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.

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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#1601

Martyn C. Cowan

#166218
Overall Influence
Martyn C. Cowan FRHistS is an Irish Presbyterian minister and lecturer in Historical Theology at the Union Theological College, Belfast. Biography Early life and education Cowan was educated at Friends' School Lisburn and went on to study philosophy at undergraduate and postgraduate level at Queen’s University Belfast. He was a student on the Cornhill Training Course and trained for ordination at Oak Hill Theological College , and Union Theological College . He subsequently completed doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge with a dissertation entitled ’The prophetic preaching of John ...
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#1602

Jean-Marc Berthoud

#109713
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Jean-Marc Berthoud is a Swiss theologian and author. He has published many books on modern and historical Christianity. Early life Jean-Marc Berthoud was born in 1939 in South Africa from Swiss missionary parents who originally hailed from Neuchâtel.
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#1603

Günter Lüling

#43778
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Günter Lüling was a German Protestant theologian, philological scholar and pioneer in the study of early Islamic origins. From 1962 to 1965 he was the Director of the German Goethe-Institut in Aleppo, Syria.
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#1604

Raymond Collins

#131262
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Raymond Francis Collins is an American Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Providence, and an exegete of the New Testament. Recently retired, he has taught as a professor at a variety of institutions of higher education, including most prominently Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Catholic University of America. He also served the American College of the Immaculate Conception as its ninth rector.
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#1605

Bonifatius Fischer

#101153
Overall Influence
1915 - 1997 (82 years)
Bonifatius Fischer was a German biblical scholar, textual critic of the Vulgate, and Benedictine. Fischer questioned Jerome's authorship of some parts of the Vulgate New Testament. In 1951-1954 Fischer prepared the Old-Latin text of the Book of Genesis:Genesis 1:1 – 9:14 Genesis 9:14 – 27:23 Genesis 27:23 – 43:22 Genesis 43:22 – 50:26 .Fischer examined all known Latin manuscripts of the Gospels written before the 10th century. Fischer participated in preparation of Vulgata Stuttgartiana.
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#1606

Guillermo W. Méndez

#154682
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Guillermo W. Méndez is a Guatemalan theologian, educated in Guatemala, Central America, and in North America. After two decades serving as a Theology Professor in Guatemala, deeply challenged by Liberation Theology, he researched Law, Economics and Politics. Former member of the Latin American Theological Fraternity and the theological commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship, he developed a concern for the poor and engaged in the transformation of the Civil Law system of his native Guatemala, to undermine the privileges of the ruling political class and reform, through political and ...
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#1607

Bulcsú Hoppál

#172130
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Bulcsú Kál Hoppál is a Hungarian theologian and philosopher. Biography In 1999 he received a Bachelor's degree in Sacred Theology at Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem in Budapest. In 2002 he received a Licentiate there in the same subject—the equivalent of a Ph.D. In 2003, he received the degree of Magister der Philosophie from the International Academy for Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein. He is one of the vice-presidents of the Hungarian Association for the Academic Study of Religion.
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#1608

Beat Huwyler

#175386
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Beat Huwyler is a Swiss-born Reformist theologian who taught at University of Basel. Huwyler received a Doctor of Theology degree in 1995 after completing his thesis about the Book of Jeremiah. He was editor of the evangelical magazine "Life & Faith" from 2006 to 2008. He directed a research program founded by Swiss National Science Foundation in the University of Basel. He edited the book "Easter Monday" in 2008 and wrote "Jeremiah and the People" in 1997 with articulates the criterion that changes in biblical books must be repeated and serve a discernible and unifying purpose.
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#1609

Ellen Wondra

#173607
Overall Influence
Ellen K. Wondra is an American theologian. She is research professor emerita of theology and ethics at the Bexley Seabury Theological Seminary Federation. Wondra studied at Pomona College, the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and the University of Chicago Divinity School. She was formerly Editor in Chief of the Anglican Theological Review. In 2014 Wondra was elected to the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.
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#1610

John Gee

John Gee
#39899
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
John Laurence Gee is an American Latter-day Saint scholar, apologist and an Egyptologist. He currently teaches at Brigham Young University and serves in the Department of Near Eastern Languages. He is known for his writings in support of the Book of Abraham.
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#1611

Esther Mombo

#168171
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Esther Mombo is a Kenyan Anglican theologian who teaches church history and theologies from women's perspectives. Biography Born in Birongo village of Kisii County, Kenya to a Seventh-day Adventist father and a Quaker mother, Mombo received a BD from St Paul's United Theological College and an MPhil from the Irish School of Ecumenics of Trinity College Dublin. She returned to Kenya to teach at an Anglican bible college, where she became an Anglican herself. Mombo completed a PhD in 1998 at School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh as part of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World.
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#1612

Antonio Arregui Yarza

Antonio Arregui Yarza
#48309
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Antonio Arregui Yarza is the Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Guayaquil Ecuador. Yarza is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum in Rome, where he earned a doctorate in canon Law.
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#1613

Andrew Francis

#83069
Overall Influence
1946 - 2017 (71 years)
Andrew Francis was the Pakistani Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Multan from 2000 to 2014. Biography He was born in Adah, Pakistan on 29 November 1946. He was educated at St. Mary’s Convent school, Adah and St Francis High School, Lahore.
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#1614

Kim Yong-Bock

#169285
Overall Influence
1938 - 2022 (84 years)
Kim Yong-Bock was a Korean Presbyterian and founding father of minjung theology. Biography Born in Cholla province, his father died of tuberculosis when he was six years old. Along with his mother and younger sister, Kim lived with his uncle and aunt, the latter of whom was a Christian and introduced him to church. Although he considered studying theology at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, he pursued a BA in philosophy at Yonsei University . During this time, he participated in the April 19 Revolution and was imprisoned for forty days. After completing his military service, he went to Princeton Theological Seminary and completed an MDiv and a PhD .
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#1615

Antonius Jan Glazemaker

#142148
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Antonius Jan Glazemaker served as the twenty-first Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, from 1982 to 2000. Born on April 19, 1931, to Old Catholic parents, Glazemaker was raised in the Netherlands during a period ecumenical initiatives and the creation of the World Council of Churches.
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#1616

Steen Skovsgaard

#175648
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Steen Skovsgaard is a Danish prelate of the Church of Denmark serving as the Bishop of Lolland–Falster from 2005 to 2017. He was replaced by Marianne Gaarden. Life After graduation in 1979, Skovsgaard became the vicar of Gellerup church in Århus. Between 1988 - 1989 he was served as vicar of Klaksvík in the Faroe Islands and in 1997, he became the Dean of Aarhus.
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#1617

Y. D. Tiwari

#139957
Overall Influence
1911 - 1997 (86 years)
Yisu Das Tiwari was an Indian theologian and a leading participant in Hindu-Christian dialogue. He was a scholar in Sanskrit, Hindi and Greek. The Bible Society of India entrusted him with revision of the Hindi Bible into a contemporary version.
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#1618

Sam Korankye Ankrah

#55647
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Reverend Sam Korankye Ankrah is a Ghanaian minister and televangelist who serves as the Apostle General of the Royalhouse Chapel International, a church in Ghana with more than 30,000 members. He is also the first vice president of the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council.
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#1619

Hebe Charlotte Kohlbrugge

#106336
Overall Influence
1914 - 2016 (102 years)
Hebe Charlotte Kohlbrugge was a Dutch Protestant theologian and Second World War resistance member. She was a member of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church for eleven months and assisted the reverend Günther Harder in Fehrbellin. Kohlbrugge was involved in spiritual resistance against Nazi Germany through the secret distribution of a pamphlet in the Netherlands and Switzerland during the Second World War. After the war, she worked as the secretary of the Germany Commission in the Council for Church and Government of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1947, holding responsibility for restoring ties with...
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#1620

Gerald McKenny

#108702
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Gerald McKenny is an American theologian, currently the Walter Professor at University of Notre Dame. Education B.A., Wheaton College 1979M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1982Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1989
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#1621

Jean Porter

#171618
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Jean Porter is an American theologian, currently the John A. O'Brien Endowed Professor of Theology at University of Notre Dame. To date, she has written "numerous articles and six books on the history of the Christian moral tradition and its contemporary relevance".
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#1622

Ole Edvard Borgen

#120545
Overall Influence
1925 - 2009 (84 years)
Ole Edvard Borgen was a Norwegian theologian and Methodist bishop. He was born in Lillestrøm as a son of meat merchant Omar Emil Borgen and Harda Pytte , and older brother of Peder Borgen. In June 1949 he married Martha Olava Rygge .
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#1623

Hannibal Richard Cabral

#179410
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Hannibal Richard Cabral was the former principal of Karnataka Theological College, Mangalore, a seminary established in 1965 and affiliated to India's first University, the Senate of Serampore College. Cabral was appointed by the College Council as Principal in 2009 as John Sadananda, then principal, was elevated to the Bishopric of the Karnataka Southern Diocese of the Church of South India.
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#1624

Rik Torfs

#79133
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Henri Maria Dymphna André Laurent "Rik" Torfs is a Belgian canon law scholar and media personality. He is a former Senator for the Christian Democratic and Flemish party in the Belgian Federal Parliament and a former Rector of the Catholic University of Leuven.
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#1625

Bernd Uhl

#128305
Overall Influence
1946 - 2023 (77 years)
Bernd Joachim Uhl was a German Roman Catholic prelate. Uhl was born in Germany and was ordained to the priesthood in 1974. He served as titular bishop of Malliana and as auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Freiburg, Germany from 2001 until his resignation in 2018.
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#1626

William O'Malley

William O'Malley
#150236
Overall Influence
1931 - 2023 (92 years)
William J. O'Malley S.J. was an American author and actor. He was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended Canisius High School there. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1953. Life William O'Malley taught Advanced Placement English and theology for 22 years at McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, New York. He also directed the school's musical and drama productions.
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#1627

Jack Provonsha

#139384
Overall Influence
1919 - 2004 (85 years)
Jack Wendell Provonsha was a Seventh-day Adventist Physician and ethicist. Biography He was born on May 30, 1919. He was an emeritus professor of Christian ethics and philosophy of religion at Loma Linda University. He was also the founding director of the Center for Christian Bioethics at the university. He died on August 11, 2004.
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#1628

Neiliezhü Üsou

Neiliezhü Üsou
#73373
Overall Influence
1941 - 2009 (68 years)
Neiliezhü Üsou was an Indian baptist minister and public leader from Nagaland. He was known for his interpretive skills, sermons and involvement with the State Government. Early life, education and family Neiliezhü Üsou was born on 7 July 1941 to an Angami Naga family from Nerhema Village. His father, Putsolie Üsou, was the village head. His early education was at the village primary school. He came from a non-Christian family, and was inspired to become a missionary by witnessing B. I. Anderson, an American missionary, and his wife playing piano accordion during their visit to Nerhema Village Baptist Church in 1951, led by Kenneth Kerhüo.
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#1629

Richard Treloar

#140587
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Richard Stanley Treloar is an Australian Anglican bishop. He is the current Bishop of Gippsland in the Province of Victoria. Treloar was born and raised in Sydney. He studied theology at Trinity College Theological School, graduating Bachelor of Theology and Master of Theology, and at Monash University where he obtained his PhD. Treloar was ordained deacon and priest in the Anglican Diocese of Ballarat and served as curate at St Peter's Ballarat and Christchurch Warrnambool before becoming rector of the Parish of Skipton . In 1998, he was appointed the associate chaplain and Stewart Lecturer in Theology at Trinity College.
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#1630

William C. Wantland

#70534
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
William Charles Wantland is an American Anglican Bishop. He is a former Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire. Biography Wantland was born in Edmond, Oklahoma. He is of Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw descent. In 1973 Wantland, his, wife, and their children were declared citizens of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma by adoption.
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#1631

Reimund Bieringer

#131890
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Reimund Bieringer is a German theologian, biblical scholar, Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium, and a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Speyer in Germany. The main areas of his research include the Second Letter to the Corinthians , the Gospel of John , and biblical hermeneutics .
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#1632

David C. Fisher

#62429
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
David Charles Fisher is an American author, professor, and a pastor who was the senior pastor at Park Street Church in Boston from 1989 to 1995 and the senior pastor at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York from 2004 to 2013.
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#1633

David Kerr

#128846
Overall Influence
1945 - 2008 (63 years)
David A. Kerr was a British scholar of Christian-Muslim relations and world Christianity. Biography Kerr was born and raised in London to Agape Jean, the daughter of Scottish missionaries in China and Wilfred Kerr, a minister of the United Reformed Church. He conducted his studies in Arabic and Islamic Studies at SOAS, University of London , theology at Mansfield College, Oxford , and a PhD at St Antony's College, Oxford . His doctoral work on church-state relations in Lebanon was supervised by the scholar of Middle Eastern studies, Albert Hourani.
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#1634

YoungSang Ro

YoungSang Ro
#132146
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
YoungSang Ro is a Korean theologian in the field of Christian ethics as well as a Protestant pastor of The Presbyterian Church of Korea . He was a longtime professor and President at Honam Theological University and Seminary, and professor and dean of theological seminary at Presbyterian University & Theological Seminary. In the fall of 2017, he also assumed a professor at Baekseok University. He is considered to be one of the important theologians in Korea who was named in Marquis Who’s Who in the World, 2018. He specializes in Christian ethics, Christian culture, and Korean unification research.
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#1635

Robert Dodaro

#163507
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Robert John Dodaro, OSA is an American priest of the Catholic Church. He is a specialist in the writings of St Augustine of Hippo. Dodaro is a 1973 graduate of St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Michigan.
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#1636

Stephen N. Williams

#128781
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Stephen Nantlais Williams is a Welsh Presbyterian theologian, author and lecturer who, after retiring from a teaching career was appointed Honorary Professor of Theology at Queen's University Belfast in 2017.
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#1637

Michael Worsnip

#157271
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Michael Worsnip is a South African Anglican theologian. He is author of several books, most notably Between the Two Fires - the Anglican Church in South Africa 1948 -1957; the book Priest and Partisan: A South African journey on anti-Apartheid activist and fellow Anglican priest, Father Michael Lapsley; the Novel Remittance Man. He was formerly the Secretary General of the Lesotho Council of churches and was deported from South Africa after giving an interview to the BBC.
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#1638

John Christian Wenger

#175547
Overall Influence
1910 - 1995 (85 years)
John C. Wenger was an American Mennonite theologian and professor. Life He was the eldest of five children born to A. Martin Wenger and his wife, Martha A. Rock . He was born at the Reese H. White farm in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania, which his parents rented. His family moved in 1923 to Telford, where his father had gotten the job of janitor at the Rockhill Mennonite Church. Wenger was baptized on May 11, 1924, at the age of 13. He reported that he was disappointed when he did not feel a sense of "joy" and "Christian assurance" following the practice.
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#1639

Sister Susan Rose Francois

#118613
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Susan Rose Francois is a perpetually professed Roman Catholic sister of the order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. She is an author, columnist, and blogger on religious life and social justice. She has been active in the Nuns on the Bus movement, and came to the attention of mainstream media because of her daily practice of tweeting a prayer to US President Donald Trump.
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#1640

Crispin Varquez

Crispin Varquez
#133412
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Crispin Barrete Varquez is a prelate of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. He is the current Bishop of Borongan in Eastern Samar. His previous appointment was as Vicar General of the Diocese of Tagbilaran in January 2007.
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#1641

Kelvin Felix

#46085
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Kelvin Edward Felix, OBE, SLMH, DAH is the Roman Catholic Archbishop emeritus of Castries, St Lucia. He was born in Roseau, Dominica, on 15 February 1933. He became a cardinal at the papal consistory held on 22 February 2014.
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#1642

James Colaianni

#106064
Overall Influence
1922 - 2016 (94 years)
James F. Colaianni was an American Catholic lay theologian, author, publisher, lawyer, and activist. Early life He was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1922. In 1939, Colaianni graduated from St. Joseph’s High School in Paterson, NJ and attended Seton Hall University. Colaianni served in the US Army during World War II in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany, attaining the rank of technical sergeant. Following his honorable discharge, his subsequent antiwar convictions began to emerge.
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#1643

David John Bird

David John Bird
#109687
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
David John Bird is dean emeritus of the historic Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, the oldest church structure in continuous use in San Jose. He is a parish priest who reads and writes poetry and is particularly fond of Alfred Lord Tennyson. As a theologian, he emphasizes a liberal, compassionate, and inclusive approach and is devoted to ecumenism. Bird promotes Christian unity and is published in this field; since 2002, he has served on the national Committee of The Episcopal Church-United Methodist Church Dialogue.
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#1644

Kathleen Deignan

#126381
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Kathleen P. Deignan, CND, , is an Irish-American theologian, author and songwriter of contemporary liturgical music. A Sister of the Congregation of Notre Dame, she is composer-in-residence for Schola Ministries and is the founding director of the Deignan Institute for Earth and Spirit Institute at Iona College, New York. She previously directed the Iona Institute for Peace and Justice Studies in Ireland. Deignan is a GreenFaith Fellow who completed an intensive training in religious environmental leadership. Her work in this area focuses on the legacy of Father Thomas Berry. She is Emeri...
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#1645

David Syme Russell

#84383
Overall Influence
1916 - 2010 (94 years)
David Syme Russell was a British theologian and author, former Principal of Rawdon College, Leeds, and General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Early life and career David Syme Russell was born in Glasgow in 1916. His father was a joiner, working on the River Clyde. As a child, Russell showed promise as a footballer and completed trials for the Scottish schoolboys' side and at Queen's Park. Heavily involved with Cambuslang Baptist Church, he later recounted that he knew even as a child that he would end up in ministry.
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#1646

Edir Macedo

Edir Macedo
#134264
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Edir Macedo is a Brazilian evangelical bishop, writer, billionaire businessman, and the founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God . He is the owner and chairman of the third-largest television network in Brazil, Record, along with Grupo Record since 1989, which he founded after he bought the network.
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#1647

Christina Astorga

#176905
Overall Influence
Maria Christina "Tina" A. Astorga is a theologian and professor at the Theology Department in University of Portland. She served as chair and Professor of Theology Department in Ateneo De Manila University.
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#1648

Ernst Dammann

#96932
Overall Influence
1904 - 2003 (99 years)
Ernst Karl Alwin Hans Dammann was a German Africanist. With Walter Markov, he was one of the founders of African Studies in the DDR, and as a student of Carl Meinhof and the successor of Diedrich Hermann Westermann, was part of the "second wave" of German Africanists. A prodigious scholar of African languages and a one-time missionary in Tanga, Tanzania, he was an early member of the Nazi party, and his scientific work was criticized as imbued with racist ideology.
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#1649

Richard Burridge

#68904
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Richard Alan Burridge is a Church of England priest, biblical scholar and a former Dean of King's College London. Early life and education Burridge was born on 11 June 1955 to Alan Burridge and Iris Joyce Burridge . Burridge played guitar in the band Exousia in the 1970s, and continues to record as a solo artist. He was educated at University College, Oxford where he received an MA and the University of Nottingham where he read for a PhD. His doctoral thesis on the genre of the gospels was published in 1992 as What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography. It played a part i...
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#1650

Wilhelm Baum

#121432
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Wilhelm Baum is an Austrian historian, theologian, philosopher and publisher. Biography He studied history, German language, and theology in Innsbruck, Rome, Mainz and Tübingen . In 1971, he became a doctor of philosophy and in 1999 in Graz a doctor of theology. In 1995, he taught medieval history at the university of Klagenfurt and at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. Now he lives in Klagenfurt, Austria, and works as a chief of a publishing house Kitab-Verlag, which he founded in 1999. He's a member of PEN club.
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