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 Theology,

#551

Lieven Boeve

#57477

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Lieven Boeve [‘li:vən ‘bu:və] is a Belgian Catholic theologian, and is full professor of Systematic Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where he currently also serves as Dean of the Faculty. Since 2012 he is also the chair of the Centre for Academic Teacher’s Training, KU Leuven. On 1 August 2014 he became the Director General of the Flemish Secretary for Catholic Education .

#552

Bengt Hägglund

#37538

Overall Influence

1920 - 2015 (95 years)

Bengt Vilhelm Hägglund was a Swedish theologian. Hägglund, who is professor emeritus of Christian intellectual history at Lund University, has written several books, of which Teologins historia is his most widely known work. The book, translated, inter alia, to English, German, Portuguese and Russian language, was first published in 1956.

#553

He Guanghu

#24791

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

He Guanghu is a Chinese scholar of philosophy of religion and Christian theology. He is considered one of the leading "cultural Christians" in China, intellectuals who see Christian culture as a key to rebuilding Chinese civilization.

#554

Katie Cannon

#24874

Overall Influence

1949 - 2018 (69 years)

Katie Geneva Cannon was an American Christian theologian and ethicist associated with womanist theology and black theology. In 1974 she became the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church .

#555

Graham Tomlin

#50070

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Graham Stuart Tomlin is a British theologian, author and Church of England bishop. Since 2022, he has led the Centre for Cultural Witness; he served as Bishop of Kensington, an area bishop in the Diocese of London from 2015 until 2022. From 2007 until 2015, he was dean then principal of St Mellitus College and is now its president.

#556

Andrew S. Park

#41148

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Andrew Sung Park is a Korean American Methodist theologian. Park teaches at United Theological Seminary in Trotwood, Ohio. He specializes in systematic theology, global theology, cross-cultural theology, Asian American liberation theology, Christian mysticism, and the relationship between religion and science. He has expanded the theology of emotional pain by exploring the Korean concept of han.

#557

Lewis Ayres

#56182

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Lewis Ayres, a lay Catholic theologian, is Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology at Durham University in the United Kingdom. Between 2009 and 2013 he served as the inaugural holder of the Bede Chair of Catholic Theology at Durham.

#558

Anton Stres

#42666

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Anton Stres, C.M. , was the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ljubljana and the metropolitan bishop of Ljubljana as well as the president of the Slovenian Bishops' Conference from January 2010 until July 2013. As Archbishop of Ljubljana he was also the grand chancellor of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Ljubljana.

#559

Nancy R. Howell

#39359

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Nancy R. Howell is an American professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. Biography Howell earned a B.S. at The College of William and Mary, and a Th.M. and M.Div. at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Howell earned a M.A. and Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate School. During her doctoral studies she studied with, and was the teaching assistant for, John B. Cobb. She initially worked as the academic dean of Saint Paul School of Theology.

#560

Dennis Hollinger

#43948

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Dennis P. Hollinger , is the President Emeritus and the Distinguished Senior Professor of Christian Ethics of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, as of 2019. He served as President and Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics from 2008-2019. He also serves as a Distinguished Fellow with The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity. Hollinger attended Elizabethtown College for his B.A., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for his M.Div., Drew University for Ph.D., and has conducted post-doctoral studies at Oxford University.

#561

Marianne Thompson

#49904

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Marianne Meye Thompson is an American theologian, currently the George Eldon Ladd Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. She was one of the translators for the Gospel of John for the New Living Translation Bible.

#562

Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos

#64324

Overall Influence

1909 - 2007 (98 years)

Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos was a Dutch theologian and biblical scholar. He was an important New Testament theologian, having worked extensively on the history of salvation and biblical theology. Ridderbos was born in Hennaarderadeel, Friesland, Netherlands. His father, Jan Ridderbos, was an ordained minister in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, a biblical commentator, and professor of Old Testament at the Theological School of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands in Kampen. Herman Ridderbos completed his undergraduate studies there, and did his post-graduate work at the Free University of Amsterdam under F.

#563

Donald Guthrie

#17889

Overall Influence

1916 - 1992 (76 years)

Donald Guthrie was a British New Testament scholar, best known for his New Testament Introduction and New Testament Theology which are recognized as significant books related to the New Testament.

#564

Heup Young Kim

#44719

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Heup Young Kim is a Korean Christian theologian and a scholar of East Asian religions , specialized in Asian constructive theology, interfaith dialogue, and religion and science. He is the founding director of the Korea Forum for Science and Life and was the Distinguished Asian Theologian in Residence at Graduate Theological Union. He was Professor of Systematic Theology at Kangnam University in South Korea where he also served as a dean of the College of Humanities and Liberal arts, the Graduate School of Theology, and the University Chapel. Kim is one of the founding members and fellows of ...

#565

H. Ray Dunning

#48125

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (98 years)

Hubert Ray Dunning is a religious scholar in the Church of the Nazarene and retired professor of theology at Trevecca Nazarene University. He earned a PhD from Vanderbilt University in 1969. Dunning is the author of many books, including Grace, Faith and Holiness.

#566

Joerg Rieger

#43110

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Joerg Michael Rieger is a German and American professor of Christian theology whose work emphasizes economic justice and political movements. Rieger is also an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church.

#567

Hilarion

#25190

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Hilarion is a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and the current metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary. He is also a noted theologian, church historian and composer and has published books on dogmatic theology, patristics and church history as well as numerous compositions for choir and orchestra.

#568

Xabier Pikaza

#32881

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Xabier Pikaza Ibarrondo is a Spanish theologian of Liberation Theology and professor at Pontifical University of Salamanca. He is one of the most renowned Spanish theologians of his time. Life He entered the Order of Mercy, within which he was ordained a presbyter of the Catholic Church.

#569

Hans Boersma

#51773

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Hans Boersma is a Dutch-Canadian Anglican theologian specialising in patristics, sacramental theology, and nouvelle théologie. He is of Reformed background, but has become a convert and a priest in the Anglican Church in North America.

#570

Matthias Klinghardt

#65617

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Matthias Klinghardt is a German Protestant theologian and university professor. His theological specialty is the New Testament. He is known as a revisionist historian of Eucharistic origins and as a proponent of the Marcion hypothesis for the synoptic problem and the gospel of John.

#571

Donald G. Bloesch

#44087

Overall Influence

1928 - 2010 (82 years)

Donald George Bloesch was an American evangelical theologian. For more than 40 years, he published scholarly yet accessible works that generally defend traditional Protestant beliefs and practices while seeking to remain in the mainstream of modern Protestant theological thought. His seven-volume Christian Foundations series has brought him recognition as an important American theologian.

#572

Boris Bobrinskoy

#79360

Overall Influence

1925 - 2020 (95 years)

Boris Bobrinskoy was a French theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Bobrinskoy was honorary dean of the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, Rector of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a mitrophore, and archpriest of the exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

#573

Charles Farah

#65967

Overall Influence

1926 - 2001 (75 years)

Charles Farah, Jr. was a Professor of Theology and Historical Studies at Oral Roberts University. He taught at the school from 1967 to 1991 and from 1994 to 1995. He is known for his book, From the Pinnacle of the Temple, which suggested balancing biblical truths during the height of the Word of Faith movement. In the 1970s some proponents of this movement suggested that if one was not healed supernaturally by God that one did not have 'enough faith' or was 'in sin'. He complemented this perspective and refreshed the charismatic movement by pointing back to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

#574

Werner Jeanrond

Werner Jeanrond

#24586

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Werner Günter Adolf Jeanrond was Professor of Systematic Theology with special responsibility for Dogmatics at the University of Oslo. He is retired. Background Jeanrond is a German Roman Catholic theologian. He was born in 1955 in Saarbrücken in the Saar Protectorate, now Saarland, Germany. He was raised in Kleinblittersdorf, a village on the German-French border. His father served as the village's mayor twice. In 2018, he was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology with special responsibility for Dogmatics at the University of Oslo. He was the first Catholic theologian to hold this post in the university's traditionally Lutheran Faculty of Theology.

#575

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.

#576

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.

#577

Dieter Trautwein

#76167

Overall Influence

1928 - 2002 (74 years)

Dieter Trautwein was a German Protestant theologian and writer of numerous Christian hymns of the genre Neues Geistliches Lied . Biography Born in Holzhausen am Hünstein , Trautwein studied theology in Marburg, Mainz and Heidelberg. After several postings as a vicar in Königstein, Limburg and Bad Nauheim, he served from 1963 to 1970 in positions involving him with the training of new ministers in Frankfurt am Main. In 1969 the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau appointed him as provost for Frankfurt. He would continue in this position until 1988. He received his Doctorate of ...

#578

Mohammad-Taqi Ja'fari

Mohammad-Taqi Ja'fari

#26152

Overall Influence

1923 - 1998 (75 years)

Allameh Mohammad-Taqi Ja'fari was an Iranian scholar, philosopher, intellectual, and islamic theologist. Ja'fari was a Shia philosopher. He was expert in various fields such as history, logic, metaphysics, philosophy, literature, mysticism, jurisprudence, and philosophy of science.

#579

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 .

#580

Stephen T. Franklin

#30408

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Stephen T. Franklin is a Christian theologian and philosopher who is president emeritus of Tokyo Christian University. Franklin is one of the few evangelicals who is also a scholar of process theology; known for his research in the interaction of evangelical theology and process thought. Franklin is married to the former Martha Jean Evans, former associate professor of nursing at Shizuoka University in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.

#581

Georges Pontier

#59881

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Georges Pontier is a French prelate of the Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Marseille from 2006 to 2019 and President of the Episcopal Conference of France from 2013 to 2019. He was named apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Paris in December 2021.

#582

David Kelsey

#61187

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

David H. Kelsey is an American theologian and academic. Biography Kelsey is a graduate of Haverford College and currently Luther Weigle Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School. Like his colleagues Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, Kelsey received both a BD and PhD from Yale. He taught in the Religion Department of Dartmouth College from 1961 to 1965 and was a member of the faculty at Yale Divinity School from 1965 until his retirement in 2005. In 2017 he held The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and their Impact on Culture, Candler School of The...

#583

Borys Gudziak

#18790

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Borys Gudziak is the current Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. He founded the Institute of Church History and served as the rector and president of the Ukrainian Catholic University. He was previously ordained as a priest, and later a bishop. Gudziak has authored and edited several books on church history, theology, modern church life, and higher education reforms.

#584

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.

#585

Herman Selderhuis

#63257

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Herman Selderhuis is a Dutch minister, theologian and professor of church history and church polity. Life Herman Johan Selderhuis was born on 21 May 1961. He grew up in a family that was not involved in the church. At the age of 15, he began attending church services and was subsequently baptized and joined the Christian Reformed Churches. He attended the grammar school at the Ichthus College in his hometown, Enschede. From 1981 to 1988 he studied theology at the Theological University of Apeldoorn of the Christian Reformed Churches. His doctoral exam was on Church History. Selderhuis was minister of the Christian Reformed Church in Hengelo from 1987 until 1992.

#586

Antun Škvorčević

#68897

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Antun Škvorčević is a Croatian bishop, leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Požega. Early life and education Antun Škvorčević was born in a small village of Davor on 8 May 1947 to Ivan and Ljubičica Škvorčević.

#587

Gerhard Hasel

#82273

Overall Influence

1935 - 1994 (59 years)

Gerhard Franz Hasel was a Seventh-day Adventist theologian, and Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology as well as Dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University.

#588

Steve Brown

#36068

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Steve Brown is an American Christian author, a radio broadcaster, and a former seminary professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He describes himself as a Calvinist, and is ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America.

#589

Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel

#63494

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel was a German feminist theologian, best remembered as the founder of the European Society of Women in Theological Research in 1986. Her publications translated into English include Liberty, Equality, Sisterhood: The Women around Jesus, A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey, I Am My Body, and Rediscovering Friendship.

#590

Radhika Ramana Dasa

#18477

Overall Influence

#591

Philip Hefner

#57033

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Philip Hefner is a professor emeritus of systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Academic career His research career has focused on the interaction of religion and science, for which he is most well known. Hefner has held several dozen visiting teaching and lecturing appointments at seminaries, colleges, and universities in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and has taught in numerous Lutheran seminaries in America.

#592

Mary Elizabeth Moore

#64391

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Mary Elizabeth Moore is an educator, writer, and current dean of the Boston University School of Theology in Boston, Massachusetts. She has also been a professor of religion and education at the Claremont School of Theology, as well as Emory University, where she served as the director of the Women in Theology and Ministry Program. Moore has written on topics of socio-economic justice, and socio-ecological renewal, and throughout her career has significantly contributed to the dialogue between theology and education.

#593

Bernhard Anderson

#59635

Overall Influence

1916 - 2007 (91 years)

Bernhard Word Anderson was an American United Methodist pastor and Old Testament scholar. Information Born in Dover, Missouri, Anderson earned degrees from the College of the Pacific and Pacific School of Religion. In 1939, he was ordained to the ministry of the Methodist Church. He served Methodist churches in California, and later Congregational churches in both Connecticut and New York.

#594

Marian Gołębiewski

Marian Gołębiewski

#59575

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Marian Gołębiewski is a former Polish archbishop of Wrocław, which he served from 2004 to 2013. From 1996 to 2004, he was Bishop of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg. Earlier life He was born in Trzebuchowie. In 1952–56 he was a student of Minor Seminary. Jan Dlugosz in Wloclawek, which completed an internal exam. He passed a state maturity exam extramurally at high School in 1956. Jan Matejko in Poznan.

#595

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.

#596

Morwenna Ludlow

Morwenna Ludlow

#53864

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Morwenna Ann Ludlow is a British historian, theologian, and Anglican priest, specialising in historical theology. She is Professor of Christian History and Theology at the University of Exeter. She is known in particular for her work on Gregory of Nyssa.

#597

Grace Ji-Sun Kim

Grace Ji-Sun Kim

#64045

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Grace Ji-Sun Kim is a Korean-American theologian and Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion, Richmond, Indiana. She is best known for books and articles on the social and religious experiences of Korean women immigrants to North America.

#598

Lytta Bassett

#49134

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Lytta Bassett is a Swiss philosopher and Protestant theologian. She is the author of several works that have reached a wide audience, especially her 2002 book Sainte Colère, released in 2007 in English translation as Holy Anger.

#599

Livio Melina

#57482

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Livio Melina is a priest of the Catholic Church and an Italian theologian. Biography Livio Melina was born in Adria in 1952. Since high school, he has been a member of the ecclesial Communion and Liberation movement and was one of its initiators in Veneto.

#600

M. Shawn Copeland

M. Shawn Copeland

#59690

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Mary Shawn Copeland , known professionally as M. Shawn Copeland, is a retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian, and a former religious sister. She is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College and is known for her work in theological anthropology, political theology, and African American Catholicism.

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