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.

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.

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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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Theology,

#1251

Franklin Littell

#46762

Overall Influence

1917 - 2009 (92 years)

Franklin Hamlin Littell was an American Protestant scholar. He is known for his writings rejecting supersessionism and, in light of the Holocaust, advocated educational programs to improve relations between Christians and Jews.

#1252

Antoine Wenger

#82490

Overall Influence

1919 - 2009 (90 years)

Antoine Wenger was a French priest, Patristics scholar and journalist. After studies in Strasbourg and Paris he taught at the Institut Catholique in Lyons. Ordained priest in 1943 as an Assumptionist, he pursued that order's interest in Byzantine studies and journalism.

#1253

Karl Matthäus Woschitz

#70668

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Karl Matthäus Woschitz is an Austrian theologian and bible scholar. He is professor emeritus of biblical theology and religious studies and was head of the institute of religious studies of the University of Graz from 1984 to 2005. Today he is rector of the Christ-König church in Klagenfurt.

#1254

William Roscoe Estep

#92175

Overall Influence

1920 - 2000 (80 years)

William Roscoe Estep was an American Baptist historian and professor. He was an authority on the Anabaptist movement. Career and life Estep was professor of Church history emeritus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1954 until his retirement in 1990, however he continued to teach until 1994. During that time, he wrote numerous works on subjects including Baptist and Anabaptist history, religious liberty and world missions. He also was involved in several church organisations including the American Society of Church History; the Conference on Faith and History ; Southern Baptist...

#1255

John E. McCarthy

#59589

Overall Influence

1930 - 2018 (88 years)

John Edward McCarthy was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Austin in Texas from 1985 to 2001. Biography Early life John McCarthy was born on June 21, 1930, in Houston, Texas, to George McCarthy and Grace O'Brien McCarthy. The youngest of four children, he was just 18 months old when his father died. His mother struggled to support her family in the midst of the Great Depression.

#1256

Malcolm Clemens Young

#75900

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Malcolm Clemens Young is an Episcopal priest, author, theologian and the ninth Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the United States. He was installed as dean in September 2015. He is the author of The Invisible Hand in the Wilderness: Economics, Ecology and God and The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau.

#1257

John F. Wippel

#79071

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

John Francis Wippel was an American Catholic priest of the Diocese of Steubenville. He was a leading authority on the metaphysical thought of Thomas Aquinas. He won the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy in 1981, two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, and was named a Professor of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. At the time of his death, he was serving as the Theodore Basselin Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

#1258

Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter

#93270

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter is a German theologian. After serving as director over programs for women and children with the World Council of Churches, teaching theology in Jamaica, and serving a pastorate in Stuttgart, Wartenberg-Potter became the president of the . In 2001 she began a seven-year term as the third woman serving as a Bishop of a Lutheran Church in Germany.

#1259

Beverly Mortensen

#36611

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Beverly P. Mortensen is a musician, composer, and scholar of ancient Jewish religion at Northwestern University. In 2006, she published the book The Priesthood in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Renewing the Profession , in which she strongly argues her thesis, that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a late 4th-century CE work and is meant as a manual for kohanim, Jewish priests.

#1260

Michael Barrett

Michael Barrett

#89386

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Michael Paul Vernon Barrett is Academic Dean and Professor of Old Testament at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary and was formerly president of Geneva Reformed Seminary and an associate minister of Faith Free Presbyterian Church, Greenville, South Carolina, a congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America.

#1261

Anne E. Patrick

Anne E. Patrick

#89787

Overall Influence

1941 - 2016 (75 years)

Anne Estelle Patrick, SNJM , was an American Catholic religious sister, theologian, and professor. She was an active member of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology, the Society of Christian Ethics, and the National Assembly of Women Religious.

#1262

Halvor Bergan

#116050

Overall Influence

1931 - 2015 (84 years)

Halvor Bergan was a Norwegian theologian and priest. He served as the Bishop of the Diocese of Agder from 1983 until his retirement in 1998. Personal life He was born 8 August 1931 in Skien in Telemark county, Norway. He died on 3 May 2015.

#1263

Werner Kümmel

#142490

Overall Influence

1905 - 1995 (90 years)

Werner Georg Kümmel was a German New Testament scholar and professor at the University of Marburg. Biography Kümmel was the son of the Heidelberg doctor Werner Kümmel and his first wife Marie . He was a grandson of the civil engineer Werner Kümmel and a nephew of the art historian Otto Kümmel, as well as a great-grandson of the physician Jacob Henle through his mother.

#1264

Stanisław Nagy

#86544

Overall Influence

1921 - 2013 (92 years)

Stanisław Kazimierz Nagy, SCI was a Polish member of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a cardinal. He was born in 1921 in Bieruń, Silesia, Poland, to a Hungarian father and Polish mother. In 1937 he became a member of the Dehonian Congregation and was ordained a priest in 1945. He was a rector in Kraków-Płaszów, in Tarnów and a professor at the Catholic University of Lublin.

#1265

Broughton Knox

#107640

Overall Influence

1916 - 1994 (78 years)

David Broughton Knox was principal of Moore Theological College from 1959 until 1985; and considered by some as the "Father of Contemporary Sydney Anglicanism". Knox was born in Adelaide and educated at Knox Grammar School and the University of Sydney. He was ordained deacon in 1941 and priest in 1942. After two years as a curate in Cambridge in England he was a RNVR chaplain during World War II. He began his long association with Moore Theological College in 1947.

#1266

Timotheas Hembrom

#84767

Overall Influence

Timotheas Hembrom is an ordained Minister of the Church of North India and an Old Testament Scholar who taught at the Bishop's College, Kolkata, affiliated to the nation's first University, the Senate of Serampore College . As a Biblical scholar, Hembrom is a member of the scholarly Society for Biblical Studies in India, with members from the Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic and Charismatic Church societies. He researched on Santali creation traditions and his work was first published in 1996 was simultaneously reviewed in the Indian Journal of Theology and the Journal of Hindu-Christian Stud...

#1267

Yvonne Seon

#15152

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Yvonne Seon is an American professor, university administrator, and Unitarian Universalist minister. She specializes in African studies, African American studies, and government administration. She was an administrative officer in the government of Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and also worked in the U.S. federal government. She then worked as a university administrator and founded a Black Studies Center at Wright State University, and helped to design one of the first doctoral programs in Black Studies in the United States. In 1981 Seon became the first African Ame...

#1268

Joachim Gauck

#20693

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Joachim Wilhelm Gauck is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany.

#1269

Rolf Knierim

#122174

Overall Influence

1928 - 2018 (90 years)

Rolf Paul Knierim was a German American theologian and biblical scholar who specialized in the research of the Old Testament. He was a tenured Professor of Old Testament at the Claremont School of Theology and Avery Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University.

#1270

Rolland D. McCune

#76606

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Rolland D. McCune was an American theologian and ordained Baptist minister . He was professor of Systematic Theology at the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, Michigan, where he had been the President of the Seminary for ten years and then Dean of the Faculty for six years. He was active at the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary from 1981 to 2009.

#1271

Jan Adrian Łata

#134024

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Jan Adrian Łata was ordained in 1969. He is a Polish Catholic priest, theologian, and philosopher. Łata wrote his thesis about Paul Tillich. With his thesis and with numerous translations of books of Paul Tillich he helped to spread the ideas of protestantic Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rudolf Bultmann in catholic Poland. From 1991 to 2017 Łata worked in the little village Weiding, Germany, as a priest and wrote books about the situation of modern Christians. In 1994, Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop Józef Życiński of the Archdiocese of Lublin awarded him the title canon.

#1272

Colin Slee

#75282

Overall Influence

1945 - 2010 (65 years)

Colin Bruce Slee, OBE was a priest in the Church of England, most notable for his final position as Dean of Southwark Cathedral from 1994 until his death. A friend of Desmond Tutu and Rowan Williams, Slee's churchmanship was liberal and Anglo-Catholic. He gave his backing to Jeffrey John's nomination as a bishop in 2003 and was opposed to the use of the hymn "Jerusalem" in church.

#1273

Tarcisius Van Bavel

#154525

Overall Influence

1923 - 2007 (84 years)

Tarsicius Jan Van Bavel was a Catholic priest and Augustinian friar, one was of the most important scholars in the thought of Augustine of Hippo. Van Bavel was Director of the Augustinian Historical Institute in Heverlee, Belgium, and Professor of Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

#1274

Shane Clifton

#154581

Overall Influence

Shane Clifton is an Australian theologian. Clifton was the Dean of Theology at Alphacrucis College . He received his PhD from the Australian Catholic University. In addition to his role with Alphacrucis, Clifton is the editor of the Australasian Pentecostal Studies journal. His 2005 dissertation and subsequent book was entitled Pentecostal Churches in Transition. He has co-written Globalization and the Mission of the Church with ACU's Professor Neil Ormerod. After a serious accident, in October 2010, that left him a quadriplegic, Shane has focused his scholarly work on exploring the interse...

#1275

Samuel Lucien Terrien

Samuel Lucien Terrien

#111262

Overall Influence

1911 - 2002 (91 years)

Samuel Lucien Terrien was a French-American Protestant theologian and biblical scholar. A professor at Union Theological Seminary for thirty-six years, he is known for his biblical commentary, particularly for his scholarly contributions to the study of Job and the Psalms in the Old Testament and for his book, The Elusive Presence , in which he presented a new theology of the presence and absence of God written largely in the context of cult, not covenant. It incorporated both Old and New Testaments in a broader ecumenical context and introduced a way for future theologians to ask how the pr...

#1276

Philip Esler

#42742

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Philip Francis Esler is the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. He is an Australian-born higher education administrator and academic who became the inaugural chief executive of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council in 2005, remaining in that role until 2009. From 1995 to 2010 he was professor of Biblical criticism at St Andrews University. From 1998 to 2001 he was vice-principal for research and provost of St Leonard’s College at St Andrews. During the years 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the board of Scottish Enterprise Fife. From October 2010 to March 2013 he was principal at St Mary’s University College Twickenham.

#1277

Elaine Wainwright

#115663

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Elaine Mary Wainwright was Richard Maclaurin Goodfellow Professor in Theology at the University of Auckland. She retired at the end of 2014. She is known for her feminist scholarship in Matthew's gospel, and work on gender and healing within the Graeco-Roman world. Some of her recent publications are The Bible in/and Popular Culture: A Creative Encounter , Women Healing/Healing Women: the Genderisation of Healing in Early Christianity , and Shall We Look for Another: A Feminist Re-reading of the Matthean Jesus . Wainwright initially studied at the University of Queensland and then obtained a m...

#1278

John E. Thiel

#108755

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

John Edwin Thiel is the Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J. Professor of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S.A, where he has taught for 47 years. Biography He received his B.A. from Fairfield University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from McMaster University. He was Visiting Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University, in the spring semesters of 2000, 2019, and 2020. Twice a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, he is the author of seven books. He writes in the field of Roman Catholic systematic theology. He served as president of the Ca...

#1279

Kwabena Opuni Frimpong

#88209

Overall Influence

Kwabena Opuni Frimpong is a Ghanaian academic and Presbyterian minister who served as the General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana , equivalent to the chief executive officer of the ecumenical organisation. He is also a lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology .

#1280

Thomas Joseph Tobin

#35373

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Thomas Joseph Tobin is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was bishop of the Diocese of Providence in Rhode Island from 2005 to 2023. Tobin previously served as bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown in Ohio from 1995 to 2005 and as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1995.

#1281

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.

#1282

Augustus Nicodemus Lopes

#151068

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Augustus Nicodemus Gomes Lopes, born in Paraíba, Brazil, is a Presbyterian minister, Calvinist theologian, writer and professor. He was Chancellor of Mackenzie Presbyterian University from 2003 to 2013. He is one of the greatest Brazilian conservative theologians. He is married to Minka Lopes and has four children.

#1283

Carole R. Fontaine

#85338

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Carole R. Fontaine is an internationally recognized American biblical scholar. She is the John Taylor professor of biblical theology and history at the Andover Newton Theological School and feminist author of six books and over 100 articles, in addition to serving on several editorial boards . She has written extensively on feminist theological topics, including disability, and is an expert in wisdom traditions and women in the ancient Near East.

#1284

Clifton L. Ganus Jr.

#71467

Overall Influence

1922 - 2019 (97 years)

Clifton L. Ganus Jr. was an American theologian and educator. He served as the third president of Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas from 1965 to 1987. He was closely associated with National Education Program, a conservative organization within the university that was later known as the American Studies Program. The involvement of Ganus and President Benson was with this group continued until 1954, when they disassociated with the group in order for the school to gain accreditation. He previously was a professor of history, chair of the department of history and social science, and vice president of the college.

#1285

Rémi Gounelle

#64113

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Rémi Gounelle is a French protestant theologian, a professor of history of early Christianity at the and dean of that same faculty since 2010. Biography Rémi Gounelle holds a doctorate from the École pratique des hautes études, section of Religious Sciences, and a doctorate in theology from the Lausanne University. He was awarded the Prix Paul Chapuis-Secretan. He is the nephew of , Protestant theologian and professor emeritus at the . He is also related to pastor and Michel Hollard, a member of the French resistance .

#1286

Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser

#135302

Overall Influence

1926 - 2010 (84 years)

Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser was a German Protestant theologian, church historian, professor and a leading scholar in John Calvin research, a founder of International Congress on Calvin Research. Biography Neuser, a son of the Evangelical Reformed pastor and later Superintendent Wilhelm Neuser, studied after graduating from the Protestant Theology at the Georg August University of Göttingen, University of Basel and at the Church College Bethel. In 1951 he passed his first ecclesiastical examination and then joined the Vicariate. After completing the vicariate, he received his doctorate in Doctor...

#1287

Max Stackhouse

#92910

Overall Influence

1935 - 2016 (81 years)

Max Lynn Stackhouse was the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was the president of the Berkshire Institute for Theology and the Arts.

#1288

G. Thompson Brown

#87537

Overall Influence

1921 - 2014 (93 years)

G. Thompson "Tommy" Brown was the Professor Emeritus of World Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary, a missionary, author, and the Director of the Division of International Mission for the Presbyterian Church in the United States . He spent much of his life in Korea focusing on strengthening the Presbyterian Church there. His daughter is Mary Brown Bullock, who was President of Agnes Scott College and a foundation executive in developing exchange with China.

#1289

Didier Pollefeyt

Didier Pollefeyt

#94791

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Didier Pollefeyt is a Belgian catholic theologian, full professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies and vice rector for education policy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Research career After gaining the degree of license in the Religious Studies and Theology Pollefeyt obtained his doctoral degree in Theology with a dissertation on ethics after Auschwitz . Thereafter he became instructor , associate instructor , associate professor and full professor at the Faculty of Theology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Since 1986 his research focuses on the holocaust as a chal...

#1290

Peter H. Davids

#74689

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Peter Hugh Davids is a Canadian New Testament scholar and Catholic priest. He retired as Professor of Christianity at Houston Baptist University. He has also taught biblical studies at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and Canadian Theological Seminary in Regina, Saskatchewan.

#1291

Olav Hagesæther

#149219

Overall Influence

1909 - 1999 (90 years)

Olav Hagesæther was a Norwegian theologian, priest, and Bishop of the Diocese of Stavanger. His son, Ole Hagesæther, was also a Norwegian bishop in the Diocese of Bjørgvin. Biography Olav Hagesæther was born on 25 August 1909 in Bergen, Norway to Andreas and Karen Hagesæther. He went to the MF Norwegian School of Theology from 1928 until his graduation in 1932. He received a cand.theol. degree. He was hired as a teacher at the Nordhordland Bible school run by Det norske lutherske Indremisjonsselskap missionary organization during the 1930s. In 1939, he was hired as the assistant pastor for Haus Church in Haus, Norway.

#1292

Richard L. Pratt Jr.

Richard L. Pratt Jr.

#59119

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Richard Linwood Pratt Jr. is an American theologian, author, and founder and President of Third Millennium Ministries. Third Millennium was launched in response to the lack of training of Christian leaders around the world. Third Millennium recognizes where the church is growing the fastest, those Christian leaders have the least amount of training. Pratt personally witnessed this in the 1980s as he traveled for missions. Helping the church worldwide has become his passion. He believes that any person that has the desire to learn more about the Bible should be given that opportunity in their...

#1293

David Thomas

#91952

Overall Influence

1942 - 2017 (75 years)

David Thomas was a Welsh Anglican bishop. From 1996 to 2008, he served as the Provincial Assistant Bishop of the Church in Wales. In this role, he ministered to those who could not accept the ordination of women as priests.

#1294

Guillaume Marie van Zuylen

#90397

Overall Influence

1910 - 2004 (94 years)

Gulielmus Maria van Zuylen was the 89th bishop of the diocese of Liège from 1961 to 1986. Lifecycle Van Zuylen was the grandson of Senator Guillaume van Zuylen , and the fourth of the eight children of Baron Joseph van Zuylen and Angèle van Caloen de Basseghem . His father also became a senator, as well as a provincial councilor and mayor of Richelle and Argenteau. His mother was the daughter of Camille van Caloen de Basseghem, mayor of Varsenare and Marie-Louise de Bie de Westvoorde, daughter of the mayor of Sint-Kruis, Jules de Bie de Westvoorde.

#1295

Paul Boafo

#77471

Overall Influence

Paul Kwabena Boafo is a Ghanaian theologian and minister who was elected as the twelfth Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church Ghana in 2018. He previously served as the Administrative Bishop of the Church. He is the first ordained minister to serve in both capacities in the episcopal history of the Ghanaian Methodist Church. Boafo also served as the Protestant Chaplain of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology .

#1296

Michael Francis Burbidge

Michael Francis Burbidge

#66358

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Michael Francis Burbidge is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has been the bishop of the Diocese of Arlington in Virginia since 2016. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania from 2002 to 2006 and as bishop of the Diocese of Raleigh in North Carolina from 2006 to 2016. He is the chairman of the Pro-Life Activities Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

#1297

Peter Raymond Draper

#136048

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Peter Raymond Draper is Professor of Nursing Education and Scholarship and former Director of the Teaching Excellence Academy at the University of Hull. He is also a Self-Supporting Minister in the Church of England.

#1298

Bernard Reymond

#107704

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Bernard Reymond is a Swiss pastor and theologian, honorary professor of practical theology at the Romand pastoral Institute of the University of Lausanne, which belongs to the current of Liberal Christianity.

#1299

Mary Clemente Davlin

#39334

Overall Influence

1929 - 2017 (88 years)

Mary Clemente Davlin was a Sinsinawa Dominican Sister, an advocate for diversity in higher education, and a noted scholar of medieval studies, particularly the allegorical poem Piers Plowman. Early life and education Marguerite "Marge" Davlin was born on Chicago's South Side to Mary Margaret Ryan Davlin and John Joseph Davlin. She was known as Marge all her life. In Chicago she attended St. Philip Neri elementary school and Aquinas Dominican high school. She earned a bachelor's degree at Rosary College and a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison, after which she studied Italian and violin at the Pius XII Institute in Florence, Italy.

#1300

Iain Paul

#119486

Overall Influence

1939 - 2012 (73 years)

Iain Paul was a Scottish chemist and theologian born in Glasgow, Scotland as the Second World War was stirring. Iain and his sister were raised by their paternal grandparents attending Govan High School .

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