In response to his own question, \u201cWhat is America?\u201d, G.K. Chesterton replied, \u201ca nation with the soul of a church.\u201d Throughout the nation\u2019s history millions of believers of various faiths have shaped that soul. But which religious figures have had the most influence?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve selected fifty native-born Americans who, for better or worse, have had a significant influence on our nation\u2019s religious conscience. Such a list could never be definitive, of course, but this one is likely to be particularly flawed. Any appearance of bias is unintentional and based on the limits of my knowledge. My list is dominated by Protestants both because they have had a significant impact and because that tradition is the one I know best. Suggestions for who should have been included are welcome.<\/p>\n
The 50 most influential religious figures in American history are:<\/p>\n
1.\tAnne Hutchinson \u2013 leader of Puritan women<\/p>\n
2.\tAvery Dulles \u2013 Jesuit priest and theologian<\/p>\n
3.\tBenjamin Warfield \u2013 defender of Biblical inerrancy<\/p>\n
4.\tBob Smith \u2013 co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous<\/p>\n
5.\tBilly Graham \u2013 evangelist and chaplain to late-twentieth century presidents<\/p>\n
6.\tBilly Sunday \u2013 one of the most influential evangelist of the early twentieth century<\/p>\n
7.\tBlandina Segale \u2013 Catholic nun and charitable activist<\/p>\n
8.\tBrigham Young \u2013 Mormon leader<\/p>\n
9.\tCI Scofield \u2013 creator of the best-selling annotated Bible that popularized dispensationalism<\/p>\n
10.\tCarl FH Henry \u2013 theologian and leader of neo-evangelicalism; founder of Christianity Today<\/em><\/p>\n 11.\tCarrie Nation \u2013 leader of the temperance movement<\/p>\n 12.\tCharles Finney \u2013 revivalist preacher during the Second Great Awakening<\/p>\n 13.\tCharles Fox Parham \u2013 preacher who was instrumental in the formation of Pentecostalism<\/p>\n 14.\tCharles H Mason \u2013 first Chief Apostle and first Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ<\/p>\n 15.\tCharles Hodge \u2013 chief defender of historical Calvinism in America during the nineteenth century<\/p>\n 16.\tCharles Taze Russell \u2013 founded the group which became the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses<\/p>\n 17.\tCotton Mather \u2013 New England Puritan minister and godfather of American evangelicalism<\/p>\n 18.\tDorothy Day \u2013 social activist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement<\/p>\n 19.\tDwight L Moody \u2013 nineteenth century evangelist<\/p>\n 20.\tElijah Muhammad \u2013 leader in the Nation of Islam<\/p>\n 21.\tElizabeth Ann Seton -first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church<\/p>\n 22.\tFrances Willard \u2013 educator, temperance reformer, and women\u2019s suffragist<\/p>\n 23.\tFrancis Schaeffer \u2013 Christian apologist and intellectual leader of evangelical pro-life and political movements<\/p>\n 24.\tFulton J Sheen \u2013 Catholic Archbishop and pioneer of radio and television ministry<\/p>\n 25.\tGordon B Hinckley \u2013 influential president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/p>\n 26.\tH. Richard Niebuhr \u2013 Christian theological-ethicist and primary source of postliberal theology<\/p>\n 27.\tIncrease Mather \u2013 Puritan minister<\/p>\n 28.\tJames Gibbons \u2013 Catholic Archbishop<\/p>\n 29.\tJames Hal Cone \u2013 advocate of Black liberation theology<\/p>\n 30.\tJerry Falwell \u2013 founder of the Moral Majority and early leader of the \u201cReligious Right\u201d<\/p>\n 31.\tJohn Carroll \u2013 first Roman Catholic bishop and archbishop in the United States<\/p>\n 32.\tJohn Courtney Murray \u2013 Jesuit priest and theologian<\/p>\n 33.\tJohn Cardinal O\u2019Connor \u2013 eleventh archbishop of New York<\/p>\n 34.\tJohn Howard Yoder \u2013 promoter of radical Christian pacifism<\/p>\n 35.\tJonathan Edwards \u2013 evangelical theologian and philosopher<\/p>\n 36.\tJoseph Smith \u2013 founder of Mormonism<\/p>\n 37.\tL Ron Hubbard \u2013 founder of Scientology<\/p>\n 38.\tMadalyn Murray O\u2019Hair \u2013 founder of American Atheists<\/p>\n 39.\tMalcolm X \u2013 Muslim minister and civil rights activist<\/p>\n 40.\tMartin Luther King, Jr \u2013 pastor and civil rights activist<\/p>\n 41.\tMary Baker Eddy \u2013 founder of Christian Science<\/p>\n 42.\tNorman Vincent Peale \u2013 Protestant preacher and progenitor of the theory of \u201cpositive thinking\u201d<\/p>\n 43.\tReinhold Niebuhr \u2013 theologian and public intellectual<\/p>\n 44.\tRichard Allen \u2013 founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church<\/p>\n 45.\tRoger Williams \u2013 first American proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state<\/p>\n 46.\tWallace Fard Muhammad \u2013 minister and founder of the Nation of Islam<\/p>\n 47.\tWalter Rauschenbusch \u2013 key figure in the Social Gospel movement<\/p>\n 48.\tWilliam Miller \u2013 founding leader of the Adventism movement<\/p>\n 49.\tWilliam J Seymour \u2013 African-American minister and an initiator of the Pentecostal religious movement<\/p>\n 50.\tWilliam Cameron Townsend \u2013 Wycliffe Bible Translators<\/p>\n Note: Because there are so many foreign-born religious leaders that could have been included, those will be compiled for next week\u2019s list.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In response to his own question, \u201cWhat is America?\u201d, G.K. Chesterton replied, \u201ca nation with the soul of a church.\u201d Throughout the nation\u2019s history millions of believers of various faiths have shaped that soul. But which religious figures have had the most influence? I\u2019ve selected fifty native-born Americans who, for better or worse, have had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\n