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,

#1051

Claire Clivaz

#87235

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Claire Clivaz is a Swiss pastor and theology scholar. Head of Digital Enhanced Learning at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics , she leads research at the crossroad of New Testament and Digital Humanities.

#1052

Klaas Runia

#80368

Overall Influence

1926 - 2006 (80 years)

Klaas Runia was a Dutch theologian, churchman and journalist. He studied at the Free University, Amsterdam and obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on the concept of theological time in Karl Barth in 1955. In 1956 he was appointed Professor of Systematic theology at the Reformed Theological College in Geelong, Australia, where he taught until his return to the Netherlands in 1971. During his time in Australia he exerted much influence on evangelical Christians, particularly at universities and theological schools. He was also elected chairman of the Reformed Ecumenical Council from 1968 to 1976.

#1053

Hedley Sparks

#98358

Overall Influence

1908 - 1996 (88 years)

Hedley Frederick Davis Sparks, was a British biblical scholar and Church of England priest. From 1946 to 1952, he was Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham. From 1952 to 1976, he was Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford.

#1054

John Webster

#84782

Overall Influence

1955 - 2016 (61 years)

John Bainbridge Webster was an Anglican priest and theologian writing in the area of systematic, historical, and moral theology. Born in Mansfield, England, on 20 June 1955, he was educated at the independent Bradford Grammar School and at the University of Cambridge. After a distinguished career, he died at his home in Scotland on 25 May 2016 at the age of 60. At the time of his death, he was the Chair of Divinity at St. Mary's College, University of St Andrews, Scotland.

#1055

George Huntston Williams

#62780

Overall Influence

1914 - 2000 (86 years)

George Huntston Williams was an American academic, historian of Christianity, and professor of Nontrinitarian Christian theology. His works focused on the historical research of Nontrinitarian Christian movements that emerged during the Protestant Reformation, primarily Socinianism and Unitarianism.

#1056

Francis X. Murphy

#55259

Overall Influence

1915 - 2002 (87 years)

Francis Xavier Murphy, CSsR was a Redemptorist chaplain and theology professor. He is best known for his articles about the Second Vatican Council, first published in The New Yorker magazine under the pseudonym Xavier Rynne.

#1057

Willem Hendrik Velema

#91277

Overall Influence

1929 - 2019 (90 years)

Willem Hendrik Velema was a Dutch professor, pastor and theologian. He was a member of the Christian Reformed Churches. Life and work Wim Velema was born in Drachten in 1929 as a son of the pastor Hendrik Velema . His brothers Jan and Koen were also pastors. After high school he studied theology and obtained his doctorate in 1957 at the VU University Amsterdam on the dissertation The Holy Spirit with Abraham Kuyper. He started his career as a pastor in Eindhoven and then he worked in Leiden. In 1966 Velema was appointed professor of New Testament courses. He did this until Johannes Pieter Versteeg was appointed Professor of New Testament in 1969.

#1058

Ian A. McFarland

#80904

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Ian Alexander McFarland is an American Lutheran theologian and has since 2019 served as Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Theology at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, where he also taught from 2005 to 2015. From 2015 to 2019 he was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He holds degrees from Trinity College , Union Theological Seminary , the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the University of Cambridge and Yale University. He also taught at the University of Aberdeen from 1998 to 2005.

#1059

Léonce-Albert Van Peteghem

#99196

Overall Influence

1916 - 2004 (88 years)

Léonce-Albert Van Peteghem was a Belgian Roman Catholic Bishop. He served as the twenty-eighth Bishop of Ghent between 1964 and 1991: it was an unusually long incumbency. Life Early years Van Peteghem was born a short distance to the north of Ghent, the youngest of his parents' twelve children. His parents were farm workers. He spent some of his childhood in nearby Lochristi after his parents relocated to obtain work, and more of it in De Pinte for the same reason. He received a Classics and Humanities focused education at Sint-Lievenscollege in Ghent, before undertaking higher leve...

#1060

Stanley Jedidiah Samartha

#80445

Overall Influence

1920 - 2001 (81 years)

Stanley Jedidiah Samartha was an Indian theologian and a participant in inter-religious dialogue. Samartha's major contribution was through the World Council of Churches sub-unit "Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies" of which he was the first director.

#1061

Robert P. Imbelli

#98545

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Rev. Robert P. Imbelli is a Christian theologian and Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Imbelli is an associate professor emeritus of theology at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where he taught from 1986 to 2014. He was the director of the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College from 1986 to 1993. He previously taught theology at the New York Archdiocesan Seminary, St. Joseph's Seminary at Dunwoodie and at the Maryknoll School of Theology in Ossining, New York . While teaching in Boston, Imbelli served at Sacred Heart Church...

#1062

Laurel C. Schneider

#65233

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Laurel C. Schneider is an American theologian and a professor of Religion and Culture as well as a professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. Schneider is known for her theological analysis of images of God in relation to questions of social justice and liberation. Her work has contributed to the development of a theological framework, using concepts like multiplicity and polydoxy, as an alternative to orthodoxy and more traditional approaches to religious belief and theological reflection. Schneider's work focuses on collaborative models of thinking and publishing. She has wor...

#1063

Chester Gillis

#78186

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Chester L. Gillis is the former Dean of Georgetown College, Professor in the Department of Theology, and the founding Director of the Program on the Church and Interreligious Dialogue in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. In 2017, Gillis concluded as Dean of Georgetown College and returned to the faculty. In January 2019, he assumed the position of interim provost at Saint Louis University. He left his position as interim provost of Saint Louis University May 2020.

#1064

John Tudno Williams

John Tudno Williams

#39910

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

John Tudno Williams was the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Wales from 2006 to 2007 and the Principal of the United Theological College, Aberystwyth, from 1998 to 2003. Early career John Tudno Williams was born in 1938 in Flint, the son of Arthur Tudno Williams, a minister in the Presbyterian Church of Wales and an alumnus of Jesus College, Oxford, and Primrose . He was educated at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys in Liverpool and Colfe's Grammar School in London. Williams studied theology at Jesus College, Oxford like his father before him, graduating in 1960. On leaving...

#1065

Mary Tanner

#103561

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Dame Mary Elizabeth Tanner, DBE is a British academic specialising in the Old Testament. She was European President of the World Council of Churches from 2006 to 2013 and has been a member of the WCC Faith and Order Commission since 1974, serving as its moderator from 1991 to 1998.

#1066

Lawrence Boadt

#83741

Overall Influence

1942 - 2010 (68 years)

Lawrence Edward Boadt, C.S.P. , was an American Paulist priest and Biblical scholar, who advocated on behalf of improved communication and understanding between Christians and Jews. Life Boadt was born in Los Angeles, California, on October 26, 1942. After high school, he entered the novitiate of the Paulist Fathers in Vineland, New Jersey, where he made his initial promises as a member of the congregation on September 8, 1962. He then earned bachelor's and master's degrees from St. Paul's College in Washington, D.C., the house of formation for the Paulist Fathers. He received ordination as a ...

#1067

Antoni Lewek

#91996

Overall Influence

1940 - 2010 (70 years)

Antoni Lewek was a Catholic priest, theologian, and academic. He was founder and first director of Institute for Media Education and Journalism at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. Ordained in 1963, Lewek specialized in homiletics and held faculty positions the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw and the Institut für Katechetik und Homiletik in Munich . In 1973, he became a researcher at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University. From 2002 to his death, he was director of the Institute for Media Education and Journalism there.

#1068

Gerard Loughlin

#59585

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Gerard Patrick Loughlin is an English Roman Catholic theologian and religious scholar. He is Professor of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, England. He is the author of Telling God's Story: Bible Church and Narrative Theology and Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Cinema and Theology .

#1069

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.

#1070

Chris Huebner

#63408

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Christopher Kennedy Huebner is an associate professor of theology and philosophy at Canadian Mennonite University, as well as co-editor of Herald Press's Polyglossia series. Huebner was born and raised in Winnipeg. He received a Bachelor of Theology degree from Canadian Mennonite Bible College in 1992, as well as Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in philosophy from the University of Manitoba in 1992 and 1995 respectively. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology and ethics from Duke University in 2002 with the dissertation Unhandling History: Anti-Theory, Ethics, and the Practice of Witness.

#1071

Michael Lattke

#85147

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Michael Stephan Lattke Lattke was born in Stettin, Germany . He was brought up in Solingen and, after attending the Volksschule Wittkuller Straße and Humboldt-Gymnasium before completing his Abitur at Gymnasium Schwertstraße, studied at Bonn, Tübingen, Münster, Augsburg and München. In spite of his Roman Catholic background, at Tübingen he also studied Protestant theology, especially under the leading Protestant New Testament scholar Ernst Käsemann. He received the Dipl.-Theol. from Tübingen in 1968, the Dr. theol. from Freiburg in 1974, and the Dr. theol. habil. from Augsburg in 1979.

#1072

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.

#1073

Peter Adam

#88565

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Peter James Adam is an Australian Christian minister. An Anglican priest, he served as vicar of St Jude's Church in Carlton, Melbourne, for 20 years, where he is now vicar emeritus; and principal of Ridley College for ten years.

#1074

Catherine Keller

Catherine Keller

#65836

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Catherine Keller is a contemporary Christian theologian and Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University's Graduate Division of Religion. As a constructive theologian, Keller's work is oriented around social and ecological justice, poststructuralist theory, and feminist readings of scripture and theology. Both her early and her late work brings relational thinking into theology, focusing on the relational nature of the concept of the divine, and the forms of ecological interdependence within the framework of relational theology. Her work in process theology draws on the relational on...

#1075

Frank Senn

#92890

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Frank Colvin Senn is an American liturgist and pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He served as pastor of five congregations: Gloria Dei in South Bend, Indiana , Fenner Memorial in Louisville, Kentucky , Christ the Mediator in Chicago, Illinois , Holy Spirit in Lincolnshire, Illinois , and Immanuel in Evanston, Illinois .

#1076

Martin Petzoldt

#91896

Overall Influence

1946 - 2015 (69 years)

Martin Petzoldt was a German Lutheran theologian, Bach scholar and academic teacher. He was a professor at the University of Leipzig and president of the . Career Petzoldt was born in Rabenstein. He was a member of the under Rudolf Mauersberger. and attended the He studied theology at the University of Leipzig, graduating in 1969. He was promoted there in 1976 and achieved his habilitation in 1985.

#1077

Simon Chan

#105789

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Simon Chan is a Singaporean Chinese Christian theologian and ordained minister of the Assemblies of God. Biography Chan received his M.Div. from Asian Theological Seminary and his MTheol in Systematic Theology from South East Asia Graduate School of Theology. He then completed his Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Cambridge University

#1078

Roger Duke

#81851

Overall Influence

Roger D. Duke is an author, theologian, educator, itinerant preacher, and was a professor at several institutions of higher learning including Union University, Baptist College of Health Sciences, Liberty University, Memphis Theological Seminary, and Columbia Evangelical Seminary. Professor Duke also serves as a Consulting Editor for B & H Academic's Studies in Baptist Life and Thought series. He retired in 2016 to focus on a speaking and writing career by forming the Duke Consulting Group.

#1079

John Norman Davidson Kelly

#58219

Overall Influence

1909 - 1997 (88 years)

John Norman Davidson Kelly was a British theologian and academic at the University of Oxford and Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, between 1951 and 1979, during which the hall transformed into an independent constituent college of the university and later a co-educational establishment.

#1080

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.

#1081

Clair Linzey

#82171

Overall Influence

Clair Linzey is a British theologian, ethicist and writer. She is the Frances Power Cobbe Professor of Animal Theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation, Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and the director of their annual summer school. Linzey is also co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series and the Journal of Animal Ethics. She specialises in animal theology, animal ethics, environmental ethics, systematic theology, feminist theology and Christian moral thought.

#1082

Mohammad Ali Shomali

#57128

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Mohammad Ali Shomali is a Muslim scholar, academic, philosopher and theologian. His religious rank is Hujjat al-Islam. Early life and education Shomali was born 1965 in Tehran, Iran. He studied in the religious seminaries of Qom, and also completed a bachelors and masters degree in Western Philosophy from the University of Tehran. He then received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Manchester. Shomali's thesis was on ethical relativism, and his postdoctoral research was on ethical issues related to life and death.

#1083

Martin Adolf Bormann

#54269

Overall Influence

1930 - 2013 (83 years)

Martin Adolf Bormann was a German theologian and laicized Roman Catholic priest. He was the eldest of the ten children of Martin Bormann. Early life Bormann was born in Grünwald, Bavaria, the oldest of the ten children of the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler, Martin Bormann and his wife, . He was baptised in the German Evangelical Church with Adolf Hitler as his godfather. His parents would not baptise some of their subsequent children on account of their hostility to Christianity and did not raise their children religiously. Nicknamed Krönzi, short ...

#1084

Eric Segelberg

#56355

Overall Influence

1920 - 2001 (81 years)

Eric Segelberg was a Swedish theologian and a priest of the Lutheran Church of Sweden. Biography Segelberg was born in Nyköping, Sweden. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1944, and he continued to study theology and classics at both Uppsala and Oxford Universities, receiving a doctorate in history of religion. His dissertation in 1958 was titled "Maşbūtā. Studies in the Ritual of the Mandæan Baptism". He became professor of classics at Dalhousie University, Canada, in 1968. As professor emeritus he returned to Sweden. Widely known in many fields, he specialized in study of patristics, the Mandeans and Gnosticism.

#1085

Graham Hill

#48416

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Graham Joseph Hill is an Australian theologian who is a former associate professor of the University of Divinity. He is the State Leader of Baptist Mission Australia . Hill's research focuses on World Christianity but he is also known for his work on biblical egalitarianism and women theologians of global Christianity. He has published in the areas of missiology, applied theology, and global and ecumenical approaches to missional ecclesiology.

#1086

Kevin Waters

#101562

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

J. Kevin Waters S.J. is a Jesuit priest, composer, educator, and retired Academic Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Early life John Kevin Waters was born June 24, 1933, in Seattle, WA, the third child of Thomas Waters and Eleanor Waters. He has an older sister, Maribeth, an older brother, Thomas, and a younger sister, Kathleen. He began his education at Sacred Heart School in Seattle and Showalter Grade School in Riverton Heights, WA. During high school he was a student at O'Dea High School and Seattle Preparatory School, from which he graduated in 1951.

#1087

Hugh G. M. Williamson

#78999

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson is a theologian and academic. He was Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford from 1992 to 2014, a position he now holds as Emeritus. Career Williamson has authored major commentaries on Ezra/Nehemiah in the Word Biblical Commentary series and a multi-volumed commentary of Isaiah 1-27 for the International Critical Commentary series. For the latter, volume 1 was published in 2006 and volume 2 in 2019.

#1088

David Jang

#20673

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

David Jang is a Korean professor, Christian theologian, and pastor. He has founded several Christian organizations, including Olivet University in San Francisco, Christian Today headquartered in Korea, Christian Daily Korea, and Christianity Daily in Los Angeles, CA. He served as a member of the North American Council of the World Evangelical Alliance from 2007 to 2018, the former president of World Olivet Assembly, the founder and first international president of Olivet University, and current president of the Holy Bible Society. Jang was also the 88th President of the General Assembly of ...

#1089

Xavier Lacroix

#100181

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

Xavier Lacroix was a French philosopher and theologian. He was a professor of philosophy and moral theology at the Catholic University of Lyon.

#1090

Hamilton Moore

#101494

Overall Influence

Hamilton Moore is a Baptist theologian and lecturer. Moore holds a Bachelor of Divinity, a Master of Theology, and a PhD. In 1990, Moore became principal and New Testament tutor at the Irish Baptist College in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He is also adjunct professor at Emanuel University in Oradea, Romania. Prior to that, he worked in pastoral and evangelistic ministry from 1968.

#1091

Birger Gerhardsson

#100034

Overall Influence

1926 - 2013 (87 years)

Birger Gerhardsson was a Swedish New Testament scholar and professor in the Faculty of Theology at Lund University, Sweden. His primary academic focus was on the transmission and development of the oral traditions of the New Testament gospels.

#1092

Hywel Lewis

#41663

Overall Influence

1910 - 1992 (82 years)

Hywel David Lewis was a Welsh theologian and philosopher. He was best known for his defence of dualism and personal survival. Life Lewis was born in Llandudno, Wales, and educated at Caernarfon grammar school, the University College of North Wales, Bangor , and Jesus College, Oxford .

#1093

Emmanuel Katongole

#82309

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Emmanuel Katongole is a Ugandan Catholic priest and theologian known for his work on violence and politics in Africa and theology of reconciliation. Biography Katongole was born in Malube, Uganda, to Anthony Bukerimanza and Magdalene Nyiraruhango. His father, a Tutsi, and his mother, a Hutu, were both originally from Rwanda but moved to Uganda in the 1950s.

#1094

Johannes Wallmann

#79976

Overall Influence

1930 - 2021 (91 years)

Johannes Wallmann was a German Protestant theologian and emeritus professor of church history at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. He died from COVID-19 in Berlin during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

#1095

Dominik Finkelde

#77465

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Dominik Finkelde is a German Jesuit priest, philosopher and playwright. Life and work After graduating from high school, Finkelde studied philosophy, theology and literature in Berlin, Munich and Paris. In 2003, he earned his doctorate with a thesis on Walter Benjamin at the Munich School of Philosophy. Parallel to his studies, he joined the Jesuit Order in 1996 and began further education there. During the Magisterium, a two-year period of practical experience, he worked in the pastoral work in Mexico City and as lecturer of philosophy at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Dominik Finkelde was ordained as a Catholic priest by the Freiburg Bishop Bernd Uhl in June 2009 in the Cathedral of .

#1096

Dominique-Marie David

#76476

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Dominique-Marie Jean Michel David is a French prelate of the Catholic Church who has been the Archbishop of Monaco since 2021. He is a member of the Emmanuel Community. Biography David was born on 21 September 1963 in Beaupréau in Maine-et-Loire. After high school, he attended the Université catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, graduating with a degree in English philology. He worked as an English teacher. He entered the Emmanuel Community and was sent as a seminarian to the Saint-Paul Interdiocesan Seminary in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, where he earned a bachelor's degree in theology from the Université catholique de Louvain.

#1097

Alberto Soggin

#66134

Overall Influence

1926 - 2010 (84 years)

Jan Alberto Soggin was a leading Italian biblical scholar. Early life Soggin was born on 10 March 1926. He took his first degrees in law at the Sapienza University of Rome and in theology at the Waldensian Theological Seminary in Rome.

#1098

Kuncheria Pathil

#97751

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Kuncheria Pathil is an Indian theologian belonging to the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. Early life Pathil was born to Varkey Ouseph and Mariam at Kannady in Alappuzha District. His native parish is Kavalam of Changanacherry Archieparchy. He had his primary education in St.Joseph's High School, Pulinkunnu. Then he joined Carmelites of Mary Immaculate . He was ordained a priest on 17 May 1967.

#1099

Reinhard Hütter

#74499

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Reinhard Hütter is a Christian theologian and Professor of Fundamental and Dogmatic Theology at The Catholic University of America. During the 2012–2013 academic year, he held The Rev. Robert J. Randall Professor in Christian Culture chair at Providence College.

#1100

Bertram Meier

#97633

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Bertram Meier is a German prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Augsburg since 2020. Life Meier studied Roman Catholic theology at the University of Augsburg and in Rome at Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained as priest on 10 October 1985. On 29 January 2020, he was appointed bishop of Augsburg and consecrated bishop on June 6 of the same year.

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