Lives of Faith Christians Throughout History
← Back to all people

About Lives of Faith

Lives of Faith is a free resource for worship leaders, Bible teachers, and families seeking Christ-centred biographical content for use in services, devotions, and family worship.

Our Purpose

Every story on this site is written to point to Jesus Christ — not to the individuals profiled. We believe that the lives of faithful Christians throughout history are most truly understood as works of God's grace, not human achievement. Our theological commitment is to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. This thread runs through every profile we publish.

We aim for a deliberately global scope, not only from Britain and North America.

Two Story Versions

Each person has two story versions:

  • Adult story (up to 250 words) — richer theological and historical context, suitable for adult Bible study or worship service preparation.
  • Family story (up to 125 words) — simpler vocabulary, narrative-focused, written for children aged 8–14. It retains the gospel thread clearly while being accessible and engaging.

Both versions are based on the same sourced biographical facts. Neither version invents dialogue or speculates beyond what sources confirm.

Copy for Worship & Teaching

Every person page includes two copy buttons — Copy Adult Story and Copy Family Story — so that worship leaders can quickly copy content into presentations or documents. These are intended for direct practical use in the local church.

Images

All portrait images on this site are AI-generated — no third-party photographs or paintings are ever published here. This keeps copyright simple: every image is released with no copyright claimed, so anyone can use them freely in presentations or printed materials without needing to check licences.

Each portrait is generated using a two-step process:

  1. Approved reference image — before generating any portrait, we source an approved reference image. This must be either a verified public domain image (typically from Wikimedia Commons, clearly licensed as such) or an image personally selected and approved by the site owner. This step grounds the AI portrait in documented historical appearance rather than plausible fiction.
  2. AI generation — the approved reference image is passed to an AI image model alongside a text prompt describing the person, era, dress, and setting. The result is a wholly new AI artwork. No pixel data from the reference image appears in the output — the reference shapes the composition and pose, not the final artwork.

The reference images used in this process are never published on the site and are held only in our private image pipeline. Each entry in our data records the reference image source for traceability.

Every portrait has the text AI-generated image — no copyright claimed burned directly into the image file itself as a visible strip at the bottom. This is not only an HTML caption — it is embedded in the JPEG so the attribution travels with the image if it is copied or downloaded.

Human Review Badges

Every person page displays one of two badges:

✓ Reviewed for accuracy ⚠ AI-generated — not yet human reviewed

The ⚠ badge means the content was generated by AI and has not yet been read and verified by a human reviewer. We display this honestly and prominently. No content is published without one badge or the other being shown.

Human review involves checking the biographical facts against Wikipedia and published sources, confirming the theological tone is appropriate, and approving the content for use. Reviewed content is marked accordingly.

Who We Include

We include men and women who held to Trinitarian orthodox Christian faith and who understood salvation as coming by God's grace through faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. We draw from many Protestant and evangelical traditions across many centuries and regions.

Who We Do Not Include

This site focuses specifically on those who held to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone — the historic evangelical understanding of the gospel. We therefore do not include figures from traditions where salvation is understood to come through sacraments, priestly mediation, meritorious works, or ongoing church authority over Scripture. This includes:

  • Roman Catholics — salvation through sacraments and the Church
  • Eastern Orthodox — theosis and sacramental salvation through the Church
  • Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syriac, etc.) — same sacramental framework
  • Mormons / LDS — non-Trinitarian, works-based salvation
  • Jehovah's Witnesses — non-Trinitarian, deny Christ's deity
  • Christian Scientists — deny physical reality of sin, death, and atonement
  • Word of Faith / prosperity gospel figures — distort grace into a formula for wealth and health
  • Oneness Pentecostals — non-Trinitarian

This is a statement of scope, not of condemnation. Many devout and sincere believers belong to these traditions. We simply cannot represent their theological framework as equivalent to the evangelical doctrine of grace that this site is built around.

Flagged Figures

Some figures are theologically orthodox but have specific areas of concern — for example, views on secondary doctrines or mystical claims not universally shared across evangelical traditions. These figures are included but carry a visible note at the bottom of their page explaining the specific concern. They are also subject to mandatory human review before publishing.

Sources

Biographical content is grounded primarily in Wikipedia. Additional sources used include:

  • Hymnary.org — hymn metadata and biographical notes
  • CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) — ccel.org — public domain texts
  • Dictionary of National Biography — via Wikisource, for UK figures

AI is used to write and shape the biographical text, drawing on sourced facts. It elaborates style — it does not invent substance.

All story text is periodically checked for originality using Copyscape to confirm that AI-generated passages have not reproduced source text verbatim.

Corrections & Suggestions

This site is a work in progress. If you notice a factual error, a problematic theological framing, or would like to suggest a figure for inclusion, please email andyabel+livesoffaith@gmail.com. Our aim is accuracy and faithfulness to Christ above all else.

No Advertising or Tracking

This site contains no advertising, no analytics, no cookies, and no tracking of any kind. It is a fully static site hosted on GitHub Pages, offered freely for the benefit of the church.