America tends to import its key religious figures. That was the lesson I learned while trying to compile a last week’s list of most influential native-born religious figures .
Many readers grumbled that the arbitrary criteria excluded some of the most important men and women in America’s religious history. They were right. With their help I’ve created a second list of foreign-born leaders who have the most impact on our country religious landscape.
Here is the list of 25 most influential foreign-born religious figures:
1. Abraham Rice – first ordained rabbi to serve in a rabbinical position in the United States
2. Aimee Semple McPherson – founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
3. Alexis Toth – Russian Orthodox church leader in the American Midwest
4. Alexander Campbell – an early leader in the Second Great Awakening
5. Charles Wesley – co-founder of the Methodist movement
6. Cornelius Van Til – Christian philosopher and apologist
7. Francis Asbury – one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church
8. Frances Xavier Cabrini – first American citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church
9. George Whitefield – evangelist during the Great Awakening
10. Isaac Backus – Baptist preacher during the era of the American Revolution who campaigned against state-established churches in New England
11. Isaac Mayer Wise – founder of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Union College, the first Jewish college in America to train rabbis
12. John Hughes – first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York
13. John Murray – founder of the Universalist denomination in the United States
14. John Neumann – first American bishop to be canonized
15. John Wesley – co-founder of the Methodist movement
16. John Winthrop – early Puritan leader, famous for his “City upon a Hill” sermon
17. Joseph Soloveitchik – Talmudic scholar and seminal figure by Modern Orthodox Judaism
18. Junipero Serra – Catalan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in present day California
19. Paul Tillich – theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher
20. Peter Maurin – founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
21. Michael Wyschogrod – Jewish theologian associated with the Modern Orthodox movement
22. Roger Williams – first American proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state
23. Solomon Schechter – founder and President of the United Synagogue of America
24. Thomas Merton – Trappist monk and social activist
25. William Booth – founder of the Salvation Army
