Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions.

The list is in alphabetical order by the scholar's last name.

A-D

  • Edwin David Aponte
  • Raymond Apple, Australian Rabbi, writer on Jewish, interfaith and freemasonic issues
  • Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God
  • Miguel Asín Palacios, Spanish Arabist, work on the mutual influence between Christianity and Islam
  • Robert Baker Aitken, author of numerous academic books on Zen Buddhism
  • Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside
  • Edmond La Beaume Cherbonnier, professor and scholar, author of Hardness of Heart (1955)
  • Catherine Bell, ritual studies scholar
  • Herbert Berg, scholar of Islamic origins
  • Peter Berger, author of The Sacred Canopy
  • Pascal Boyer, author of Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
  • Joseph Epes Brown, author of The Sacred Pipe and Teaching Spirits: Understanding Native American Religious Traditions
  • Rudolf Bultmann
  • Frank G. Carver
  • John Corrigan, co-author of Religion in America, editor of the "Chicago History of American Religion" book series (University of Chicago Press)
  • Frank Moore Cross, emeritus professor Harvard Divinity School, interpreter of the Dead Sea Scrolls
  • Ioan Petru Culianu, author of The HarperCollins Concise Guide to World Religions and Out of This World
  • Miguel A. De La Torre
  • Arti Dhand, associate professor at the University of Toronto, Department for the Study of Religion
  • Wendy Doniger, (formerly published as Wendy O'Flaherty) is a leading researcher in Hinduism among other topics on religion.
  • Émile Durkheim, author of The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a seminal work on sociology of religion

E-H

  • Diana L. Eck
  • Bart D. Ehrman, author, and James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Mircea Eliade, author of The Sacred and the Profane and History of Religious Ideas, vol.I-III
  • Steven Engler, Canadian scholar of religion
  • Erasmus
  • Carl W. Ernst, specialist in Islamic studies, author of Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam
  • E. E. Evans-Pritchard
  • James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough
  • Sigmund Freud, author of Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, and Moses and Monotheism
  • Rajmohan Gandhi, author of Revenge and Reconciliation
  • Arnold van Gennep
  • Anthony Giddens
  • René Girard, whose theological works include Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World
  • Stephen D. Glazier, editor of The Encyclopedia of African and African American Religions
  • Richard Gombrich
  • Justo L. González, author of The Story of Christianity and a leading figure in Hispanic theology
  • John R. Hall, American sociologist of religion
  • Wouter Hanegraaff, author of New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought
  • Ishwar C. Harris
  • Nathan O. Hatch, author of "The Democratization of American Christianity"
  • Friedrich Heiler
  • Steven Heine, scholar of East Asian Buddhism
  • Susan Henking, scholar of religion, gender and sexuality
  • Peter L Hobson, author of The Hermeneutics of Followship: Relocating Narratives of Discipleship
  • Zora Neale Hurston, author of Mules and Men and Hoodoo in America

I-M

  • Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz
  • William James, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience
  • Grace Jantzen
  • Carl Jung
  • Klaus Klostermaier
  • Adam Kotsko, author of Zizek and Theology and The Politics of Redemption, and translator of Agamben
  • Hans Küng, Catholic theologian, author of Tracing the Way. Spiritual Dimensions of the World Religions
  • Gerard van der Leeuw
  • Peggy Levitt
  • Bruce Lincoln (University of Chicago), author of Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11, Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship and Discourse and the Construction in Society
  • Philip Lindholm
  • Bronisław Malinowski
  • Martin E. Marty (University of Chicago), author of the series Modern American Religion, editor of The Fundamentalism Project
  • John Macquarrie
  • Jean-François Mayer, Swiss religious historian
  • Russell T. McCutcheon
  • Josef W. Meri
  • George Foot Moore, scholar and theologian, author of History of Religions (two volumes – 1914, 1919) and Judaism (two volumes, 1927)
  • Max Müller, editor of Sacred Books of the East

N-S

  • Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization
  • Rudolf Otto, author of The Idea of the Holy
  • Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels
  • Christopher Partridge, author of The Re-enchantment of the West
  • Geoffrey Parrinder, former professor at King's College London and author of What World Religions Teach Us (1968)
  • Francis Edward Peters, Professor at New York University and author of numerous books on Christianity, Judaism and Islam
  • Stephen Prothero, Professor at Boston University and author of "American Jesus"; "Religious Literacy"; and "God Is Not One."
  • Roy Rappaport
  • Olivier Roy
  • Arne Runeberg (1912–1979), Finnish sociologist, anthropologist and linguist
  • Annemarie Schimmel, author of Mystical Dimensions of Islam
  • Wilhelm Schmidt
  • Arvind Sharma, author of Women in World Religions
  • Christian Smith, author of Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers
  • Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions
  • Jonathan Z. Smith (University of Chicago), author of Map is Not Territory; Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown and To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual
  • Wilfred Cantwell Smith
  • William Robertson Smith, Scottish theologian, early work in the "higher criticism" of the Bible
  • Ninian Smart, author of Dimensions of the Sacred
  • Nathan Söderblom
  • Rodney Stark
  • Michael Stausberg
  • John Shelby Spong, author The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love and other works

T-Z

  • Einar Thomassen
  • Toulmin, Joshua (1740–1815), English radical Dissenting minister
  • Edward Burnett Tylor
  • Joachim Wach
  • James Webb, author of The Occult Underground and The Harmonious Circle
  • Max Weber
  • Christian K. Wedemeyer
  • Wesley Wildman
  • Linda Woodhead, MBE. Director of The Religion and Society Programme
  • Zakir Naik
  • Benjamin E. Zeller, American historian of religion and author
  • Heinrich Zimmer, Indologist, author of Philosophies of India and Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
  • Volker Zotz
  • Ghil'ad Zuckermann, linguist, revivalist, scholar of language, religion and nationhood

References