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.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
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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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#351
R. R. Reno
#18926
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Russell Ronald Reno III , known as R. R. Reno, is the editor of First Things magazine. He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University. Biography Reno was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959, and grew up in Towson, Maryland. A graduate of Towson High School in 1978, after a year living in his tent in Yosemite Valley, he attended Haverford College, receiving a B.A. in 1983. He began graduate study at Yale University in the Department of Religious Studies in 1984 and completed his doctoral degree in 1990 in the area of religious ethics. While in graduate school he met and married Juliana Miller, with whom he has had two children, Rachel and Jesse .
Go to Profile#352
Herbert Vorgrimler
#53665
Overall Influence
1929 - 2014 (85 years)
Herbert Vorgrimler was a Catholic theologian and author who published over 90 books in German, 33 of which were translated into English. Works Vorgrimler is known for his collaboration in 1965 with Karl Rahner, SJ, on the Theological Dictionary.
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Carlos Osoro Sierra
#22606
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Carlos Osoro Sierra is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Madrid from 2014 to 2023. He has been a bishop since 1997 and a cardinal since 2016. Life Osoro was born in Castañeda in northern Spain on 16 May 1945. He studied at the Escuela Normal and taught for a year in Santander. He then entered the seminary for adult vocations in Salamanca, earning licentiates in theology and philosophy at the Pontifical University of Salamanca. He later obtained a licentiate in Exact Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and another in pedagogy from the University of Salamanca.
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Albrecht Goes
#31133
Overall Influence
1908 - 2000 (92 years)
Albrecht Goes was a German writer and Protestant theologian. Life Albrecht Goes was born in 1908 in the Protestant rectory in Langenbeutingen. He spent his childhood there, but his mother died in 1911 and in 1915 he went to live with his grandmother in Berlin-Steglitz. He went to school there until 1919, when he moved to a school in Göppingen. In 1922, he entered the theological seminary in Urach, and from 1922 to 1923 he attended the seminary in Schöntal. His room-mate there was Gerd Gaiser. He passed his university exams and in 1924 entered the advanced seminary in Urach.
Go to Profile#355
Heiner Koch
#33829
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Heiner Koch is a German prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been the Archbishop of Berlin since September 2015. He was an auxiliary bishop in Cologne from 2006 to 2013 and Bishop of Dresden-Meissen from 2013 to 2015.
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William Edgar
#34902
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
William "Bill" Edgar is an American apologist and was professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary. He has been called by Charles Colson "one of evangelicalism's most valued scholars and apologists".
Go to Profile#357
Grant R. Osborne
#32970
Overall Influence
1942 - 2018 (76 years)
Grant R. Osborne was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. He was Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Biography Education Osborne got a B.A. from the Fort Wayne Bible College, a M.A. from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a PhD from the University of Aberdeen. He also has done postdoctoral research at the university of Cambridge and University of Marburg.
Go to Profile#358
Daniel Horan
#26653
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Daniel Patrick Horan is an American Franciscan friar, Catholic priest, theologian, and author. He is currently the director of the Center for Spirituality and professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Theology at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. He previously held the Duns Scotus Chair of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He is a columnist for National Catholic Reporter.
Go to Profile#359
Herbert Haag
#27523
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Herbert Haag was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian and biblical scholar of German origin. Haag was born in Singen am Hohentwiel. After studying theology in Paris for the diocese of Basel in 1940, he was ordained a priest and worked for several years as a pastor in Lucerne. In 1942, Haag attained his PhD at the University of Fribourg. From 1948 to 1960, he taught Old Testament studies at the Theological Faculty of Lucerne, and from 1960 to 1980 he held the chair of Old Testament at the Catholic Theological Faculty at the University of Tübingen. Haag in particular as biblical scholars and exegete known, among other things, he published a well-known Bible dictionary.
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Robert Barron
#25073
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Robert Emmet Barron is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester since 2022. He is the founder of the Catholic ministerial organization Word on Fire, and was the host of Catholicism, a documentary TV series about Catholicism that aired on PBS. He served as rector at Mundelein Seminary from 2012 to 2015 and as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 2015 to 2022.
Go to Profile#361
Stephen H. Webb
#27419
Overall Influence
1961 - 2016 (55 years)
Stephen H. Webb was a theologian and philosopher of religion. Webb graduated from Wabash College in 1983, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and taught at Wabash College as Professor of Religion and Philosophy from 1988 to 2012. Born in 1961 and reared in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church in the Restoration Movement. He recounts his experiences there in Taking Religion to School and in an essay, "Recalling: A Theologian Remembers His Church," in Falling Toward Grace: Images of Religion and Culture from the Heartland, ed. Kent Calder and Susan Neville .
Go to Profile#362
J. Rodman Williams
#34180
Overall Influence
1918 - 2008 (90 years)
J. Rodman Williams , regarded as the father of modern renewal theology, was a Presbyterian charismatic theologian and professor of renewal theology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Born on August 21, 1918, in Clyde, North Carolina, Williams earned an AB from Davidson College, a BD and ThM from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and a PhD in philosophy of religion and ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York, taking time in between to serve as a chaplain in the United States Marine Corps . He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1943 and served as a pastor for several years before becoming a full-time educator.
Go to Profile#363
Bonaventura Duda
#50046
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Bonaventura Duda was a Croatian Franciscan, theologian, biblical scholar, and a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Early life and education Roko Duda was born in the Free State of Fiume and spent his childhood in the village of Kras on the island of Krk where he attended elementary school from 1929 to 1933. After finishing additional two years of civic school in Sušak in 1935, Duda attended Franciscan high school in Varaždin from which he graduated in 1944. He joined the Franciscan Order on 14 August 1941. He studied theology at the Catholic Theological Facul...
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Fergus Kerr
#33003
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Fergus Gordon Thomson Kerr is a Scottish Roman Catholic priest of the English Dominican province. He has published significantly on a wide range of subjects, but is famous particularly for his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Aquinas.
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Alexander Dvorkin
#15806
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin is a Russian anti-cult activist. From 1999 to 2012 he was professor and head of the department of the study of new religious movements at Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University. He is currently professor of department of missiology at that university.
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Edward Heppenstall
#39692
Overall Influence
1901 - 1994 (93 years)
Edward E. Heppenstall was a leading Bible scholar and theologian of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A 1985 questionnaire of North American Adventist lecturers revealed Heppenstall was the Adventist writer who had most influenced them.
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Stephen Dempster
#25387
Overall Influence
Stephen G. Dempster is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Crandall University. He previously held the Stuart E. Murray chair of religious studies, being succeeded by Keith Bodner. Early life and education Dempster has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Kinesiology from the University of Western Ontario, a Master of Arts in Religion in Biblical Studies and Theology and a Master of Arts Degree in Old Testament Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary, and a Master of Arts in Near Eastern Studies and a Doctor of Philosophy in Classical Hebrew Language and Literature from the University...
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Carl Braaten
#42592
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Carl Edward Braaten was an American Lutheran theologian and minister. Braaten authored and edited numerous books and theological papers, including Principles of Lutheran Theology , Mother Church: Ecclesiology and Ecumenism and In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity . Along with Robert Jenson, was an influential figure in developing and restoring the catholic roots of Lutheranism at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
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Thomas Talbott
#14700
Overall Influence
Thomas Talbott is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He is best known for his advocacy of trinitarian universalism. The 2003 book Universal Salvation?: The Current Debate presents Talbott's defense of Trinitarian universalism together with responses from various fields theologians, philosophers, church historians and other religious scholars supporting or opposing Talbott's universalism.
Go to Profile#370
Kathryn Tanner
#26704
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Kathryn Eileen Tanner is an American theologian who serves as Frederick Marquand Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. Biography Born on March 29, 1957, Tanner earned her BA, MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Yale University. Her career began at Yale by teaching for the department of religious studies. She later moved to the University of Chicago where she served as the Dorothy Grant Maclear Professor of Theology. Afterwards, she returned to teach at her alma mater.
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Geoffrey W. Bromiley
#38057
Overall Influence
1915 - 2009 (94 years)
Geoffrey William Bromiley was an ecclesiastical historian and historical theologian. He was professor emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, having been Professor of Church History and Historical Theology there from 1958 until his retirement in 1987.
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Andrew Purves
#38343
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Andrew Purves is a Scottish theologian in the Reformed tradition through the Church of Scotland . He holds the Chair in Reformed Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. A native of Edinburgh, Scotland, Purves earned degrees in philosophy and divinity from the University of Edinburgh, and a Master of Theology degree from Duke Divinity School. His Doctor of Philosophy degree is from the University of Edinburgh. In Scotland, he studied under Thomas F. Torrance. Torrance, his brother James Torrance, Athanasius, John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Jürgen Moltmann were all important influences in Pu...
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Murray J. Harris
#34079
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Murray J. Harris is professor emeritus of New Testament exegesis and theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He was for a time warden of Tyndale House at Cambridge University. He gained his PhD from the University of Manchester, studying under F. F. Bruce.
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Oliver D. Crisp
#41682
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Oliver D. Crisp is a British theologian who currently works as Professor of Analytic Theology at the University of St Andrews, and was formerly a professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.
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Olegario González de Cardedal
#33607
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Olegario González de Cardedal is a Spanish Catholic theologian and author. He was born in Lastra del Cano , Spain, in 1934. He studied in Ávila, where he was ordained a priest in 1959, and at the University of Munich, Germany, where he graduated in theology in 1964. He also continued his studies in Oxford and Washington. As Chair of Theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain, a position he still holds, he took part in the third session of the Second Vatican Council and in the International Theological Conference. He is also an ordinary member of the Spanish Real Academia de Cie...
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Süleyman Ateş
#31294
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Süleyman Ateş is a Turkish theologian, philosopher, and writer. He was 12th Director of religious affairs of Turkey. He graduated at Ankara University and passed out the highest degree. He attended an assistant program in the same university. He searched some studies in his field in Ruhr-University Bochum. He taught Commentary of Quran and Quran receding in Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University and Al-Emir Abdulkadir University Algeria. He served as the head of the department of Elemental Islamic Sciences at Ondokuz Mayıs University and as the head of Elemental Islamic Sciences in the Faculty of Theology in Istanbul University.
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C. F. D. Moule
#19651
Overall Influence
1908 - 2007 (99 years)
Charles Francis Digby "Charlie" Moule , known professionally as C. F. D. Moule, was an English Anglican priest and theologian. He was a leading scholar of the New Testament and was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge for 25 years, from 1951 to 1976.
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Kevin Conner
#37057
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Kevin J. Conner was a Pentecostal theologian who was formerly the senior minister of Waverley Christian Fellowship in Melbourne, Australia. Conner is the author of nearly 60 books and has taught nationally and internationally at many churches, conferences and bible colleges.
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James White
#17394
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
James Robert White is a Baptist theologian, the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an evangelical Reformed Baptist Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona and a Christian scholar. He is the author of several books.
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Uriel Molina
#55978
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Father Uriel Molina is one of the most prominent leaders of the liberation theology-oriented "popular church" in Sandinista-era Nicaragua. Tomás Borge was a childhood friend of his. In Molina's personal memoirs, he analyzes the connection between the impact of the revolution and the integral part that the Catholic Church and the beliefs of the people played in its successes and failures. As a native of Nicaragua, ordained in Rome as a Franciscan, and an honors student with cum laude status in possession of a doctorate in theology, Molina is knowledgeable about the Somoza regime and the escalating conflicts between the country's government and its people.
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Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne
#12197
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne is a Peruvian prelate of the Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Lima from 1999 to 2019. He has been a bishop since 1988 and was made a cardinal in 2001. Early life and career Cipriani attended the Colegio Santa Maria Marianistas, a Catholic school, and as a young man he was a member of the Peruvian national basketball team for six years. He studied industrial engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Lima, Peru, and worked as an engineer.
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Thomas Groome
#42367
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Thomas H. Groome is an author and a professor in theology and religious education at Boston College. Groome has been critical of the Catholic Church's stance on clerical celibacy. Biography Professor Groome has a doctoral degree from Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University. He has taught at seminaries in several countries. Books have been published about his teaching in several languages. In 1998–99, Groome was president of the Association of Professors and Researchers in Religious Education . As of 2014, he is a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College. He chair...
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Hassan Hassanzadeh Amoli
#8552
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Ḥasan Ḥasan-zādih Ãmulī was an Iranian Shi'ite theologian known for his mystical tendencies and Islamic philosophy. He was among clerics who overcomed the traditional opposition to teaching philosophy courses at Shi'ite seminaries. He wrote many books in philosophy, mysticism, mathematics, astronomy, Persian and Arabic literature.He interpreted the Islamic philosophical tradition in a similar way to Mulla Sadra, which is a reconciliation of religion, reason and mysticism. His books include Sharh fusus al-hikam, Tashih nahj al-balagha, Insan dar 'urf-i 'irfan, Tashih kalila wa dimna.
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Ann Heberlein
#24039
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Ann Helen Heberlein is a Swedish academic and author, who writes extensively on theology and ethics. She is best known for her autobiographical account of life with bipolar disorder, Jag vill inte dö, jag vill bara inte leva .
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Diogenes Allen
#31495
Overall Influence
1932 - 2013 (81 years)
Diogenes Allen was an American philosopher and theologian who served as the Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, which he served from 1958. He died in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
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Dennis Nineham
#34183
Overall Influence
1921 - 2016 (95 years)
Dennis Eric Nineham was a British theologian and academic, who served as Warden of Keble College, Oxford, from 1969 to 1979, as well as holding chairs in theology at the universities of London, Cambridge, and Bristol.
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Basil Hume
#7724
Overall Influence
1923 - 1999 (76 years)
George Basil Haliburton Hume was an English Catholic bishop. He was a monk and priest of the English Benedictine monastery of Ampleforth Abbey and its abbot for 13 years until his appointment as Archbishop of Westminster in 1976. His elevation to a cardinal followed during the same year. From 1979, Hume served also as president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. He held these appointments until his death from cancer in 1999. His final resting place is at Westminster Cathedral in the Chapel of St Gregory and St Augustine.
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Johannes Møllehave
#35881
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
Johannes Volf Møllehave was a Danish Lutheran priest, author, and lecturer. Education and career Møllehave was born in Frederiksberg. He graduated in theology in 1963. His wide range of interests extended to some 40 different topics but he was particularly well known for his interest in Søren Kierkegaard, H. C. Andersen and Storm P.
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Barbara Aland
#16115
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Barbara Aland, née Ehlers is a German theologian and was a professor of New Testament Research and Church History at Westphalian Wilhelms-University of Münster until 2002. Biography After having completed her degree of Theology and Classical Philology in Frankfurt, Marburg and Kiel she received the PhD in 1964 in Frankfurt/Germany. In 1969 she gained her licentiate at the "Oriental Faculty" of Pontificio Istituto Biblico in Rome, Italy. In 1972 she could habilitate in Göttingen about the Syrian gnostic Bardesanes of Edessa. Since 1972 she acted as private lecturer, later on she became profe...
Go to Profile#390
Gregory Baum
#17450
Overall Influence
1923 - 2017 (94 years)
Gerhard Albert Baum , better known as Gregory Baum, was a German-born Canadian priest and theologian in the Catholic Church. He became known in North America and Europe in the 1960s for his work on ecumenism, interfaith dialogue, and the relationship between the Catholic Church and Jews. In the later 1960s, he went to the New School for Social Theory in New York and became a sociologist, which led to his work on creating a dialogue between classical sociology and Christian theology.
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Olav Fykse Tveit
#32770
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Olav Fykse Tveit is a Norwegian Lutheran theologian and bishop, and the current Preses of the Bishops' Conference of the Church of Norway. He was elected to the post of general secretary of the World Council of Churches on 27 August 2009. He entered office on 1 January 2010, for a proposed term of five years, and was re-elected to a second term in July 2014. He resigned from the post in March 2020, having been elected Preses of the Bishops' Conference of the Church of Norway.
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Aleksander Radler
#42998
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Aleksander Radler is an Austrian-Swedish Lutheran theologian and former unofficial employee of the East German Ministry of State Security . Life Radler was born in Posen and grew up in the German Democratic Republic, but retained Austrian citizenship and was therefore able to travel freely to and from the West. In 1965, he was recruited by the Stasi as a "secret agent" and was assigned the alias IM "Thomas". He studied Protestant theology at the Humboldt University of Berlin and later at the University of Jena, and regularly reported on contacts he made there. In July 1968, he revealed to hi...
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Rachel Adler
#17595
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Rachel Adler is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus. Adler was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. Her approach to God is Levinasian and her approach to gender is constructivist.
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Marc H. Ellis
#29142
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Marc H. Ellis is an American author, liberation theologian, and a retired University Professor of Jewish Studies, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University. He is currently visiting professor of several international universities, including the University of Innsbruck, Austria and the United Nations University for Peace, Costa Rica.
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Rod Rosenbladt
#22497
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Rod Rosenbladt is a former Professor of Theology at Concordia University Irvine in California, and is also well-known among Lutheran, Reformed, and Evangelical Christians as the former co-host of the nationally syndicated radio program "The White Horse Inn". He now does his own program as part of the 1517 project discussed below.
Go to Profile#396
Ellen Ueberschär
#37225
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Ellen Ueberschär is a German Evangelical Theologian. Early life and education Ueberschär was born in 1967 in East Berlin where she also grew up. After finishing school she intended to study medicine, yet the East German authorities refused permission. In 1988 she began to study theology at the Sprachenkonvikt Berlin. After reunification she continued her studies at Heidelberg University as well as in Berlin, graduating in 1995.
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Jacob Jervell
#57020
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Jacob Stephan Jervell was a Norwegian theologian, professor emeritus, author and priest. Biography Jervell was born at Fauske in Nordland county, Norway. He was the son of Sverre Jervell and Thora Mejdell . His father was a parish priest. Jervell grew up in Bergen, Stavanger and Hamar. He graduated artium at Hamar Cathedral School in 1944. After a year as a teacher at Andøya, he began studying theology at the University of Oslo in 1945, where he became Cand.theol. in 1951. He studied in Germany from 1953 to 1955. He was awarded his D.Theol. in 1959.
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Paul King Jewett
#40580
Overall Influence
1919 - 1991 (72 years)
Paul King Jewett was a Christian theologian, author and prominent advocate of the ordination of women and of believer's baptism. He taught systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is credited with helping develop Fuller into one of the largest seminaries in the country.
Go to Profile#399
Norman Pittenger
#42182
Overall Influence
1905 - 1997 (92 years)
William Norman Pittenger was an Anglican minister, teacher, and theologian. He wrote about and promoted process theology, and became one of the first acknowledged Christian defenders for the open acceptance of homosexual relations among Christians. He served as Vice-Chairman and the Chairman of the Theological Commission of the World Council of Churches from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s. He lived most of his life in the United States, though from 1966 until his death he lived at King's College at Cambridge University as an honorary member of the university.
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Allan Harman
#45396
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Allan Macdonald Harman, is an Australian Presbyterian theologian and Old Testament scholar. He has been described as a "well-known and highly regarded figure in Christian and especially evangelical circles within Australia and overseas."
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