Good morning sisters and brothers, fellow Saints of our aspirational Zion. I was asked to speak and allowed to decide what the topic would be. After a lot of consideration I felt inspired to speak about being Actively Engaged in a Good Cause and how that relates to the full name of the church.
I was glad when President Nelson decided to put more emphasis on the full name of the church. Not that I mind using the term Mormon, but because I do find the full name of the church to be significant. When the church was organized in 1830 it was called the Church of Christ. In 1834 the members voted to change the name of the church to the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Then in 1838 Joseph had a revelation for the name to be The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While this effectively combined the two previous names, it also highlights something that I think most people overlook. Namely that the church is not only Jesus’s church, but that the church also belongs to us, the Latter-day Saints. We too have ownership of the church. While this may sound strange at first, it actually also fits very well with another concept that Joseph Smith taught: Theodemocracy.
Joseph spoke of this most actively the year before his death when running for President of the United States and when the Council of Fifty was created. The idea also holds in it that while God is in charge, we also have ownership and must have a say, actively vote, propose new ideas, and generally be actively engaged in moving things forward. It is not a theocracy with a fake voting system attached like that of North Korea. However, we have largely seen our own tradition move from one in which we do things by common consent including adding to our canon or as in 1834 voting to change the name of the church, towards something much more akin to voting in North Korea. This has coincided with other shifts in which we have taken less and less ownership of our church and as a result failed to properly sustain and support our leaders.
It is unfair to our leaders for us to sit back and wait for them to do frankly most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the running and functioning of our church, stake, and ward. In the past when I’ve been in callings that required me to be overseeing the assignments of home teaching or really any other church assignments, my experience has been that occasionally some inspiration will strike for some of the assignments, but that for the majority, I felt like I was left to figure out myself what assignments seemed to make the most sense. I know that many leaders that I have spoken to on this topic have also had such experiences. When we as members speak with our leaders, share information with them, it makes it much easier to make the best decisions. Without that feedback much more is left to guesswork.
We need to support and sustain our leaders, but this becomes difficult or challenging if we bring some assumptions to the table when considering how we do this. A major one as I see it is when we put too much trust in the arm of the flesh and grant our leaders infallibility or the lesser but largely equivalent functional infallibility.
As the saying goes: “Catholics say that the Pope is infallible, but none of them believe it. Mormons say that the Prophet is fallible, but none of them believe it.” Brigham Young recognized the potential for harm in this setting and said:
"I am fearful [the Saints will] settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken the influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way.” – Brigham Young 1862 General Conference (quoted in General Conference of the church in 1963 and in 1989)
And this one is also important:
"And none are required to tamely and blindly submit to a man because he has a portion of the priesthood. We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark, that they would do anything they were told to do by those who presided over them, if they knew it was wrong; but such obedience as this is worse than folly to us; it is slavery in the extreme; and the man who would thus willingly degrade himself should not claim a rank among intelligent beings, until he turns from his folly. A man of God… would despise the idea. Others, in the extreme exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was necessary, and that no matter what the saints were told to do by their presidents, they should do it without asking any questions. When Elders of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions of obedience as to teach them to the people, it is generally because they have it in their minds to do wrong themselves.” – Millennial Star, vol.14 #38, pp. 593-95
Yet does this functionally happen in the church? Do we follow this council to find out for ourselves instead of simply assuming everything from our leaders is divine? Apostle Charles W. Penrose, who would later serve as counselor to President Smith, declared:
"President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from God; and when ‘Thus saith the Lord’, comes from him, the saints investigate it: they do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill.” – Millennial Star 54:191
Do we do this? When the prophet says “Thus saith the Lord” do we take the time to investigate it? Do we remember President Kimball’s reaction to Elder Benson’s talk on the “14 fundamentals of following the prophet”?
"Spencer felt concern about the talk, wanting to protect the Church against being misunderstood as espousing ultraconservative politics or an unthinking “follow the leader” mentality. The First Presidency again called Elder Benson in to discuss what he had said and asked him to make explanation to the full Quorum of the Twelve and other General Authorities… A First Presidency spokesman Don LeFevre reiterated to the press the day after the speech that it is “simply not true” that the Church President’s “word is law on all issues—including politics.” – Lengthen Your Stride – Working Draft, by Edward Kimball
I’ve had the opportunity to know some great Mormons who do take this approach, but I’ve also known many who treat quotes from church leaders like downloaded messages from God (no human filters involved).
If we can believe that God is capable of inspiring our leaders, surely we can believe God is capable of letting us know when they’re wrong. If instead we assume that their judgment is always superior to our own, perhaps we’re helping to put up a massive iron gate.
"How often has the Holy Spirit tried to tell us something we needed to know but couldn’t get past the massive iron gate of what we thought we already knew?" – Dieter Uchtdorf 2012 Worldwide Leadership Training
Moses once opined “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” We have all been confirmed members of the church and in that confirmation told to receive the Holy Ghost. It is easy to forget that when the spirit tells us something, that is a member of the Godhead speaking to us. If we can believe that God can give guidance to our leaders surely we can also believe God can give us guidance.
Another important and often overlooked point is the context to this oft quoted verse:
"We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion." -D&C 121:39
This statement wasn’t given in a vacuum. It is in the middle of a long discussion of priesthood and priesthood authority. This is talking specifically about priesthood leaders. When we read that “many are called but few are chosen,” we’re reading that many priesthood leaders abuse their power and only few truly honor it. The saints in Joseph’s day understood this. I think we’ve sanitized it over the years to make it seem like an aside, an intermission on the discussion of priesthood. This statement is as true now as ever. This verse, with its proper context, needs to be a lesson for us as members. We need to sustain and support our leaders. This doesn’t mean following them blindly. This doesn’t mean we must become “yes-men” to them. This does mean pray for them to be chosen instead of just called. This does mean to influence our leaders to do God’s will. Remember, one of Brigham’s concerns about us acting as if all our leaders decisions were divine is that it will “weaken the influence [we] could give to [our] leaders.”
What questions our church leaders will take to the Lord are impacted by our own openness to those things. In 1977 President Kimball expressed concern that if the Race-ban on priesthood was removed that there would be pushback from members in the American South and from some in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. When President Hinckley was asked in an interview about the Gender-ban on priesthood his response was that “there’s no agitation for it.” Until we better engage in our own history and understand how we got to where we are now it will be very difficult if not impossible for us as members to be prepared for the removal of the current gender-ban on priesthood.
Sometimes we might justify our own spiritual laziness by saying that while our leaders are fallible that God will never let them lead us astray, granting them a sort of functional infallibility. Nevermind that this was first said when my 3rd-great-grandpa President Woodruff was trying to convince members not to leave over the Manifesto. Nevermind that it means that we’re denying our leaders their agency by assuming that God removes their ability to make mistakes in their callings. Maybe some make such a statement more nuanced. Maybe they think that our leaders can make mistakes, but they won’t be majosignificant mistakes. Well, what is and isn’t significant depends a lot on who you are and how you’re being affected by it. I’m thinking that the women and children who were slaughtered in prophet-sanctioned genocide in the Bible considered that a significant mistake. I’m thinking that the thousands denied temple blessings their entire lives because of the color of their skin might consider that significant.
Let’s just recognize that few are chosen and that we need to give our leaders constructive/interactive support. We place a lot of responsibility on our leaders and they are very likely to make mistakes. Because they are human and doing their best, but as humans we all err from time to time. Recognizing the mistakes of our leaders is essential to giving them true support; it is vital to sustaining them. I would hope that we would avoid enabling or cheerleading bad decisions that friends or family are about to make. Pointing out why a decision will be or was problematic is what we expect of people who we truly love and support us, because it helps us to avoid pain and pitfalls and enables us to be our best.
Here’s a story from our little section of Salt Lake City in which members recognized the potential for mistakes and took ownership of our church. On August 23rd, 1896 Stake President Angus M. Cannon proposed a man to be the bishop of a new ward which was to be divided from the Sugar House Ward. The congregation voted against the proposed new bishop. President Angus M. Cannon then purportedly shouted "Sit down! and shut your mouths, you have no right to speak!" When Cannon engaged in a shouting match with the dissenting congregation, a ward member and policeman threatened to arrest the stake president for disturbing the peace. President Cannon more calmly repeated his attempt but was voted down "again several times." The Secretary of the First Council of the Seventy was in attendance and wrote in his journal: "I have been taught that the appointing power comes from the priesthood and the sustaining power from the people and that they have the right of sustaining or not sustaining appointees.
When it comes to being actively engaged in church endeavors our neighborhood and the general Sugar House area has done a lot. The "stake missionary program" began in the Granite Stake under President Frank Taylor in the early 1900s. It was an idea presented to President Taylor who then prayerfully considered trying it out as a stake. It proved successful and was later picked up by the General Authorities who made it a church-wide program.
The seminary program was also started in our stake after Joseph Merrill (a newly called member of the Granite Stake Presidency) felt inspired to start it and worked out agreements with the school board and got it going at the very new (at the time) Granite High School.
Also, in 1909 the Granite Stake started a monthly family home evening program. After counseling with many sisters and brothers in the stake, the Stake Presidency asked each family to spend Tuesday evening home together. All of these were local things which were eventually picked up and run at the church-wide level. We have a history in our area of being anxiously engaged and pioneering with new ideas.
While those are all instances of members, wards, and stakes starting programs for good causes in our area of Salt Lake City, they are just a few examples of Saints starting inspired efforts which were eventually accepted and promoted by the top church leaders. The relief society started when women in Nauvoo came together to do some good. The Primary program, Sunday school, Mutual Improvement Association, welfare/farming, organized genealogy efforts, and Young Adult programs all also started as members and local leaders were anxiously engaged and thereby gave influence to the top church leaders.
So as we consider how we can more actively engage in the church and look at what we can do now that would help to further the kingdom of God, I’d like to share a few things that have been on my mind which I feel would be steps which we can do now and which doesn’t require any new doctrines, revelations, or organizational adjustments from our leadership.

1. Give leaders their agency and remove the false idol of functional infallibility

I’ve already said a lot about this. The only thing I’ll add is to encourage everyone to read and learn about our history. The church history department has been putting out a lot of new, well-researched material, and there is a very high chance that it will be different than how you learned about things over the last several decades. Interestingly, most historically thorny topics become vastly easier to deal with when we stop denying leaders agency and ability to get things wrong.

1. Stop turning into a time capsule of the 1950s

This is really a small thing, but sometimes small things can have an outsized impact. Assuming someone comes into church for the first time, they will likely be a little weirded out because in dress and culture they walked into a time capsule of the 1950s. The Amish did this with mid-1800s, some Mennonites have as well. FLDS have with when they split in the 1930s/40s. These groups that have followed this pattern of freezing time and culture because they have been integrated into their religious practice are generally ones that are not really growing and have little-to-no impact or relevance in society. If we want to do the most good and build the most bridges, it is easier to do if we don’t continue falling into this pattern. Any efforts on our part to make our meetings look like a place that people in the public could come into and not feel out of place are steps in this direction. Dresses, suits and ties aren’t part of Christ’s gospel. Missionary clothing is changing for similar reasons. New guidelines for missionaries include allowing sisters to wear pants and Elders to go without jackets, so surely we can extend the same to our church attendance.

1. Always speak at church as though the audience is the general public

I have many times felt like I didn’t fit in or belong at church, and many times this has been because people speaking at church have done so with the assumption that everyone in the building must share their views on a given topic. Simply imagining that a gay couple, an ex-mormon, an investigator, some in the midst of a faith crisis, and others who live in our neighborhood are in the audience will help us to make sure that as we teach our lessons, give our talks, etc. that we will do so in the most open and welcoming way possible, which frankly is how i believe Jesus would have spoken. I truly believe that if we try to do this it will drastically improve our lessons and dialogue and help to make church a place that more people want to be. It is a change that (to borrow imagery from Jesus’s parable of the sower) will be akin to tilling and prepping the soil to improve the likelihood of allowing seeds to take root.
There are near infinite ways that we can innovate and get engaged in good causes. Awake and arise, join in the cause of Zion. The aspiration of Zion is to be of one heart and one mind and have no poor among us. I think it is worth noting that being of one mind doesn’t mean agreeing on everything. It means that we are united in love; love for God and for all persons. When this is our top priority, when we worry about how our actions impact others and whether our words and actions are conveying love, we become united. I’ve been a long-time fan of Eugene England’s essay “The church is as true as the gospel.” In it he makes the case that the church is true because it is a vehicle in which we are able to actually try to put the gospel into practice. In doing so we encounter difficulties as we interact with other fallible mortals and try to navigate our interactions in a Christ-like way. We all try and this mix of imperfect people who unite in love and service can help to bring each other and others to Christ. It is my prayer that we can find ways to engage with love, and humble ourselves like little children, to change our ways as needed to come closer to Christ. I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Why Roman empire fell? Main causes.

The fall of the Roman Empire in the West wasn't caused by a single event, but rather a combination of factors that weakened the empire over a long period. Some of the main causes historians point to include:

• Invasions by Barbarian Tribes: For centuries, Rome faced pressure from Germanic tribes on its borders. By the 4th and 5th centuries, these groups, like the Visigoths and Huns, were able to breach Roman defenses and settle within the empire.
• Economic Decline: The vast Roman Empire was expensive to maintain. Over time, a combination of factors like overspending on military, high taxes, and inflation strained the economy.
• Political Instability: A series of weak emperors and power struggles weakened central authority. This made it difficult for Rome to respond effectively to threats or hold its vast territories together.
• Military Issues: The Roman military, once a powerful force, weakened over time. The ability to recruit and train legions declined, and corruption became an issue.
• The Rise of Christianity: The spread of Christianity, which differed greatly from traditional Roman religion, introduced some social and cultural divisions within the empire.

These are just some of the main reasons why the Western Roman Empire fell. It's important to remember that the decline was complex and historians continue to debate the relative importance of these factors.

What would must had be done so Roman empire could prevail?

That's a fascinating question! However, it's important to remember that history doesn't offer do-overs. The fall of the Roman Empire stemmed from a complex web of issues that built up over centuries. Here are some things the Romans could have tried, though success isn't guaranteed:

• Economic Reform: Addressing inflation, finding new sources of revenue, and promoting trade could have strengthened the empire's financial base.
• Military Reorganization: Reforms focusing on recruitment, training, and equipment could have bolstered the legions' effectiveness.
• Stronger Leadership: A series of capable emperors who prioritized stability, addressed corruption, and inspired loyalty might have held the empire together.
• Integration of Barbarian Tribes: Instead of just fighting them off, the Romans could have attempted to assimilate barbarian groups, giving them a stake in the empire's success.
• Religious Tolerance: Greater acceptance of Christianity, perhaps even integrating some aspects into Roman religion, could have lessened social and cultural divisions.

It's also important to consider external factors. The rise of powerful enemies like the Huns might have been difficult to overcome regardless of Roman actions.
Ultimately, the Roman Empire's fall was a product of its time. The solutions we think of today might not have been feasible in their historical context. However, exploring these "what ifs" allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of empires.

Hi all. About a year ago, I dove deep into Gundam as a new fan watching most of the UC stuff and some AU stuff as well. I think I fell off, because I just needed a break, but have been itching to dive back in. If a show has a score after it, it's what I would rate it after finishing it. (In terms of canonicity for each timeline, I'm working off of the one in this Reddit post). If it doesn't, I still need to get to it.
I tried starting Seed a few months ago but wasn't connecting with it. Started 00 but life got in the way even though I was liking but not loving it. I'm open to any of the shows as well as conversations regarding any of the shows that I have finished.
Universal Century

• Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin _ 8/10
• 0079 MSG _ 9/10
• Thunderbolt Season 1 _ 10/10
• 08th MS Team _ 8/10
• War in the Pocket _ 6/10
• Thunderbolt Season 2 _ 4/10
• Stardust Memory _ 7/10
• Zeta Gundam _ 7/10
• ZZ _ 6/10
• Char's Counterattack _ 8/10
• Unicorn _ 8/10
• Narrative _ 5/10
• Hathaway _ 9/10
• F91 _ 5/10
  
• MS Igloo 1-3
  
• Twilight Axis
  
• Victory Gundam
  

Reglid Century

• Reconguista in G

Anno Domini

• Gunpla Builders Beginning G
• Gundam Breaker: Battlogue
• Gundam Build Fighters
• Gundam Build Fighters Try
• Gundam Build Divers
• Gundam Build Divers: Re:Rise
• Gundam Build Divers Battlogue

After Colony

• Gundam Wing
• Endless Waltz

Cosmic Era

• Gundam Seed
• Gundam Seed Destiny
• Gundam Seed Stargazer
• Gundam Seed Freedom

After War

• Gundam X

Anno Domini

• Gundam 00
• Gundam 00 Second Season
• Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer

Advanced Generation

• Gundam Age

Post Disaster

• Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 1 _ 9/10
• Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 _ 9/10

Ad Stella

• Witch from Mercury Both Seasons _ 8/10

Correct Century

• Turn A Gundam _ 10/10 and my favorite out of them all

Hi all, as the title says Hesychasm has "pushed" me towards leaving the EO Church. It may seem like a minor thing to leave EO over, but for me I've been torn between EO and RC for some time now and this issue is the "smoking gun" (imo). Let me explain my line of thinking and please correct me where/if I'm wrong or misinformed.
EO and RC split around 1054, RC proceeds to introduce some "new" additions to the faith (Purgatory, Immaculate Conception etc.) but nothing that is necessarily that impactful on a day to day basis. (E.g. whether or not Mary was immaculately conceived doesn't weigh on my conscious daily and doesn't really impact my prayer life or spiritual life in a meaningful way). I understand that there are obviously doctrines that do impact RC lives daily (e.g. indulgences) but I still believe this is on a minor scale compared to my next point. EO on the other hand, kept their traditions mostly the same after the split with a few minor additions of their own as well. That was UNTIL the Palamas/Hesychasm debates in the 14th Century. During this era of EO history, the EO monks began to embrace some very odd practices involving breathe work, postures (i.e. yoga), meditation, and supposedly began seeing the "uncreated light of God". These practices very obviously are identical to the pagan practices we see in yoga and Islam etc. and were foreign to The Faith until after the split when the EO embraced them. Barlaam the theologian/monk and scholar proceeds to condemn these practices as unorthodox and Palamas is considered a heretic until that decision is overturned and eventually EO embrace Palamas and his Hesychasm teachings, and I believe Barlaam went on to convert to RC afterward. That's a very abridged version, but all that to say, if EO fully embraced this teaching that by sitting in a certain yoga poses, tucking your chin in, breathing through the diaphragm, and navel gazing will provide Christians with the possible ability to "see God", isn't this a MAJOR erroneous development in our tradition? I get it, RC introducing Purgatory is a tough pill to swallow, but doesn't that at least stay within the parameters of Christian faith comparatively speaking to our "side" that accepted full blown demonically centered yoga? I think at the time in the 1350s all the Christian/Hindu/Buddhist/Islamic monks doing this practice were having experiences, but I think as the science has caught up in the 21st Century, we're kinda left with egg on our face as we now know it isn't "God" they were seeing, but was due to the blood flow and oxygen levels that are manipulated by meditative yoga. If an atheist can reproduce this identical experience as many do through meditation/yoga, then we know it wasn't a supernatural experience as Palamas and ultimately EO doctrinal defined it.
All that to say, if anyone has 15 mins to watch this clip from 2:06-17:26 (Youtub = Eastern "Orthodoxy" Exposed: Their Heretical Doctrine of God - by Vaticancatholic.com) outlining these practices in Hesychams and teachings of Palamas I'd love to hear a thoughtful rebuttal (FYI the content creator is uncharitable and difficult to stomach at times, but his historical account/quotes are spot on according to reputable Orthodox online resources I've found). I don't want to leave EO but feel as though if our fathers got it THIS wrong in this area and embraced full blown pagan demonic yogi practices and affirmed it in our "Spirit lead" synods/councils, then we are in grave error and thus prone to error in other areas as well (i.e. the Papacy perhaps?). Accepting the Pope has spoken infallibly 5-10 times over the last 2000 yrs has been much easier for me to accept then EO fundamentally shifting to a Palamas-ish theology. And honest question, if this has become part of the EO tradition, how many of you actually practice this? Seriously, if we can potentially "see God" tonight through breathwork and special postures, why wouldn't we do this daily? (I have a sneaking suspicion most of us don't participate in this practice because something within us knows better).
Thank you in advance! And if you don't have time to watch the clip, here are the major quotes that I see as being irreconcilable for the EO:
“Striking parallels exist between the physical techniques recommended by the Byzantine Hesychasts and those employed in Hindu Yoga and in Sufism” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
“It was Gregory’s achievement to set Hesychasm on a firm dogmatic basis by integrating it into Orthodox theology as a whole. His teaching was confirmed by two councils held at Constantinople in 1341 and 1351, which, although local and not Ecumenical, yet possess a doctrinal authority in Orthodox theology scarcely inferior to the seven general councils themselves.” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
“One of the most thoroughgoing attempts in the history of Christian spirituality to ascribe a positive and dynamic role to the body during prayer was made by the fourteenth-century hesychasts. As an accompaniment to the recitation of the Jesus prayer they proposed a physical technique that has obvious parallels in yoga and among the Sufis of Islam.” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
"How should such a one not gain great profit if, instead of letting his eye roam…he should fix it on his breast or on his navel, as a point of concentration?...he will also, by disposing his body in such a position, recall into the interior of the heart a power which is ever flowing outwards…” - Gregory Palamas, The Triads
“By fixing one’s gaze on one’s navel and resting one’s chin on one’s breast, one could make one’s breathing coincide with the repetition of the prayer.”- Hesychast Monk's instructions
“Just as the aspirant in Yoga is taught to concentrate his thought in specific parts of his body, so the Hesychast concentrates his thought in the cardiac centre.” - Hesychast Monk's instructions
"Rest your beard on your chest, and focus your physical gaze, together with the whole of your intellect, upon the center of your belly or your navel.” - Hesychast Monk's instructions
EDIT: I am fully aware that Vatican Catholic are sedevacantists and have no intention of being affiliated with them, as I stated in my OP, they are are insufferable and hence why I prefaced it the way I did. BUT that doesn't mean the material presented on this particular topic are inaccurate. I looked up the quotes and confirmed their authenticity. These practices in Hesychasm are confirmed as essentially being dogma in EO.

So i wanna make a game right, but i need to figure out the key points of johns life so i can craft a good narrative.
completely separate from that, i wanna make the big impossible task something that exceeds basic expectations. My default answer was "he killed all vigos competitors blah blah" but thats kinda shit.
in the second movie a dude straight up asks if hes here to kill the pope, so it needs to of been something that makes mfs think pope assassinations are a regular thing.
I thought maybe he assassinated a political leader so a deal vigo was praying on would go through. but i cant think of anything actually good.
Leave any and all suggestions please, it doesnt have to "fit" the canon even.

Just for clarification, by “Ruthenian”, I specifically mean the people of what is now approximately Ukraine and Belarus, and who spoke a language which would form into modern Ukrainian and Belarusian.
I’m specifically focused on the development of the Ruthenian Orthodox nobility which increasingly adopted aspects of Western style knighthood as early as the Galician-Volhynian Wars (early to mid 14th century) onwards. By the period of the mid to late 14th century, and especially the 15th century, many Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish historians have noted the development of a kind of western style knight culture in Ruthenia at this time despite their Orthodox faith (similar developments had also occurred in Serbia, Wallachia, Moldova, etc.) In some case this was tied to certain princely states often led by Lithuanian-Ruthenian branch of the Gediminids (who were often of Orthodox extraction, yet still maintained ties to their Roman Catholic relatives) such as the Duchy of Podolia or the later Principality of Kiev, or on smaller scales such as the Lviv Banner of knights described by various Polish and Ruthenian recountings of the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. One such knight was even canonized during the Orthodox Church, Feodor Ostrogski. By the later 15th and 16th centuries, the knights of these regions managed to obtain more and more influence, such as the Hetman Konstantin Ostrogski and Roman Feodorovich Sanguszko, among others. Even the later (16th-17th centuries) Cossacks often found themselves portrayed or culturally influenced by such knightly legends, once knighthood had traditionally been understood to have faded.
Of course, the main issue is that many sources regarding this issue, be it in English, Ukrainian, Polish, etc., are incredibly difficult to track. If anyone would have access to any good sources or information, be it books, PDFS, papers, general informationor anything regarding this issue, particularly any in English, I would be in your debt.
Thank you for reading, and take care.

Ayt, i'm bored out of my mind, i'm suffering from ADHD so I just had to make a post.
TLTR: Gordon has no helmet canonically... maybe, potentially, figuratively even... we don't know.
So some people STILL believe this myth, and this should be extremely easy to demystify since there are people like Chuck Jones telling us otherwise. BUT, even in the face of evidence sceptics still think that Gordon has some kind of retractable helmet or that he's detaching it manually for variety of reasons. Some even say that the HUD is hypothetical for the sake of gameplay... but i'm getting ahead of myself...
Since there aren't any verified official or unofficial hints as to why the heads-up display appears at all even though the in-game model doesn't seem to be wearing the helmet, or how in basically every single splash art or box art starting from the OG vanilla version of HL till Episode 2 practically, Gordon's hazard suit is exposed up there. I mean hell, in EP2 you can see both Gordon & Alyx getting away from a pissed off hunter in the background. Let's explore the things we're already familiar with:
a): Headcrabs CAN'T successfully latch onto the player. Helmet seems to be the only barrier deflecting headcrabs and keeping your body safe from ballistics, if you're submerged in toxic or otherwise radioactive waste found in BWPP, it keeps you high ^{(with morphine}) and dry ^{(with operational vent systems}). This is the reason why Gordon isn't getting 5th degree burns from swimming in glowing acid or withstanding a nade shrapnel to the face...
b) The PS2 port, Half-Life: Decay is dragging us down with it's incoherency. At the very start of the co-op segment you can clearly see either Colette or Gina (depending on which one you play as) with absolutely no head protection whatsoever even though their body is covered neck-to-toe in HEVS. This AGAIN prompts me to believe that either Valve doesn't care about it and let's the decision "be" for the sake of style or some weird thematic direction but... making the same mistake twice? You're telling me... Chuck just decided "fuck it" and let Pitchford take control of the license? This wouldn't be so strange if the same situation could be said for Shepard BUT the guy is wearing a chargeable P.C.V. he isn't feeling anything up there. Fully equipped vest with ammo count and vital sign tab functioning like in the case of hazard suit, not to mention his face is completely covered on the big box release that's soaked in so much green I got a permanent silhouette imprint on ma' optic nerve.
c) Gordon's markIV suit doesn't have a visible helmet to begin with... You get out of the tram, meet your first barney, enter anomalous materials chapter, follow wall guidelines, fuck up Arne's lunch with a button press and then finally arrive to the dorm just to see the suit incased inside a glass cylinder. You come closer to observe it intentionally ignoring the console on your second playthrough AAANNNDDD ... yup no helmet. Plain and simple. Even the holographic assistant from Sector A who's teaching you about security and the long jumping module had no helmet. Nada. (i know she's suppose to be Gina Cross but i just can't...)
d) G-man is suppose to be a human correct? i mean we know he has super powers and can teleport but i'm pretty sure that if he is just a human organism with supernatural powers, won't he suffocate in Xen? Or emplode? Or maybe both? In HL:A & HL1 we can clearly see him talking to Gordon and/or Alyx respectively for long period of time completely unbothered by the cosmos, inflating his little lungs with dark matter like it was nothing. Again, canonical we don't even know if Xen has breathable surroundings or not, it's a wild guess just like the fact that you see dead scientists complete with their helmets both in hl1 and blueshift.
There are lots of other minor not so interesting arguments, but these are the key once... wdyt?

Champo Specco 7: Muppets from Space. This round is sponsored jointly by Arron Banks, who thinks we play four day cricket because of woke, and Colin Graves, who wants to sell Yorkshire so they can pay their debts to some guy called Colin Graves.
This was a round of absolutely excellent cricket games all over the place. We only had two draws, both dramatic as Derbs and Leics managed to hang on against Northants and Glos, and even the inevitable Surrey procession included a period of them being 15/4. Middlesex might win the award for most drama, heroically battling to a win in the face of the fearsome checks notes Mason Crane, but there were also tense finishes from Sussex, Lancs, and Essex. Great cricket was everywhere, but in true Champo fashion we still managed to sneak in some village stuff, like a bat going flying out of shot while the batter got bowled and a bit where Zak Crawley had a century taken off him cos he’d hit a no-ball whilst off the pitch. And as usual with the champo we had some big names making big performances.
On the radar
England test players: The headlines probably go to Crawley, who overcame a first innings goldie to get 238 as Kent batted their way out from behind a follow on. Subheader is Ollie Robinson’s 7 wickets, including a vicious bouncer to take out a well set batsmen with an old ball. There was also Pope and Lawrence batting their side back to winning ways from 15/4, Stokes taking a fifer on his bowling return, Jack Leach also making his return with some good wickets and tight lines, and even Joe Root offering some resistance for an otherwise dismal Yorkshire. It’s been a mixed bag for recent test names, but this round of quality cricket seems to suggest they might be coming into some form.
Fast bowlers: Stokes making his return to take 5 (albeit at quite a cost in runs) was good, but almost less important than him just getting plenty of overs under his belt, and into his surgically repaired knee. Olly Stone also bowled quick and took poles to keep his name in the conversation, with Dillon Pennington continuing his well-timed resurgence alongside. Sam Cook was slightly subdued but continued to press his claim, although Che Simmons, a man whose ‘new Jofra’ hype train was building up steam before he’d even played in the 2s for Warks, took the headlines. Dan Worrall, who has also built up a bit of a cult following from journos, took 10 in another outstanding display of Surrey’s might, and a late England callup isn’t an impossibility. As we build up to a post-Anderson world, there is at least some hope coming out of the Champo.
Matt Critchley: Essex are just about sustaining their push to keep pace with Man City Surrey, although Somerset have been a surprise package too. Either way Critchley is proving to be a real Swiss army knife. Quiet in the first innings, he took 4 wickets with his legspin to scuttle Warks and then batted through their big chase to leave himself on 99* and his team celebrating. With Rehan struggling again against a Glos onslaught and Hartley stuck behind the ever-impressive Nathan Lyon in Lancs’ pecking order, Critchley might yet play his way into some England recognition, or at least a Lions spot. In other allrounder news Dan Lawrence continued his weird transition, Joey Evison makes important contributions in all areas, Lyndon James got a ton but was limited with his bowling, George Balderson continued his good season with the ball, Liam Dawson is enjoying this golden stage of his late career, George Hill got more wickets but not runs, and Ollie Price put to bed the scandalous accusation from u/TheScarletPimpernel that his bowling isn’t that good.
Keaton Jennings: It’s hard to see any changes to the test openers, even if both Duckett and Crawley have been inconsistent in the champo thus far. Still, Keats got a ton in each innings to drive Lancs home, and also had some strong work with the Lions in India earlier in the year. With Lees’ red hot div 2 form falling away since promotion, Keaton is probably leading the ‘also ran’ pack amongst openers. Daniel Bell-Drummond might be his nearest competition in the form stakes, but Emilio Gay continued his good season, while Ben Charlesworth may be one for the future after another strong round.
Dropped off the radar
Fast bowlers: yeah, I know what I said earlier. But there are caveats. Saqib Mahmood has lacked some of his previous fire since his injury return and went off the field again with a niggle. Josh Hull, a man who got a lot of pre-season hype after his antics in the MBODC, suggested that he still has quite a bit of developing to do, and will have to start being more than just tall and left handed if he wants to reach his potential. Matty Potts, a man very much on the cusp of England selection, continued his season of taking a few wickets without really carrying his div 2 threat, and took some tap as a result. Gus Atkinson also looked a little lacking in penetration, although in fairness he was mostly bowling at batters who were more interested in survival than scoring, and Worrall took most of the wickets before Gus had a chance.
Injuries: Aside from Saqib, Sam Hain was arguably the big name this round, unable to bat as Warks subsided from a dominant position to a bitter loss. He joins a huge queue for the Edgbaston physio table. Elsewhere Matt Fisher was missing after a sprained ankle and Ben Coad’s body gave out again, and Brydon Carse was reportedly unavailable after having had quite a wayward start to the season. Jamie Overton has been ruled out for the summer too. There’s hope in the post-Anderson era, but the difference in fitness between him and the generation following him is pretty stark.
Ben Foakes: Look, I want nothing more than to see that jawline, those cheekbones, the stunningly blue pools of his eyes and the….well, anyway, he should be England’s keeper. But whilst he remains impeccable with the gloves Foakes isn’t really doing much with the bat this year to shake off the India tour batting hangover. His issue is also competition; obviously Bairstow is still stomping around in the background like a sunburned and unfeasibly angry caribou, but this round saw James Rew return to form with a lovely ton, Ollie Robinson almost batting Durham out of a hole single handed, and Jamie Smith adding to his increasingly bazball-esque portfolio. Jordan Cox isn’t a test keeper but is loving life at Essex too, and even guys like Bracey and Banton are getting batting form back. None is the equal of Foakes behind the stumps but Rew and Robinson are at least in the ballpark, and England’s suits may start to wonder if Foakes is just too beautiful for the world of test cricket.
Nice to see them having fun: Tom Helm, Rob Keogh, Ed Barnard, Adam Lyth, Mo Abbas, David Bedingham, Graeme Van Buuren, Mark Stoneman, Keaton Jennings, Jordan Clark
Will definitely play for England one day: Ben Charlesworth, Che Simmons, Joey Evison, Ollie Robinson, Jordan Cox, Tom Aspinwall, James Rew, Emilio Gay

I am not even talking about scriptural problems within the bible, You don't have to open a single bible to start seeing the problems,
1-) The Problem of Salvation and Faith (Why the plan of salvation is ridiculous, and has failed)
I.The ridiculousness of the plan
A. Demanding blood for remission of sins Heb 9:22 - Why is this the terms that god insists upon? Isn't he the architect of the parameters regarding sin, punishment, and forgiveness? Is he not able to forgive sin without blood sacrifice? Can he not say, “No blood sacrifice necessary, I just forgive you?”
B. God sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself by creating a loophole in the architecture for condemnation he engineered in the first place? This is your solution for a problem in which you yourself are the problem. It’s like a doctor stabbing people to be able to operate and save them.
C. Dying for someone else's crime does not equal justice in any court.
D. The sacrifice was not a sacrifice at all :

1. Jesus is said to be eternal
2. He spent a few days in misery out of his billions of years plus of existence
3. He spent a minutiae of a fraction of his existence suffering knowing he would be resurrected after the ordeal and spend eternity in divine luxury, and that somehow provides him justification to sentence us to trillions of years of eternity suffering without end?
4. Jesus is a supernatural immortal who suffered temporary mortal punishment and then sentences mortals to supernatural eternal punishment if they do not receive his sacrifice.
5. Why is three days of punishment followed by eternity in glory sufficient for all the horrible deeds any man has ever committed, but billions of years suffered in hell by a good moral person who does not believe due to lack of evidence is not sufficient?

2-) Nature of The Christian god
I. He is supposed to be an all Powerful and All mighty being and yet he died on a cross by his own creation (If you see someone claiming to be god and then you saw him hie before your very eyes, How on earth are you supposed to conclude anything else other than "This guy is a liar"?)
Modern Christians would respond to this saying "Only the Human part died, The Divine part wasn't affected"
Which again, doesn't make any sense :
A. Even when assuming a human sacrifice is somehow necessary for salvation, The sacrifice of 1 Human being can never be Enough to atone for the sins of all of mankind since Adam and Eve till the return of jesus.
I found a Coptic pope explaining this issue in detail, Here is a link to his book, https://st-takla.org/books/en/pope-shenouda-iii/nature-of-christ/propitiation-and-redemption.html
Quoting from it : "The belief in the One Nature of the Incarnate Logos is essential, necessary and fundamental for redemption. Redemption requires unlimited propitiation sufficient for the forgiveness of the unlimited sins of all the people through all ages. There was no solution other than the Incarnation of God the Logos to offer this through His Divine Power.
Thus, if we mention two natures and say that the human nature alone performed the act of redemption, it would have been entirely impossible to achieve unlimited propitiation for man's salvation. Hence comes the danger of speaking of two natures, each having its own specific tasks. In such case, the death of the human nature alone is insufficient."
It's very clear that saying only the human part died doesn't make any sense, Even according to the Christian theology itself.
B. The Trinity is based on a false idea
I know, It's a classic Argument against Christianity but you can't deny that it's an actual damning argument against the Christian theology.

1. God is all knowing but Jesus wasn't all knowing (mark 13:32)
2. Jesus is supposed to be god, but he is praying to himself to save himself with cries and tears?? (Luke 22:41-44)
3. Jesus is god but we can't say he is good because only god is good?? (Luke 18:18-19)
4. God can't be tempted by evil (James 1:13) but yet jesus was tempted by satan?? (Matthew 4:1)
5. Jesus is god but he can't do a thing on his own?? (John 5:31) 6.Jesus is supposed to be the same as the father, But their teachings are different? (John 7:16)

And so many more, Throught the bible i can't help but notice the intense number of verses which clearly states Jesus can't be god.
3-) The Problem of a Historical Jesus (Why we don’t know the actual historical Jesus)
I. No contemporary historical evidence,
A. No historian alive during Jesus day wrote about Jesus despite ample opportunity

1. The kings coming to his birth
2. Herod’s slaughter of baby boys
3. The overthrowing of money changers
4. Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem where he is declared king by the whole town.
5. Darkness covering the whole earth for hours on Jesus’ Death
6. The earthquakes at Jesus’ death
7. The rending of the temple veil at Jesus’ Death
8. The resurrection of Jesus that was seen by 500 witnesses.(Only Paul claims that, even tho he never met jesus)

II. The Gospels are contradicting, late hearsay accounts
A. Mark, the earliest gospel, was written at least after 70 A.D. (referencing fall of temple) by a non-eyewitness, and makes numerous cultural and geographical errors that a Jewish writer would not have made such as locations of rivers, cultural customs regarding divorce, locations of towns or Jesus quoting from the greek Septuagint etc. (see geographical and historical errors in this link, https://holtz.org/Library/Philosophy/Metaphysics/Theology/Christianity/Criticism/Bible%20Problems%20by%20Packham%201998.htm#ERRORS )
B. The other gospels all copied from Mark. Luke and Matthew contain over 70% of Mark and mainly make changes in attempts to fix blatant errors made in Mark and to correct Mark’s poor grammar.The writer of Luke even reveals to us in Luke 1:2 that he was not an eyewitness, but that the story has been passed down to him.
C. Four where chosen by the church father Iraeneus because he believed the earth was founded on four pillars and so too, should the gospels be founded by only four accounts.
Iraenus also revealed the names of the Gospels in the late second century, without any reason to assume they where the authentic authors - no one knows who actually wrote them!
D. John was initially considered heretical by the early church because of its variation from the synoptic but was overwhelmingly popular amongst Christians and so was included.
E. The book of Revelations was also considered heretical by many :
For centuries The Revelation was a rejected book. In the 4th century, St.John Chrysostom and other bishops argued against it. Christians in Syria also reject it. The Synod of Laodicea: c. 363, rejected The Revelation. In the late 380s, Gregory of Nazianus produced a canon omitting The Revelation. Bishop Amphilocus of Iconium, in his poem Iambics for Seleucus written some time after 394, rejects The Revelation. When St.Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, producing the Vulgate bible c. 400, he argued for the Veritas Hebraica, meaning the truth of the Jewish Bible over the Septuagint translation. At the insistence of the Pope, however, he added existing translations for what he considered doubtful books: among them The Revelation. The Church in the East never included the Revelation.
4-) The early church did not seem to know anything about a historical Jesus. Huge amounts of disagreement over Jesus in the first hundred years :

1. Some churches didn’t even believe he had a physical body, prompting Paul to write about that very issue.
   
2. There was an enormous debate between all the major early churches as to whether Jesus was divine or not, this was settled at the council of Nicea by the Roman Emperor Constantine.
   

5-) Which Bible?
A. Over 450 English versions of the bible All are translated using different methods and from entirely different manuscripts
B. Thousands of manuscripts disagreeing with each other wildly in what verses and even books they contain.
C. Different translations teach entirely different things in places, some often leaving out entire chapters and verses or containing footnotes warning of possible error due to uncertainty about the reliability of the numerous manuscripts.
Take a look at this example, 1- Revised standard version 2- Revised standard version Catholic edition 3- NEW revised standard version Updated edition 4- NEW revised standard version Catholic edition 5- NEW revised standard version, Anglicised 6- NEW revised standard version, Anglicised Catholic edition
How many attempts would it take to finally get it right ?!
6-) The Morality of the bible
I don't like using Morality as an argument because i believe it's a subjective thing, But I cannot help but notice how the morals of the OT and the NT are completely contradictory
In the OT god was Angry, Vengeful, Demands war, order genocides, Ordered the killing of children and even the ripping open of pregnant women.
But in the NT he somehow became loving, a father figure, saying if anyone hits you you shouldn't even respond back.

• In Conclusion: I don't think Christianity can be accepted as the truth by any logical person (Even most convert stories i heard were basically "I saw jesus in a dream" or "The holy spirit held my hand")

There is so many Theological confusion, A salvation idea that makes 0 sense, Lack of any form of historical critirea of knowing what is true manuscripts and what is hearsays (The authors of the gospels are all Anynomous),
There is even disagreement within Christianity itself about what stories go into the bible (Many stories have been found out to be false like John 8:1-11 and Mark 16:18)
https://textandcanon.org/does-the-woman-caught-in-adultery-belong-in-the-bible/
The lack of consistency on literally everything makes it one of the least convincing religion in my opinion.

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

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By the second-generation Christian writings known as the Apostolic Fathers, exceptions, and additions to baptism were already being taught. The Didache was one such doctrine that appeared around the second century AD. Many of these deviations are still believed today and are not found in the biblical canon. For example, many still believe in pouring or sprinkling water as an acceptable form of baptism. Others have progressed even further and have deemed baptism not necessary at all and can be saved with the “Sinner's Prayer” However, we will look at “What the Bible Says …” Join us for this important bible study, as your journey to heaven depends on it.,
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Here are some ramblings, but if I were to write a RWBY AU here’s a list of things I would actively change:

• I would try and keep the setting and world building consistent because it’s kind of jarring how Vale is depicted as modern/urban while Anima and Mistral looks like they’ve never progressed past the 19th century.
• Since we have absolutely no clue how old both Ozma and Salem are. I would make them between 3,000 to 5,000 years old. Ozma would be reborn into a new body every 100 years while Salem would be a supernatural body snatcher.
• In the current events of the story, Salem would be the head/leader of an underground, international criminal empire. With Team WTCH acting as her underbosses/main enforcers. Heck, other crime families/syndicates like The Spider and Hei Xiong's family would be on Salem's payroll. Why? Why not? I think it could be an interesting take on the whole dark lord trope.
• The Relics would be foreshadowed early on in the story, like Volume 2 and I would make Silver Eyes much more prominent. Only a SEW can open the Vault to a Relic and use them. Now I am being a bit hypocritical with this one? Perhaps, because I like to accuse the plot of being a glorified fetch quest. But with having Ruby be the one to be the key to open the Vaults it would make her a more active participant in the plot. I think this would give Salem a better reason for wanting Ruby taken alive.
• Oscar is no longer a vessel for Ozma because he is a like-minded soul, but instead is a direct descendant of Ozma from a past life. Is it cliche? A little. However, it would also make his involvement in the plot a bit more personal. I would also have Oscar attend Beacon at a young age just like Ruby. Maybe I’m overly complicating things, but I would make Oscar the nephew of Ozpin (nepotism much?). I would make Oscar go with Ruby to find out who was behind the fall of Beacon and behind the murders of Ozpin, Pyrrha, and Penny.
• Huntsmen and Huntresses are now just called “Grimm Hunters,” or “Grimm Slayers.” It’s just easier to use a gender neutral term.
• Grimm would be a force to be reckoned with. Like I would want to show just how dangerous being a Hunter truly is. With the Grimm that are a higher threat level they would be based on natural disasters, or cryptids (like the canon). Have a Grimm that represents earthquakes or a Grimm that represents forest fires. When a Grimm is killed, while its body does evaporate, it leaves its skeleton behind. I think that’d be pretty cool, having Grimm osteologists (bone scientists).
• I would make Adam and a small group of Faunus supremacists excommunicated members of the White Fang. Both Ghira and Sienna found his methods too extreme. So they both would unanimously vote to kick him and his followers out of the Fang.
• The money in Remnant would be more diverse. There would be Atlesian currency, Mistralian currency, and Vacuan currency. Like Atlas’ currency would be similar to the US dollar, Mistral’s currency would be similar to the Yen or Chinese Yuan. Vale’s Lien would actually be similar to either the Euro or the Pound. Vacuo’s currency would be similar to that of a Dinar (currency used in the Middle East).
• Dust would be more prominent in the story, because after volume 2, it kind of doesn’t matter anymore. While Dust does occasionally come up in the story from time to time. It would be a major factor. For example, Fire dust would be used to heat homes and used as fuel for cars and airships (a mixture of fire and gravity dust as the fuel for the airships). Ice dust would be used as a coolant for various devices and machines. Like in the official canon, dust can be used for weapons like ammunition. It can even be used as a narcotic.
• I would resurrect Penny however, there would be a cost. She would barely remember who Ruby is and her friendship with her. I think this would make the resurrection feel a bit more tragic.
• I would make Team FNKI high ranking Atlesian Military officers, but they would be ranked just below the Ace-Operatives. In fact I would make them candidates to be their successors. Like after getting their butts kicked at the Vytal Festival, Neon and Flynt were motivated to surpass Team RWBY. So they worked their asses off and quickly rose in the ranks.

So, yeah, those would be a handful of ideas I would do.

Earlier today, someone here posted an idea they have for a new Halloween movie. This post reminds me that a few months ago I wrote a half-baked synopsis/pitch for a new Friday the 13th movie. So I decided to share this idea here just to hear what you guys think about it
so few thing:

• It's a Requel movie
  
• the only movies that are canon are the first five movies (I know the 5th one is garbage but it's for the plot)
  
• every the movies after the 5th movies are films inside my requel's timeline
  
• Paul Hault survived the second movie
  

so this is the plot idea:
22 years after the second movie, camp Crystal Lake is being rebrand and opened again by Stu Christy, the nephew of Steve Christy, who is the new owner of the camp. Stu thinks that enough time passed since Jason's killing spree and it's time to move on.
our final girl is Amy Hault, Ginny and Paul's daughter who is going to be a camp counselor for the new Crystal Lake Camp. Ginny objects but Paul calm her down by claiming that this town "needs to heal and move on"
when Amy arrive to the camp she find out that all the other counselors are relatives of the survivors from the original five movies:

• Adrian Hardy - Alice's nephew
  
• Dan Higgins - Chris's son
  
• Tracy Hildale - Trish's daughter
  
• Robbie Jarvis - Tommy and Megan's son
  
• Ralph Winter - Reggie's adopted son
  
• Cassandra Cox - Pam's daughter
  

At first everything seems to be fine. until people are begin to get murder in the same ways Jason, Pamela and Roy killed their victim. everyone think it's Jason. so prove it's not him, they dig Jason's grave. just to see it's empty.
by the end of the movie it turns out that Jason is not really alive. His body was stolen from the coffin. the killers were Stu Christy, who wanted to keep the legend of Crysal Lake alive and preventing from it to die. the second killer was Chris Higgins. well... it's not a secret that Chris was not well when the movie ended. the trauma from Jason really screwed her mind.
so, any thoughts?

In my own "head canon", she was many centuries old, having dedicated her life to bringing the end to the White Walkers and stopping the Long Night maybe as much as millennia ago.
What do you think?