an English public intellectual, journalist, New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity, and as of 2017, the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. A graduate of Oxford and Yale universities, Moss specialises in the study of the New Testament, with a focus on the subject of martyrdom in early Christianity, as well as other topics from the New Testament and early Church History. She is the winner of a number of awards relating to her research and writing.
Go to Profile#472
Stylianos Harkianakis
#21764
Overall Influence
1935 - 2019 (84 years)
Stylianos Harkianakis was the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Australia and Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. He served as inaugural and permanent Chairman of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Churches in Australia and Dean of St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College. He was a theologian specialising in ecclesiology and also an award-winning poet.
Go to Profile#473
Francis A. Sullivan
#25135
Overall Influence
1922 - 2019 (97 years)
Francis Alfred Sullivan was an American Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest, best known for his research in the area of ecclesiology and the magisterium. Early life and Jesuit formation Francis "Frank" A. Sullivan was born in Boston on May 21, 1922, to George Edward and Bessie [Peterson] Sullivan, the second of four boys.
Go to Profile#474
Graham Ward
#17374
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Graham John Ward is an English theologian and Anglican priest who has been Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford since 2012. Early life Ward was educated at Salford Grammar School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he studied English and French literature, and then at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studied theology while training for ordination at Westcott House.
Go to Profile#475
Klaus Koch
#20681
Overall Influence
1926 - 2019 (93 years)
Klaus Koch was an Old Testament scholar. Koch first studied in the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and later at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. He did his doctoral dissertation at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg under Gerhard von Rad.
Go to Profile#476
Joseph Blenkinsopp
#38075
Overall Influence
1927 - 2022 (95 years)
Joseph Blenkinsopp was an academic theologian and Old Testament scholar. He was the John A. O'Brien Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. His research focused on the Old Testament Prophets and on the Pentateuch.
Go to Profile#477
Lamya Kaddor
#19055
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Lamya Kaddor is a German writer and scholar of Islamic studies of Syrian ancestry who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since the 2021 elections. She is the founder and chairwoman of the Liberal-Islamic Association and is known for introducing Islamic education into German public schools.
Go to Profile#478
Stanley M. Horton
#36346
Overall Influence
1916 - 2014 (98 years)
Stanley Monroe Horton , was an American Renewal theologian within the Pentecostal movement and the author of numerous books. He served as the senior editorial advisor for the Modern English Version Bible, and he was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Bible and Theology at the Assemblies of God USA, Springfield, Missouri.
Go to Profile#479
Terence E. Fretheim
#14959
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Terence E. Fretheim was an Old Testament scholar and the Elva B. Lovell professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary. His writings have played a major part in the development of process theology and open theism.
Go to Profile#480
Alexander Dvorkin
#15806
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin is a Russian anti-cult activist. From 1999 to 2012 he was professor and head of the department of the study of new religious movements at Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University. He is currently professor of department of missiology at that university.
Go to Profile#481
John Hardon
#22158
Overall Influence
1914 - 2000 (86 years)
John Anthony Hardon, SJ was an American Jesuit priest, writer, teacher and theologian. A candidate for sainthood since 2005, he is recognized by the Catholic Church as a Servant of God. Early life John Anthony Hardon was born in 1914 to a devout Catholic family in Midland, Pennsylvania. When he was a year old, his 27-year-old father died in an industrial accident. After the accident Hardon was raised by his 26-year-old mother Anna Hardon, who never remarried "out of concern for the influence a possible stepfather might have on her son's vocation." They moved to Cleveland, Ohio.
Go to Profile#482
George E. Mendenhall
#20794
Overall Influence
1916 - 2016 (100 years)
George Emery Mendenhall was an American Biblical scholar who taught at the University of Michigan's Department of Near Eastern Studies. Career Mendenhall graduated from Midland College in Nebraska in 1936, and from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1938. Mendenhall was first an ordained Lutheran minister, and during World War II he served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy. After the war, Mendenhall obtained a Ph.D. in Semitic languages from Johns Hopkins University and began a career in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical studies as well as related archeology. He was professor at the University of Michigan from 1952 to 1986.
Go to Profile#483
Schubert M. Ogden
#38166
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Schubert Miles Ogden was an American Protestant theologian who proposed an interpretation of the Christian faith that he believes is both appropriate to the earliest apostolic witness found in the New Testament and also credible in the light of common human experience. He has written eleven books and been awarded many honors including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright research scholarship, as well as honorary degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Chicago, and Southern Methodist University. He has been invited to many titled lectureships in universities in ...
Go to Profile#484
Wilhelm Schneemelcher
#36129
Overall Influence
1914 - 2003 (89 years)
Wilhelm Schneemelcher was a German Protestant theologian and expert on the New Testament Apocrypha. Career He obtained through Hans Lietzmann a post researching Latin and Greek manuscripts at the Church Fathers Commission, however this came under the Prussian Academy of Sciences so in 1938 Schneemelcher was removed by the Nazi authorities due to being "politically unreliable", due to sympathies with the Confessing Church, and was forced to turn to making a living as a bookseller's assistant.
Go to Profile#485
Sarah Coakley
#15710
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Sarah Anne Coakley is an English Anglican priest, systematic theologian and philosopher of religion with interdisciplinary interests. She is an honorary professor at the Logos Institute, the University of St Andrews, after she stepped down as Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. She is also a visiting professorial fellow at the Australian Catholic University, both in Melbourne and Rome.
Go to Profile#486
Andrew Purves
#38343
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Andrew Purves is a Scottish theologian in the Reformed tradition through the Church of Scotland . He holds the Chair in Reformed Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. A native of Edinburgh, Scotland, Purves earned degrees in philosophy and divinity from the University of Edinburgh, and a Master of Theology degree from Duke Divinity School. His Doctor of Philosophy degree is from the University of Edinburgh. In Scotland, he studied under Thomas F. Torrance. Torrance, his brother James Torrance, Athanasius, John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Jürgen Moltmann were all important influences in Pu...
Go to Profile#487
John Barton
#31422
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
John Barton is a British Anglican priest and biblical scholar. From 1991 to 2014, he was the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. In addition to his academic career, he has been an ordained and serving priest in the Church of England since 1973.
Go to Profile#488
Gordon Wenham
#26506
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Gordon J. Wenham is a Reformed British Old Testament scholar and writer. He has authored several books about the Bible. Tremper Longman has called him "one of the finest evangelical commentators today."
Go to Profile#489
Germain Grisez
#5962
Overall Influence
1929 - 2018 (89 years)
Germain Gabriel Grisez was a French-American philosopher. Grisez's development of ideas from Thomas Aquinas has redirected Catholic thought and changed the way it has engaged with secular moral philosophy. In 'The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 94, A. 2' Grisez attacked the neo-scholastic interpretation of Aquinas as holding that moral norms are derived from methodologically antecedent knowledge of human nature. Grisez defended the idea of metaphysical free choice, and proposed a natural law theory of practical reasoning and moral judgeme...
Go to Profile#490
Athanasios Angelopoulos
#20809
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Athanasios Angelopoulos is a Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; founder and in-honour president of the Institute for National and Religious Studies . He has studied at the Theology School of the University of Athens as well as in University of Belgrade's Theology School. From 1973 to 1981 he was instructor of theology at Aristotle University; in 1982 he became an assistant professor and in 1984, full professor of Ecclesiastic History at the Department of Pastoral Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Go to Profile#491
Fernando Ocáriz Braña
#33583
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Fernando Ocáriz Braña is a priest of the Catholic Church who has been the prelate of Opus Dei since 2017. Ocáriz is the fourth person to head Opus Dei since its founding in 1928. He is widely published in philosophy and has been a consultor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1986.
Go to Profile#492
W. D. Davies
#24147
Overall Influence
1911 - 2001 (90 years)
William David Davies , often cited as W. D. Davies, was a Welsh Congregationalist minister, theologian, author and professor of religion in England and the United States. Life Davies was born in 1911 in Glanamman, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Educated at the University of Wales and at Cambridge , he was ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church in 1941 and served churches in Cambridgeshire until 1946. Concurrently, he engaged in research at the University of Cambridge under C. H. Dodd, a leading British New Testament scholar, and David Daube, a Jewish scholar who became Regius Profess...
Go to Profile#493
Peter Jensen
#17240
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Peter Frederick Jensen is a retired Australian Anglican bishop, theologian and academic. From 1985 to 2001, he was principal of Moore Theological College. From 2001 to 2013, he was the Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of the Province of New South Wales in the Anglican Church of Australia. He retired on his 70th birthday, 11 July 2013. In late 2007, Jensen was one of the founding members of the Global Anglican Future Conference , which he served as General Secretary. He stepped down in early 2019 and was succeeded by Benjamin Kwashi, former archbishop of Jos in Nigeria.
Go to Profile#494
Robert Cummings Neville
#24061
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Robert Cummings Neville is an American systematic philosopher and theologian, author of numerous books and papers, and ex-Dean of the Boston University School of Theology. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University.
Go to Profile#495
Ed Decker
#35789
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
John Edward "Ed" Decker is an American counterculture apologist, and evangelist known for his expert studies, books, and public presentations, of the negative aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Freemasonry. He is a former member of the LDS Church, and prominent early member of a Christian group for ex-Mormons called Saints Alive in Jesus. His most well-known book is The God Makers: A Shocking Expose of What the Mormon Church Really Believes, co-authored by Dave Hunt.
Go to Profile#496
Andrzej Siemieniewski
#37241
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Andrzej Siemieniewski is the Polish Roman Catholic bishop of Legnica . Biography Early life Andrzej Henryk Siemieniewski was born in Wrocław, the son of Henryk and Teresa, née Hofman. He attended the Second High School in Wroclaw, where he graduated in 1976.
Go to Profile#497
Douglas E. Cowan
#7652
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Douglas Edward Cowan is a Canadian academic in religious studies and the sociology of religion and currently holds a teaching position at Renison University College, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Prior to this appointment he was Assistant Professor of Sociology & Religious Studies at the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
Go to Profile#498
Bong Rin Ro
#37193
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Bong Rin Ro is an American theologian and missiologist. He is a founding leader and former executive secretary of the Asia Theological Association as well as former dean of the Asia Graduate School of Theology.
Go to Profile#499
Frederick G. Lawrence
#10478
Overall Influence
Frederick G. Lawrence is an American hermeneutic philosopher and theologian, and a specialist in Bernard Lonergan, teaching in the Department of Theology at Boston College, Boston, US. Life Fred Lawrence is married to Sue Lawrence. He has been running the annual Lonergan Workshop at Boston College for many years, and is editor of Lonergan Workshop, which publishes the proceedings. He also convened the First and Second International Lonergan Conferences at Rome and Toronto , and the Third and Fourth International Lonergan Conferences at Mainz and Jerusalem respectively.
Go to Profile#500
David Trobisch
#26432
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
David Johannes Trobisch is a German scholar whose work has focused on formation of the Christian Bible, ancient New Testament manuscripts and the epistles of Paul. Life Trobisch grew up in Cameroon where his parents served as Lutheran missionaries, and David Trobisch grew up in West Africa.
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