Arius256 Arius (c. 256–336), a priest in Alexandria whose teaching that the Son was created gave its name to Arianism.
Athanasius296 Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373), bishop and defender of the Council of Nicaea against Arianism. His On the Incarnation is a founding text for Theosis.
Augustine354 Augustine of Hippo (354–430), North African bishop and the most influential theologian of the Western church. His writings against Pelagius set the Western terms for original sin, grace and predestination, and both Catholics and Protestants claim him.
Pelagius354 Pelagius (c. 354–c. 418), a British-born ascetic teacher in Rome who stressed human moral ability and responsibility. His opponents, led by Augustine, had his teaching condemned; see Pelagianism.
Cyril of Alexandria376 Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444), patriarch of Alexandria from 412 and the leading opponent of Nestorius.
Nestorius386 Nestorius (c. 386–c. 451), archbishop of Constantinople from 428, whose objection to calling Mary Theotokos led to the Council of Ephesus.
Thomas Aquinas1225 Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274), Italian Dominican friar and the leading theologian of medieval scholasticism. He combined Christian doctrine with the philosophy of Aristotle, most fully in his unfinished Summa Theologiae. His account of Transubstantiation in terms of substance and accidents became the standard Catholic explanation. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1567, and the Roman Catholic Church has long treated his work as a model for theology.
Gregory Palamas1296 Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), monk of Mount Athos and Archbishop of Thessalonica. He defended the hesychast monks’ prayer practice and taught the distinction between God’s essence and energies, which councils at Constantinople upheld between 1341 and 1351.
Martin Luther1483 Martin Luther (1483–1546), German Augustinian friar and professor at Wittenberg whose Ninety-Five Theses (1517) began the Reformation. See Lutheran Justification.
Huldrych Zwingli1484 Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), Swiss reformer who led the Reformation in Zurich from 1519. He is the founder of the Reformed tradition alongside John Calvin. He taught Memorialism on the Lord’s Supper and disagreed with Martin Luther on it at the Marburg Colloquy of 1529. Some of his radical followers broke with him over baptism and began the Anabaptist movement. He died at the battle of Kappel in 1531.
Thomas Cranmer1489 Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 and the main architect of worship and doctrine in the early Anglican church. He supported Henry VIII’s break with Rome and, under Edward VI, wrote the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and its revision of 1552. After the Catholic Mary I came to the throne, he was tried for heresy and burned at Oxford in 1556.
Menno Simons1496 Menno Simons (c. 1496–1561), a Catholic priest from Friesland who joined the Anabaptist movement in 1536, after breaking with Rome. He spent the rest of his life travelling and writing in secret, gathering scattered Anabaptists in the Netherlands and northern Germany around a peaceful, disciplined church life. His followers came to be called Mennonites, and his writings remain central to that tradition.
John Calvin1509 John Calvin (1509–1564), French reformer who led the church in Geneva. His Institutes of the Christian Religion became the main textbook of Reformed theology.
Jacobus Arminius1560 Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), Dutch Reformed pastor and professor at Leiden. He questioned unconditional predestination, and his followers formed the Remonstrants.
John Smyth1570 John Smyth (c. 1570–1612), an English clergyman ordained in the Church of England who became a Separatist. In exile in Amsterdam in 1609 he baptised himself and then his followers, forming what is often counted as the first Baptist church. He later sought to join the Mennonites, while part of his congregation, led by Thomas Helwys, returned to England. He died in Amsterdam in 1612.
John Wesley1703 John Wesley (1703–1791), Anglican priest and founder of the Methodist movement. He taught an Arminian view of grace and the possibility of “Christian perfection” in love.
John Nelson Darby1800 John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), an Anglo-Irish clergyman who left the Church of Ireland and became a leading figure among the Plymouth Brethren. He developed dispensationalism, a form of Premillennialism that divides history into ages and teaches a rapture of the church before the tribulation. Through his travels and later the Scofield Reference Bible (1909), it spread widely among American evangelicals.
Gustaf Aulén1879 Gustaf Aulén (1879–1977), Swedish Lutheran theologian and bishop of Strängnäs. His book Christus Victor (English translation 1931) argued that the early church saw the atonement as Christ’s victory over evil, and gave Christus Victor its name.
Kenneth Hagin1917 Kenneth Hagin (1917–2003), American preacher from Texas, often called the father of the Word of Faith movement and a central figure of the Prosperity Gospel.
Henry Morris1918 Henry M. Morris (1918–2006), American hydraulic engineer and a founder of the modern Young Earth Creationism movement. He co-wrote The Genesis Flood (1961) with theologian John Whitcomb and founded the Institute for Creation Research in 1970.
John Stott1921 John Stott (1921–2011), English Anglican clergyman, long associated with All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London, and one of the most influential Evangelical leaders of the twentieth century.
Charles Ryrie1925 Charles Caldwell Ryrie (1925–2016), American dispensational theologian and a moderate voice for Free Grace Theology.
Gustavo Gutiérrez1928 Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928–2024), Peruvian Catholic priest and theologian, later a Dominican. His A Theology of Liberation (1971) gave Liberation Theology its name and its central idea of God’s preferential option for the poor.
Zane Hodges1932 Zane C. Hodges (1932–2008), American New Testament scholar and the chief architect of Free Grace Theology.
John Wimber1934 John Wimber (1934–1997), American pastor and musician who led the Vineyard movement and became the best-known figure of the “Third Wave” of the Spirit in the 1980s.
Clark Pinnock1937 Clark Pinnock (1937–2010), Canadian Baptist theologian who taught for many years at McMaster Divinity College and became a leading voice of Open Theism.
E.P. Sanders1937 E. P. Sanders (1937–2022), American New Testament scholar. His Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) argued that ancient Judaism was a religion of grace and covenant, not of earning salvation, and laid the ground for the New Perspective on Paul.
James Cone1938 James H. Cone (1938–2018), American theologian who taught for many years at Union Theological Seminary in New York. His Black Theology and Black Power (1969) founded Black Theology as an academic field.
John MacArthur1939 John MacArthur (1939–2025), American pastor and the leading defender of Lordship Salvation.
N.T. Wright1948 N. T. Wright (born 1948), English New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He is a leading voice of the New Perspective on Paul, though he differs from other writers in it, and has written widely for general readers.
Wayne Grudem1948 Wayne Grudem (born 1948), American evangelical theologian and a leading voice for Complementarianism.
Francis Collins1950 Francis Collins (born 1950), American geneticist who led the Human Genome Project and later directed the US National Institutes of Health. He defended Evolutionary Creation in The Language of God (2006) and founded the BioLogos Foundation in 2007.
Rob Bell1970 Rob Bell (born 1970), American author and speaker who founded Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, and became widely known through his books and short films.