Book Comment: Lives of the Saints

 

In his book, Lives of the Saints, Richard McBrien discusses the various understandings of the meaning of the word “saint,” the various Christian and non-Christian spiritualities, canonization of the saints from a Roman Catholic perspective, biographical pictures of the lives of the saints are given, arranged by the yearly Roman Catholic calendar and the calendars of the Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches, as well as other “historically significant holy persons.”

A final section of tables includes a list of feast days of the saints, and the patron saints of places, causes, occupations, etc.

The book will be interesting to general readers interested in Christian history. The book does not have to be read sequentially; you can start on any page and skip around as you wish. There is a glossary and indices of subjects and names.

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself.

Information you will need to search for this book: McBrien, Richard P., Lives of the Saints from Mary and St. Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother Teresa San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001)

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Science in Antiquity: Part 4

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 205 BC/BCE: In 1900 the Antikythera Mechanism is discovered off the island of Antikythera. It is a mechanical model of the solar system (with the then-known five planets) and an astronomical calculator. It can predict solar and lunar eclipses.

212 BC/BCE, WBD: Death of Archimedes, Greek mathematician, in the losing defense of Syracuse (modern Siracusa/Saragusa, Italy) against a Roman assault during the Spring of 213 until the Autumn of 212. The defense of the city included the use of weapons developed by Archimedes. His work included hydrostatics, mechanics, and the invention of a screw device for raising water.

230 BC/BCE: 1. Death of Aristarchus, who declared that the Earth revolves around the sun. He suspected that the stars were suns like ours.

Ca 240 BC: In Cyrene (modern Shahhat, Libya), Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of the Earth.

There Can Be No Racism or Bigotry in the Church. We Must Live healthy Lives.

             The Holy Spirit, who is fully God, indwells every believer. It is the responsibility of every believer to carefully maintain their personal health to the best of their ability because their body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The totality of all those led by the Holy Spirit constitute the Church, the Bride of Christ. The members of the Church come from all nations, races, genders, ethnicities, ages, and Christian religious denominations. Absolute agreement on all points of discussion among Christians is not required. There is a small remnant of true Christians in every group. The Lord knows those who are his. Racism and bigotry are absolutely incompatible with a declaration of faith in the risen lord, Jesus Christ.

Zohran Mamdani Elected as the Mayor of New York City

 

First, this is not, never has been, and never will be, a political blog. The post which you are now reading is not a political post.

            On today, 4 November, 2025, Zohran Mamdani, a self-identified socialist, won the mayorship of New York City on the Democratic Party ticket. Some critics say that Mamdani is closer in his beliefs to Communism than to Socialism. Some may even see an apocalyptic meaning in his election, seeing Communism as 666, the number of a man. Revelation 13:18.

            No! I am not saying that Zohran Mamdani is the Antichrist! I am saying that some may see the resurgence of Socialist/Marxist/Communist ideas as evidence of the nearness of the coming of the Antichrist. This resurgence seems to fit many of the biblical descriptions of the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness. The following list is not everything said about the Antichrist in the Bible.

1.                          It elevates a political idea, which comes from man, to a position over God. The most extreme versions of the idea are overtly anti-religious. Anti can be understood not just as against, but also as instead of.

2.                          The Antichrist will be very popular with the majority of the populace and will perform miracles, perhaps economic miracles, rather than seemingly magical ones. He will claim that his system can eventually solve all the world’s problems. He will basically be a political Messiah-figure.

3.                          The divinity of man and man's self-transformation, which are New Age ideas, will be stressed.

4.                          Persecution of Christians will become more openly evident. Not all persecution is physical. It can also be denigration as uneducated bigots and may manifest as harsh social disapproval.  

5.                          The Antichrist will become powerful politically, militarily, and financially and will be a globalist in policy. He will create a one-world religion and a one-world government. Revelation 13:16-18.

6.                          After he is killed with a head wound, the Antichrist will be resurrected. Revelation 13:3. Some see this as having happened in the fall of Communism with the Soviet Union and the seeming modern resurrection of quasi-Marxist thought.

7.                      The government of the Antichrist will use economics, social pressure, and outright physical force to suppress any dissent.

 

Again, I am not saying that Zohran Mamdani is the Antichrist! It is a truly stupid exercise to attempt to name the Antichrist. Over the centuries, many have attempted to do so. Here are some of the names which have been put forward.

The Roman Emperor Nero, Oliver Cromwell, Peter the Great, Martin Luther, Adolf Hitler, Greta Thunberg, an as-yet unidentified Jewish person, the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte, Hillary Clinton, Saddam Hussein, Ronald Reagan, Pope Gregory VII, Pope John Paul II, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Charles III, Bill Gates, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joe Biden, Mikhail Gorbachev, Prince Harry, Emmanuel Macron, Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden, Donald Trump, a 6^th century French peasant mentioned by Gregory of Tours, Benito Mussolini, the European Union, John F. Kennedy, Aleister Crowley, and almost unbelievably, Jesus himself.

Do you see the idiocy of this? Not only is it idiotic, we are specifically told by Jesus not to do it. Matthew 24:36. To do it is disobedience to the Lord, an act of sin.

So, is the Antichrist to be a person representing the political systems of either Socialism or Communism? I do not know, and neither do you. 2 Thessalonian 2:1-8.

Keep your eyes open and do not be deceived, but also do not delude yourself into thinking that you do know. It is disobedience to Jesus to set dates and to plan out elaborate timelines of future historical events and to prematurely say names. When the Antichrist emerges it will be obvious to anyone who knows how to look. You will not have to guess.

Instead, enthusiastically live each day as if it is the last day of your life. As Pastor Frances Chan has said, think of what Jesus wants you to do in the next five minutes. Remember that the thing holding back the emergence of the Antichrist is us, the Body of Christ, the Church, the ekklesia, indwelled by the Holy Spirit.