The Most Influential People in History
Find the most important people in 24 academic disciplines from 4000 BCE to today
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 proprietary AI program, we have ranked everyone in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Schematic Scholar, and CrossRef based on the number of citations, publications, and academically relevant web presence.
Students and researchers now have the easiest and fastest way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you ever wanted to find famous medieval biologists, or influential engineers during the industrial revolution, now you can!
We’ve also put together our own custom rankings of people by discipline. And speaking of influential people, don’t forget to check out the interviews we do with the influential people of today!
Use the power of AI for your research! Simply select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) most relevant to your research, and the time periods of interest, and get enlightening results.
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …Search Influential People
List of the most influential people in Theology, for the years 1990 – 2022
Alister McGrath
#1763
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (69 years)
Alister E. McGrath was born on January 23, 1953 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After studying at Methodist College Belfast, McGrath earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1975. He pursued graduate research in science while also studying theology, and earned a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics in 1977. He was later ordained as an Anglican priest and awarded a B.D. from Oxford in 1983 and a doctorate in divinity in 2001. He also later earned a third doctorate from Oxford, a D.Litt., in 2013 for his work on science and religion. McGrath is a renowned apologist, intellectual historian, scientist, and theologian.
Go to ProfileRowan Williams
#888
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (72 years)
Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
Go to ProfilePope Francis
#1266
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (86 years)
Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 2013. Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since Gregory III, a Syrian who reigned in the 8th century.
Go to ProfileWilliam Lane Craig
#734
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (73 years)
William Lane Craig was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1949. He earned a B.A. from Wheaton College, and pursued graduate work at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the philosophy of religion. His earned his doctorate in 1977 at the University of Birmingham, England, with work on the cosmological argument for God’s existence under the supervision of John Hick. He pursued postdoctoral work under the direction of Wolfhart Pannenberg at the Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München in Germany, where he earned a doctorate in theology in 1984. Craig is currently research professor of philosophy at t...
Go to ProfileHans Küng
#1895
Overall Influence
1928 - 2021 (93 years)
Hans Küng was a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and author. From 1995 he was president of the Foundation for a Global Ethic . Küng was ordained a priest in 1954, joined the faculty of the University of Tübingen in 1960, and served as a theological adviser during the Second Vatican Council. In 1978, after he rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility, he was not allowed to continue teaching as a Catholic theologian, but he remained at Tübingen as a professor of ecumenical theology until he retired with the title professor emeritus in 1996. He remained a Catholic priest until his death. He supported the spiritual substance of religion, while questioning traditional dogmatic Christianity.
Go to ProfileR. C. Sproul
#4826
Overall Influence
1939 - 2017 (78 years)
Robert Charles Sproul was an American Reformed theologian and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries and could be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally. Under Sproul's direction, Ligonier Ministries produced the Ligonier Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which would eventually grow into the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, of which Sproul, alongside Norman Geisler, was one of the chief architects. Sproul has been described as "the greatest and most influ...
Go to ProfilePope Benedict XVI
#1701
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (95 years)
Pope Benedict XVI is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the church and the sovereign of the Vatican city state from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known by the title "pope emeritus" upon his resignation.
Go to ProfileAlvin Plantinga
#440
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (90 years)
Alvin Plantinga currently holds the title of the William Harry Jellema Chair in Philosophy at Calvin University. Previously, Plantinga has taught at Wayne State University and the University of Notre Dame. Additionally, Plantinga was the president of the American Philosophical Association, Western Division from 1981 to 1982. As an undergraduate, Plantinga studied at Jamestown College, Calvin College, and Harvard University. Plantinga went on to pursue graduate studies at the University of Michigan, before transferring to Yale University in 1955 and earning his PhD there in 1958. Plantinga is o...
Go to ProfileBilly Graham
#322
Overall Influence
1918 - 2018 (100 years)
William Franklin Graham Jr. was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and according to a biographer, was "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.
Go to ProfileWayne Grudem
#6390
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (74 years)
Wayne A. Grudem is a New Testament scholar turned theologian, seminary professor, and author. He co-founded the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and served as the general editor of the ESV Study Bible.
Go to ProfileGustavo Gutiérrez
#3425
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (94 years)
Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino is a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest, regarded as one of the founders of Latin American liberation theology. He currently holds the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and has previously been a visiting professor at many major universities in North America and Europe.
Go to ProfileC. Peter Wagner
#8770
Overall Influence
1930 - 2016 (86 years)
Charles Peter Wagner was an American missionary, writer, teacher and founder of several Christian organizations. In his earlier years, Wagner was known as a key leader of the Church Growth Movement and later for his writings on spiritual warfare.
Go to ProfileJürgen Moltmann
#4176
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (96 years)
Jürgen Moltmann was born in 1926 in Hamburg, Germany. In 1944, Moltmann was drafted into the German army to fight in World War II. He served for six months before surrendering to the British, after which he was confined to prisoner of war camps for three years in Belgium, England, and Scotland. After his release, he studied at the University of Gottïngen, earning a doctorate in 1952. Moltmann is emeritus professor of theology at Tübingen University, where he taught from 1967 to 1994. Moltmann is best known for his theology of hope, a unique form of liberation theology centered on the idea that God suffers with humanity and the hope found in the resurrection of Christ.
Go to ProfileDavid Ray Griffin
#2724
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (83 years)
David Ray Griffin is an American retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Along with John B. Cobb, Jr., he founded the Center for Process Studies in 1973, a research center of Claremont School of Theology that seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach found in process thought.
Go to ProfileGerhard Ludwig Müller
#8098
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (75 years)
Gerhard Ludwig Müller is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 until 2017. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 2014.
Go to ProfileJohn B. Cobb
#3471
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (97 years)
John Boswell Cobb, Jr. is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. Cobb is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Cobb is the author of more than fifty books. In 2014, Cobb was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Go to ProfileJames H. Cone
#7028
Overall Influence
1938 - 2018 (80 years)
James Hal Cone was an American theologian, best known for his advocacy of black theology and black liberation theology. His 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power provided a new way to comprehensively define the distinctiveness of theology in the black church. His message was that Black Power, defined as black people asserting the humanity that white supremacy denied, was the gospel in America. Jesus came to liberate the oppressed, advocating the same thing as Black Power. He argued that white American churches preached a gospel based on white supremacy, antithetical to the gospel of Jesus....
Go to ProfileWalter Kasper
#6848
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (89 years)
Walter Kasper is a German Roman Catholic Cardinal and theologian. He is President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, having served as its president from 2001 to 2010. Early life Born in Heidenheim an der Brenz, Germany, Kasper was ordained a priest on 6 April 1957 by Bishop Carl Leiprecht of Rottenburg.
Go to ProfileJean-Luc Marion
#2841
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (76 years)
Jean-Luc Marion is a French philosopher and Roman Catholic theologian. Marion is a former student of Jacques Derrida whose work is informed by patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy. Much of his academic work has dealt with Descartes and phenomenologists like Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl, but also religion. God Without Being, for example, is concerned predominantly with an analysis of idolatry, a theme strongly linked in Marion's work with love and the gift, which is a concept also explored at length by Derrida.
Go to ProfileJohn Hick
#2554
Overall Influence
1922 - 2012 (90 years)
John Harwood Hick was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.
Go to ProfileRichard Swinburne
#1561
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (88 years)
Richard Swinburne was born in 1934 in Smethwick, Staffordshire, England. He graduated in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Exeter College, the fourth oldest college at the University of Oxford. He pursued a graduate degree in philosophy (1957-59) from the university and then entered St. Stephen’s House, where he earned the Oxford Diploma in Theology (1959-60). From 1985 until his retirement in 2002, Swinburne held the position of Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oxford. Since his retirement, Swinburne has continued to pub...
Go to ProfileRosemary Radford Ruether
#4349
Overall Influence
1936 - 2022 (86 years)
Rosemary Radford Ruether was an American feminist scholar and Roman Catholic theologian known for her significant contributions to the fields of feminist theology and ecofeminist theology. Her teaching and her writings helped establish these areas of theology as distinct fields of study; she is recognized as one of the first scholars to bring women's perspectives on Christian theology into mainstream academic discourse. She was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and her own work was influenced by liberation and black theologies. She taught at Howard University for ten years, and later at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Go to ProfileJohn D. Caputo
#2666
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (82 years)
John David Caputo is an American philosopher who is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo is a major figure associated with postmodern Christianity and continental philosophy of religion, as well as the founder of the theological movement known as weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction and theology.
Go to ProfileWolfhart Pannenberg
#5781
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Wolfhart Pannenberg was a German Lutheran theologian. He made a number of significant contributions to modern theology, including his concept of history as a form of revelation centered on the resurrection of Christ, which has been widely debated in both Protestant and Catholic theology, as well as by non-Christian thinkers.
Go to ProfileN. T. Wright
#6241
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (74 years)
Nicholas Thomas Wright , known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He then became research professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary's College in the University of St Andrews in Scotland until 2019, when he became a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford.
Go to ProfileThomas Jay Oord
#11516
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (57 years)
Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and multidisciplinary scholar who directs a doctoral program at Northwind Theological Seminary and the Center for Open and Relational Theology. He formerly taught for sixteen years as a tenured professor at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho and before that a philosophy professor at Eastern Nazarene College. Oord is the author or editor of more than thirty books and hundreds of articles. He is known for his contributions to research on love, open theism, process theism, open and relational theology, postmodernism, the relationship between religion and science, Wesleyan, holiness, Nazarene theology.
Go to ProfileJ. I. Packer
#10130
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
James Innell Packer was an English-born Canadian evangelical theologian, cleric and writer in the low-church Anglican and Calvinist traditions. He was considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America, known for his best-selling book, Knowing God, written in 1973, as well as his work as an editor for the English Standard Version of the Bible. He was one of the high-profile signers on the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, a member on the advisory board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and also was involved in the ecumenical book Evangelicals and Catholics Together in 1994.
Go to ProfileBart D. Ehrman
#2290
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (67 years)
Ehrman was born in 1955 in Lawrence, Kansas. He received a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in 1978. He then went on to study at Princeton Seminary, where he obtained a master of divinity in 1981 and a PhD in 1985. His doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Ehrman is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman’s work has focused on textual criticism of the New Testament, the origins of early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He has written or edited thirty books, including textbooks for undergraduate students and five New York Times bestsellers.
Go to ProfileJohn Piper
#7059
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (76 years)
John Stephen Piper is an American New Testament scholar, Reformed theologian, pastor, and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Piper taught biblical studies at Bethel University for six years , before serving as pastor for preaching and vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis for 33 years .
Go to ProfileEugen Drewermann
#5069
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (82 years)
Eugen Drewermann is a German church critic, theologian, peace activist and former Catholic priest. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Drewermann was born in Bergkamen near Dortmund. He is best known in Germany for his work toward a non-violent form of Christianity, which, he believes, requires an integration of Depth psychology into Exegesis and Theology. Trained in philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and comparative religious studies, he criticized the Roman Catholic Church's literal and biologistic interpretations of miracles, the virgin birth, Ascension, and Resurrection as superstitious and medieval.
Go to ProfileLeonardo Boff
#4336
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (84 years)
Leonardo Boff , born as Genézio Darci Boff , is a Brazilian theologian, philosopher writer, and former Catholic priest known for his active support for Latin American liberation theology. He currently serves as Professor Emeritus of Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, and Ecology at the Rio de Janeiro State University. In 2001, he received the Right Livelihood Award for "his inspiring insights and practical work to help people realise the links between human spirituality, social justice and environmental stewardship."
Go to ProfileDavid Bentley Hart
#9971
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (57 years)
David Bentley Hart is an American Eastern Orthodox theologian, writer, philosopher, and religious studies scholar whose work encompasses a wide range of subjects and genres. A prolific essayist, he has written on topics as diverse as art, literature, religion, philosophy, film, baseball, and politics. He is also an author of fiction. As a religious scholar, his work engages heavily with classical, medieval and continental European philosophy, philosophical and systematic theology, patristic texts, and South and East Asian culture, religion, literature, philosophy and metaphysics. His translat...
Go to ProfileE. P. Sanders
#6202
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (85 years)
Ed Parish Sanders is an American New Testament scholar and a principal proponent of the "New Perspective on Paul". He is a major scholar in the scholarship on the historical Jesus and contributed to the view that Jesus was part of a renewal movement within Judaism. Sanders identifies himself as a "liberal, modern, secularized Protestant" in his book Jesus and Judaism; fellow scholar John P. Meier calls him a postliberal Protestant. He has been Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University, North Carolina, since 1990. He retired in 2005.
Go to ProfileAngelo Scola
#9476
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (81 years)
Angelo Scola is an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church, philosopher and theologian. He was Archbishop of Milan from 2011 to 2017. He had served as Patriarch of Venice from 2002 to 2011. He has been a cardinal since 2003 and a bishop since 1991.
Go to ProfileStanley Hauerwas
#5825
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (82 years)
Stanley Hauerwas was born in 1940 in Dallas, Texas. He attended Southwestern University, where he earned a B.A., and then studied at Yale University, where he earned a bachelor’s of divinity, master’s of arts, master’s of philosophy, and doctorate in philosophy. A prominent public intellectual, Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, and he holds a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law. He also holds a chair in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. His book, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructiv...
Go to ProfileCamillo Ruini
#7314
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (91 years)
Camillo Ruini is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who was made a cardinal in 1991. He served as president of the Italian Episcopal Conference from 1991 to 2007 and as Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome from 1991 to 2008.
Go to ProfileNorman Geisler
#4311
Overall Influence
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
Norman Leo Geisler was an American Christian systematic theologian and philosopher. He was the co-founder of two non-denominational evangelical seminaries . He held a Ph.D. in philosophy from Loyola University and made scholarly contributions to the subjects of classical Christian apologetics, systematic theology, the history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, Calvinism, Roman Catholicism, Biblical inerrancy, Bible difficulties, ethics, and more. He was the author, coauthor, or editor of over 90 books and hundreds of articles.
Go to ProfileJohn Zizioulas
#15329
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (91 years)
John Zizioulas is a Greek Orthodox prelate and the current titular Metropolitan bishop of Pergamon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He is one of the most influential Orthodox Christian theologians today.
Go to ProfileJohann Baptist Metz
#7144
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Johann Baptist Metz was a German Catholic priest and theologian. He was Ordinary Professor of Fundamental Theology at the University of Münster, and a consultant to the synod of German dioceses. He is regarded as one of the most important German theologians after the Second Vatican Council, who influenced liberation theology and focused on compassion.
Go to ProfileGeorge Weigel
#5270
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (71 years)
George Weigel is a Catholic neo-conservative American author, political analyst, and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation. He is the author of a best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope, and Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace.
Go to ProfileAngelo Amato
#9340
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (84 years)
Angelo Amato, S.D.B. is an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints between 2008 and 2018. He served as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2002 to 2008 and became a cardinal in 2010.
Go to ProfileKaren Armstrong
#3056
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (78 years)
Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and majored in English. She left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.
Go to ProfileTeresa Forcades
#40556
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (56 years)
Teresa Forcades i Vila is a Catalan physician, Benedictine nun and social activist. Forcades i Vila is known for her outspoken and sometimes controversial views on the church, public health and Catalan independence, and for her vaccine skepticism.
Go to ProfileDon Cupitt
#6335
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (88 years)
Don Cupitt is an English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology. He has been an Anglican priest and a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, though is better known as a popular writer, broadcaster and commentator. He has been described as a "radical theologian", noted for his ideas about "non-realist" philosophy of religion.
Go to ProfileJohn Milbank
#12957
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (70 years)
Alasdair John Milbank was born October 23, 1952 in Kings Langley, England. He studied modern history at The Queen’s College, Oxford and earned a postgraduate certificate in theology from Westcott House, Cambridge, where he studied under Rowan Williams. His Ph.D. is from the University of Birmingham. He was also awarded a senior Doctor of Divinity from the University of Cambridge in 1998 in recognition of his published scholarship. Milbank’s most significant and famed contributions come at the dialogue between theology and the social sciences. Milbank argues that the social sciences, as they ar...
Go to ProfileAntje Jackelén
#50822
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (67 years)
Antje Jackelén is the Archbishop of Uppsala and primate of the Church of Sweden, the national church. On 15 October 2013, she was elected the 70th Archbishop of Uppsala and formally received through a service in Uppsala Cathedral on 15 June 2014, making her Sweden's first foreign-born archbishop since the 12th century, and the first female archbishop.
Go to ProfileNicholas Wolterstorff
#4848
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (90 years)
Nicholas Paul Wolterstorff is an American philosopher and theologian. He is currently Noah Porter Professor Emeritus Philosophical Theology at Yale University. A prolific writer with wide-ranging philosophical and theological interests, he has written books on aesthetics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and philosophy of education. In Faith and Rationality, Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, and William Alston developed and expanded upon a view of religious epistemology that has come to be known as Reformed epistemology. He also helped to establish the jou...
Go to ProfileRussell D. Moore
#17858
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (51 years)
Russell D. Moore is an American theologian, ethicist, and preacher. In June 2021, he became the director of the Public Theology Project at Christianity Today, and on August 4, 2022, was announced as the magazine's incoming Editor-in-Chief.
Go to ProfileJon Sobrino
#12273
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (84 years)
Jon Sobrino is a Jesuit Catholic priest and theologian, known mostly for his contributions to Latin American liberation theology. He received worldwide attention in 2007 when the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a notification for what they termed doctrines that are "erroneous or dangerous and may cause harm to the faithful."
Go to ProfileFederico Lombardi
#8463
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (80 years)
Federico Lombardi, S.J. is an Italian Catholic priest and the former director of the Holy See Press Office. He succeeded Joaquín Navarro-Valls and was succeeded by Greg Burke. Lombardi serves as the postulator for the beatification and canonization cause of Father Bernardo Mattio.
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