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Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#1801

Eva Hoffmann-Aleith

#161413

Overall Influence

1910 - 2002 (92 years)

Eva Hoffmann-Aleith was a German evangelical pastor, teacher and author. As a woman pastor undertaking what was widely seen as a man's job she became a pioneer and a role model for successor generations.

#1802

Albert-Marie de Monléon

#110834

Overall Influence

1937 - 2019 (82 years)

Albert-Marie Joseph Cyrille de Monléon was a French Roman Catholic bishop. De Monléon was born in France and was ordained to the priesthood in 1964. He served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pamiers from 1988 to 1999 and served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Meaux from 1999 to 2012.

#1803

A. Katherine Grieb

#175551

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Anne Katherine "Kathy" Grieb is an American biblical scholar and Episcopal priest. She has taught New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary since 1994, and is currently Meade Professor in Biblical Interpretation. She previously taught at Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine.

#1804

Chanequa Walker-Barnes

#182953

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Chanequa Walker-Barnes is an American theologian and psychologist. Her research as a clinical psychologist has focused on African American health disparities, and as a womanist theologian she has written about the myth of the "StrongBlackWoman" and the need for the voices of women of color. She has written two books, Too Heavy a Yoke and I Bring the Voices of My People.

#1805

Philip Giddings

#138705

Overall Influence

Philip Giddings is a British retired political scientist and academic, specialising in parliamentary government. He is a lecturer in politics at the University of Reading. He is also a lay leader in the Church of England, and heads the conservative evangelical Anglican movement called Anglican Mainstream.

#1806

Domenico Bartolucci

Domenico Bartolucci

#111884

Overall Influence

1917 - 2013 (96 years)

Domenico Bartolucci was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the former director of the Sistine Chapel Choir and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and was recognized in the field of music both as a director and a prolific composer. Considered among the most authoritative interpreters of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Bartolucci led the Sistine Chapel Choir in performances worldwide, and also directed numerous concerts with the Choir of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, including a tour of the former Soviet Union.

#1807

Linn Tonstad

#189790

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Linn Marie Tonstad is an American theologian who serves as Associate Professor of Theology, Religion, and Sexuality at Yale Divinity School. Biography Tonstad joined the faculty at Yale Divinity School in 2012. She co-chairs the Theology and Religious Reflection unit of the American Academy of Religion and is on the steering committee of its Queer Studies in Religion unit.

#1808

Jorge Erdely Graham

#187769

Overall Influence

Jorge Erdely Graham is a Mexican theologian, religious studies scholar, and author. He is associate editor of Revista Académica para el Estudio de las Religiones, a member of the American Academy of Religion and former director of Centro de Investigaciones del Instituto Cristiano de Mexico.

#1809

Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar

#189453

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar is a feminist activist ecumenical theologian who taught at Serampore College, Serampore the United Theological College, Bangalore, . Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar was the first permanent woman faculty to serve as faculty in the Theology Department of the renowned Serampore College, founded by William Carey when he came to India in 1792. She was the first Lutheran Woman to serve as first Vice President of the United Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India in 2006. She comes from a family of theologians - about 17 of them, her father, all eight siblings, and seven of the eight who married into the family.

#1810

Emilio Castro

#76787

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

Emilio Castro was a Methodist minister from Uruguay. He served as general secretary of the World Council of Churches from 1985 to 1992. Biography Emilio Castro was born on May 2, 1927, in Montevideo, Uruguay. His father was Chilean and his mother was Spanish.

#1811

Alla Selawry

#153957

Overall Influence

1913 - 1992 (79 years)

Alla Selawry , was a Russian scientist, Anthroposophist, doctor, homeopath, and theologian. Biography She was born in Moscow of Russian parents Sergei Ivanovich Selavri , a Sworn Attorney assistant and Antonina Georgievna Stasenkova , and was the older sister of Dr. Oleg Selawry . Her family moved from Russia to Germany in 1922 during the Russian Civil War.

#1812

Lauren Pfister

#189404

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Lauren Frederick Pfister is a Christian theologian and scholar of Confucianism. He is Professor Emeritus at Hong Kong Baptist University and is a founding fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities. He was awarded the honor of "Distinguished Scholar" at the Tenth International Symposium on the History of Christianity in Modern China.

#1813

Jofrid Wiik

#191062

Overall Influence

1934 - 2018 (84 years)

Jofrid Wiik, née Bjorland was a Norwegian theologian and politician for the Christian Democratic Party. Hailing from Nærbø, she graduated with the cand.theol. degree from the MF Norwegian School of Theology in 1963. After working at mission and bible schools she was a faculty member at the MF Norwegian School of Theology from 1975 to 1995. She served as a deputy representative to the Parliament of Norway from Rogaland during the term 1969–1973. She met during 7 days of parliamentary session.

#1814

Jonathan Magonet

#83534

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Jonathan David Magonet is a British rabbi theologian, Vice-President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and a biblical scholar. He is highly active in Christian-Jewish dialogue, and in dialogue between Jews and Muslims. He was the long-time Principal , now retired, of London's Leo Baeck College, the first Liberal Jewish seminary of all of Europe since World War II. He resides in London with his wife Dorothea.

#1815

Robin Griffith-Jones

#109877

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Robin Griffith-Jones is a Church of England priest, Master of the Temple in London and a lecturer at King's College, London. Griffith-Jones was educated at Westminster School and New College, Oxford, before working at Christie's for some years. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

#1816

Harold O. J. Brown

#178775

Overall Influence

1933 - 2007 (74 years)

Harold O. J. Brown was a theologian, professor, activist, and author in the United States. He was a professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born in Tampa. An evangelical Christian he was part of a pan-Christian movement that developed in the wake of the 1960s counter culture. He cofounded the Christian Action Council which established crisis pregnancy centers.

#1817

David P. Wright

#35505

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

David Pearson Wright is an American theologian and the professor of Bible and the Ancient Near East at Brandeis University. He is a scholar in the field of the Hebrew Bible, especially the composition of the Pentateuch and inner-biblical exegesis, as well as Near Eastern and biblical ritual and law in comparative perspective.

#1818

Anita Monro

#189877

Overall Influence

Anita Monro is an Australian academic, theologian, and Uniting Church in Australia minister. She is the Principal of Grace College, one of the residential colleges of the University of Queensland, located on the St Lucia campus. She is also an Honorary Senior Fellow, in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, at the University of Queensland.

#1819

James Lewis Heft

#39922

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

James Lewis Heft is an American theologian currently the Alton M. Brooks Professor of Religion at University of Southern California.

#1820

Robert Craig

#72075

Overall Influence

1917 - 1995 (78 years)

Robert Craig Erwich CBE was an academic and church leader. He served from 1969 to 1980 as Principal of the University of Rhodesia and was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

#1821

Love L. Sechrest

#169369

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Love L. Sechrest is Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Columbia Theological Seminary and was previously an associate professor of the New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. Her research interests include race and justice in the New Testament, African American Christianity, and womanist biblical interpretation in the New Testament. She serves on the board of directors for Faith & Learning, International, a Christian mission and social entrepreneurship business incubator.

#1822

Gerrit Bos

#183831

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Gerrit Bos is professor emeritus of Jewish studies. Life Gerrit Bos studied classical languages and theology at the Utrecht University, Semitic languages and literature at the University of Amsterdam , BA , Yiddish with Leib Fuks , Jewish and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , the Talmud at the Center for Conservative Judaism and Hebrew and Arabic Language and Literature at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , MA 1985, Master's thesis: Al-Farabi’s Al-Mahut ha-Nefesh ; Dr. phil. 1989, dissertation: The Treatise of Qusta ibn Luqa on the Regimen During the Pilgrimage to Mec...

#1823

Merlin Swartz

#94561

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Merlin Swartz was an American scholar of religion. Swartz attended Eastern Mennonite University , Goshen College , and Harvard University . He was Professor Emeritus of Religion at Boston University, having taught previously at the American University in Beirut and Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His research and teaching focused primarily on the religious and intellectual history of medieval Islam.

#1824

Jutta Jokiranta

Jutta Jokiranta

#191495

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Jutta Maria Jokiranta is a Finnish theologian and, since 2018, a Professor in Hebrew Bible and cognate studies at the University of Helsinki. She is a former university lecturer of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Helsinki and an Academy Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland. Her area of specialization is Qumran studies and Second Temple Judaism. She is currently leader of the team in "Society and Religion in Late Second Temple Judaism" in the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in "Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions" . She was elected president of the International Organizat...

#1825

Divo Zadi

#185999

Overall Influence

1931 - 2021 (90 years)

Divo Zadi was an Italian Roman Catholic bishop. Zadi was born in Italy and was ordained to the priesthood in 1953. He served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Civita Castellana, Italy, from 1989 to 2007.

#1826

Terence Copley

#97426

Overall Influence

1946 - 2011 (65 years)

Terence Copley was a British academic and author. Terence Copley was Professor of Educational Studies at the University of Oxford, England and also Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University of Exeter, England.

#1827

Piet Meiring

#191561

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Piet Meiring is a South African theologian and academic. He is a Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa minister and the former director of the Centre for Public Theology at the University of Pretoria. He served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

#1828

Mary Matz

#170679

Overall Influence

1931 - 2013 (82 years)

Mary Matz was a Pennsylvania theologian who became the first woman ordained by the Moravian Church in North America. She also served as a vice president of the Moravian National Council of Churches.

#1829

W. R. F. Browning

#164676

Overall Influence

Wilfred Robert Francis Browning is an Anglican clergyman and theologian. He was Canon Residentiary of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and of Blackburn Cathedral. He is now an honorary priest and honorary canon. He previous lectured in New Testament Studies at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and at Cuddesdon College in Oxford.

#1830

Christian Wismer Ruth

#185278

Overall Influence

C. W. Ruth was one of the ten founding fathers of the Church of the Nazarene. Ruth grew up in Indianapolis, and from an early age was an evangelist for the Holiness Christian Church. In 1902 Ruth merged the Spokane, Washington holiness churches of the People's Mission into the Church of the Nazarene. He was considered a conservative, who also thought unity was the most important issue facing the Church of the Nazarene during the turn of the century.

#1831

J. Sidlow Baxter

#98354

Overall Influence

1903 - 1999 (96 years)

James Sidlow Baxter was a pastor and theologian, and later served as an evangelist. He authored as many as thirty books analysing the Bible and advocating a fundamentalist Christian theological perspective. His most popular work was Explore the Book, a 1760-page tome that analyses and summarizes each book of the Bible.

#1832

Robert Henricks

#163913

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Robert Henricks is an American theologian, currently the Preston Kelsey Professor of Religion, Emeritus at Dartmouth College, specializing in Asian literature and religion.

#1833

Toño Cedeño

#190963

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Toño Cedeño is a doctor in art history, theologian, oculist, visual artist and founder of the Oqli Collection. Studies He studied optometry at the Superior School of Medicine Instituto Politécnico Nacional, IPN. He later studied for a master's degree in Theology at the Universidad Iberoamericana. In 2005 he obtained a Doctorate in Art History from Casa Lamm, with the thesis 'The female image on Mexican banknotes'.

#1834

Alan T. Davies

#67561

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Alan Trewartha Davies is a Canadian Christian minister and academic who is emeritus professor of religion at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is also an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.

#1835

Jan A. Aertsen

#190196

Overall Influence

1938 - 2016 (78 years)

Jan Adrianus Aertsen was a Dutch philosopher and theologian. Born in Amsterdam, Aertsen received his PhD title at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and taught there from 1984 up to his death. From 1993 to 2004, he served as a professor at the University of Cologne, and was the founding director of Thomas Instituut te Utrecht. He wrote several works on Thomism, starting from his doctoral thesis, Nature and Creature. Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought , published in Dutch four years later.

#1836

Gareth Moore

#124614

Overall Influence

1948 - 2002 (54 years)

Gareth Edward Moore OP was an English theologian, author and Dominican friar. Early life and education Moore was the son of George Edward Moore, a stevedore, and his second wife Alice . He was born in Bermondsey and lived with his parents and his older half-brother, son of Alice in a previous marriage, in Rotherhithe. He attended Raine's Foundation Grammar School. Gareth was a successful student and taught himself Russian through independent study. He was the first pupil from the school to get a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated with a B.Litt degree, with his ...

#1837

Hugh Anderson

#173976

Overall Influence

1920 - 2003 (83 years)

Hugh Anderson FRSE was a Scottish theologian who served as Professor of the New Testament at the University of Edinburgh for over 20 years. Life Anderson was born in Galston, Ayrshire on 18 May 1920, the son of Jeannie Muir and her husband Hugh Anderson . He was educated at Galston Primaty School then Kilmarnock Academy, going on to study Classics and Semitic Languages at the University of Glasgow.

#1838

Aida Besancon Spencer

#191411

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Aida Besancon Spencer is a Dominican-American New Testament professor and Presbyterian minister. Career Spencer is Professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. She has written on The Apostle Paul, Paul's Literary Style, Women in Christianity and the New Testament from a Hispanic perspective.

#1839

Tshenuwani Farisani

#153446

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Tshenuwani Simon Farisani is a South African politician, theologian, and Lutheran minister. During apartheid, he was one of the country's most prominent black clergymen and preached anti-apartheid liberation theology from his diocese in Venda and Transvaal. He founded the Black Evangelic Youth Organisation with Cyril Ramaphosa in the early 1970s and was also active in the Black Consciousness movement, especially as president of the Black People's Convention from 1973 to 1975. He was arrested on four occasions, according to Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and he testified ab...

#1840

Mircea Păcurariu

#121594

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Mircea Păcurariu was a Romanian theologian, historian and priest in the Romanian Orthodox Church. Biography Born in Ruși, Hunedoara County, he was the son of the village priest. He enrolled in the History faculty of Babeș University in Cluj, but had to leave after his first year because the Communist Romanian authorities viewed his social origin as unacceptable. He later attended the theological seminaries in Sibiu and in Bucharest, then taught at the seminaries of Neamț Monastery and Sibiu. In 1997, he was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy; he was elevated to titular sta...

#1841

Benjamin Wold

#178738

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Benjamin Wold is currently Professor of Ancient Judaism and Christianity at Trinity College, Dublin, School of Religion . Publications Women, Men and Angels: Allusions to Genesis Creation Traditions in Musar leMevin . See 4QInstruction4QInstruction: Divisions and Hierarchies Memory and Remembrance in the Bible and Antiquity , with Loren Stuckenbruck and Stephen Barton. Das Böse, der Teufel und Dämonen - Evil, the Devil and Demons , with Jan Dochhorn and Susanne Rudnig-Zelt.

#1842

Robert Cowton

#191710

Overall Influence

Robert Cowton was a Franciscan theologian active at the University of Oxford early in the fourteenth century. He was a follower of Henry of Ghent, and in the Augustinian tradition. He was familiar with the doctrines of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and attempted a synthesis of them.

#1843

Addie Elizabeth Davis

#66621

Overall Influence

1917 - 2005 (88 years)

Addie Elizabeth Davis was an American Southern Baptist religious leader. In 1964, she became the first woman to be ordained as a Southern Baptist pastor. Early life and education Davis was born to a Baptist family in Covington, Virginia on 29 June 1917. In 1942, Davis graduated from Meredith College with a major in psychology and a minor in speech. She became an education director at First Baptist Church in Elkin, North Carolina and later dean of women at Alderson-Broaddus College.

#1844

Mihail Neamțu

#191259

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Mihail Neamțu , born 1978, is a Romanian conservative politician. He received a PhD in theology from King's College London and has written several books on politics, religion, and culture. Life and career

#1845

Jutta Burggraf

#184513

Overall Influence

1952 - 2010 (58 years)

Jutta Burggraf was a German Catholic theologian. Burggraf taught at the University of Navarra, where she wrote books and did research. She was a numerary member of Opus Dei.

#1846

Giorgio Otranto

#107503

Overall Influence

1940 - 2023 (83 years)

Giorgio Otranto was an Italian historian, specialized in the history of early Christianity. Life and career Born in Corigliano Calabro, the son of a tailor, Otranto graduated in Classical Literature at the University of Bari.

#1847

Jerry A. Johnson

#54489

Overall Influence

Jerry A. Johnson is the former President of the National Religious Broadcasters. He became president of NRB on November 1, 2013, succeeding Frank Wright. Before accepting that post, he was President of Criswell College, and former dean of academics at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also held several positions during 14 years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 2013 to 2014 he served as Chairman of the Nominating Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.

#1848

David Glyn Bowen

#148330

Overall Influence

1933 - 2000 (67 years)

David Glyn Bowen was a Welsh Congregationalist minister and missionary. He grew up in the Swansea area and attended Swansea Grammar School . He subsequently studied at University College, Cardiff, graduating in 1955 with an honours degree in Hebrew. He later studied at Memorial College, Brecon , and University of Princeton, United States where in 1959 he was awarded the degree of MTh. for a thesis on the Church of South India. On his return to the UK in 1960, he took up the appointment of minister of Castle Street Congregational Church, Tredegar, Monmouthshire. In 1963 he married, and under t...

#1849

Alfred Jolson

#127254

Overall Influence

1928 - 1994 (66 years)

Alfred James Jolson, S.J., , was an American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the Bishop of Reykjavík from 1988 until his death in 1994. After several years of teaching in various Jesuit educational institutions in the United States , Italy, and Iraq, Jolson was appointed to the Diocese of Reykjavík by Pope John Paul II in 1987. Jolson died suddenly in 1994.

#1850

Gretchen Rehberg

#102538

Overall Influence

Gretchen Mary Rehberg is the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane. Early life and education Rehberg was born in Pullman, Washington on July 7, 1964. Her mother, Margaret Rehberg was a homemaker and her father, Wallace Rehberg, was a professor at Washington State University. The family had a small farm outside of town. After graduating from Pullman High School in 1982, Rehberg attended Sewanee: The University of the South.

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