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The Neo-Pentecostals mega-churches are really mega-businesses. Their pastors act like executives and employ showman skills to entertain their followers. They preach entrepreneurship, management spirit and positive thinking. They were born in the USA but are spreading fast throughout Central America.
alf a century ago, Antonio Gramsci wrote that religion must be approached not in the confessional sense but in the secular sense of a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct. But why call this unity of faith religion and not ideology, or even frankly politics? More recently, Mario Vargas Llosa stated that we are living immersed in the entertainment civilization, where everything from politics to sexuality, and also religion, is turned into entertainment. Over a century ago, evangelicals began making adjustments to ensure a permanently increasing congregation. But only recently, in 2005, did David Wells come up with the concepts for understanding the urgency of the adjustment by distinguishing between traditional churches (producers) and churches of the seeker-sensitive kind
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(consumers). Wells sustained that power had passed from the producers to the consumers. Churches that adapted their worship, dress and architecture to pander to consumer preferences had experienced rapid growth.
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distanced themselves from the church, Hybels designed a new decor to adapt the worship to look like just any other leisure entertainment activity. He changed his preaching techniques, relaxed the dress code and started using videos and contemporary music. Technology has played a star role in the giant mega-churches of the United Statesand also of Central Americaever since, altering communication with the faithful and filling the collection boxes more. According to US researchers Christine Miller and Nathan Carlin, the theatrical lighting, music and young people jumping up and down put the religious experience as close as possible to the experience of MTV addicts and lovers of Disney World. The Neo-Pentecostal churches have become quality entertainment. Lights with changing colors, thunderous noise and giant screens displaying men in suits and ties rolling around the flooras in Cash Lunas House of God in Guatemalaall stimulate the senses. They provide the opportunity to witness an outlandish epiphany of much greater dimensionsalthough similar exoticismto those described in Erskine Caldwells In the Shadow of the Steeple: But I.S. rarely had anything to say after taking me to listen to a prolonged and unintelligible babble in the Unknown Tongue, or to see people rolling in the throes of ecstasy on a church floor, or to watch a Sanctified preacher hit his head with an axe handle until he had achieved a state of semiconscious delirium.
whats happening on stage. The technology is more spectacular now that its headquarters is the old Houston Rockets stadium. We really want to feel like were in a concert, said Lakewood Churchs executive director. And the strategy is working. Participation jumped from 6,000 in 1999 to 25,000 in 2003 and 43,500 in 2011, with an additional tele-congregation of 7 million in the United States alone. The International Christian Center (CCI) in Honduras founded by Ren Pealba after the board of directors of the Living Love (Amor Viviente) Church audited him for speculating with lands belonging to that congregationis a media conglomerate including CCI Radio, CCI Channel, the daily newspaper La Razn, the Sitios CCI website and CCI Publications. Also in Honduras, La Cosecha International Ministry has the Estreo Fiel (Faithful Stereo) radio station and Channel 39. In El Salvador, the International Revival Tabernacle (InternacionalTabernculo de Avivamiento) owns a TV channel and a radio station, while its pastor, Carlos Rivas, has his own column in a local tabloid. Meanwhile, the Christian Fraternity of Guatemala is a partner in Channel 21. Resorting to TV is symptomatic of an adaptation to what Vargas Llosa described as the entertainment civilization: That of a world in which entertainment occupies the first place on the chart of current values, where having a good time, escaping boredom, is a universal passion. As a result, according to him, popularity and success are conquered not so much through intelligence and probity as through demagogy and histrionic talent. He argues that theres nothing surprising about religion approximating circus and sometimes being confused with it in this pantomime civilization.
In the last two decades television has emerged as an innovative arena for religious entrepreneurialism, and with the slow erosion of Catholicism as the dominant religion, TV is helping redefine religions role and importance in the public arena
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The pastors speak financial jargon and profane decorations invade the religious ground, sweeping away stained glass and altarpieces and installing macro-screens and ATMs
zation. Against many mechanistic forecasts, the hurricane of secularization in Central Americaand other places didnt lead to a decline in religious practices, but rather a switching of roles and cosmetics. On the one hand, the managers acquired papal infallibility and financial values became the Holy Grail before which society sacrificed itself. And on the other, the pastors speak financial jargon and profane decorations invade the religious ground, sweeping away stained glass and altarpieces and installing macroscreens and ATMs. Its is the same dynamic seen from two different angles.
namein Nicaraguas Hosanna, Honduras Abundant Life, El Salvadors COMPAZ Ministry and Guatemalas El Shaddai have to be able to satisfy ex-Sandinista army officers and former Ultreya regulars, in addition to former fighters in Guatemalas Guerilla Army of the Poor and admirers of Marcel Lefebvre. In other words, they have to cater to people from the most diverse backgrounds. Symbolic and discursive shallowness is one of the keys to Neo-Pentecostal success. The more devoid of socio-political content the sermons, more common and average the proposed goals and more hieratic the churches look, the more members they will catch in their nets. If Nietzsche, Marx, Weber and Freud were prophets who revealed the worlds disenchantment, the entrepreneurial Neo-Pentecostal pastors have been the champions and executors of the de-sacralizing of religious spaces. From the point of view of the protagonists, that desacralization could reflect the aspiration to live a faith expressed with little or no resorting to religious institutionalization, an idea that can be seen in the declarations of Reverend Moiss Fuentes from Brooklyn, New Yorks Candelero de oro Pentecostal Church in 2007: Im not religious. I dont like religion; religion obstructs, hinders. And the more legalist, traditional and inflexible a religion is, the more deadly, the more destructive it is. Im not talking to you about the testimony of a religion, Im talking to you about the testimony of Gods pure Gospel. I am talking to you about a relationship with God. Im not just talking to you about a system of liturgies and of religious customs and of traditions. Im talking to you about a way of life, about a culture. The Gospel is a culture, the culture of the Kingdom of God. However, in the practice of the Neo-Pentecostal churches, that liberation from religious paraphernalia didnt imply any liberation from earthly bonds or the creation of a culture specifically corresponding to the Gospel. It didnt presume the absence of religious apparatus extolled by Fuentes. It wasnt a kind of pre-Roman Christianity or atheist seculari46 envo
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at recognizing Latinos as a growing population important to the current and future growth of their churches. In 2010, Hybels invited President Obama to talk about immigration reform. Lakewood Church went even further. Since 2002, Marcos Wittlegally Jonathan Mark Witt Holder, born in San Antonio, Texashas been the pastor of the 6,000 Latinos who attend that churchs services. As their preacher, Witt prescribes positive thinking for them to respond to the disdain and persecution to which undocumented immigrants are subjected, the low salaries they beg for and the low-class neighborhoods to which they are confined: Have you ever been looked down on? Have you ever been disdained? Have they said pee-yoo to you? Have they cast you aside? Ah! Look, dont be upset because theyve disdained you some time, because the Bible says that if youve been looked down on, theyve done you a great favor: theyve put you on the list of people who are now candidates to be used by God. Every time someone looks down on you, thank them. Why? Because now you can be used by God. Say to them: God is going to use me powerfully. Im a warrior, brave. So please, look down on me some more. God is going to use your family. Youre going to have money. Youre going to have a position. Prosperity through the correct positive attitude is the recurring prescription in all of Mark Witts sermons. Does it work? The pastors are living proof that it does. When I was a young boy I was known as pee-pee boy, says Witt, who was subjected to cries of pee-yoo! many times. And now hes a musician; composer; singer; author of ten books; speaker; pastor with a congregation of 6,000; four-time Latin Grammy winner for the Best Christian Album; founder of the CanZion Institute, which has 28 campuses in 10 countries; and owner of CanZion Productions, which has recorded 30 CDs and sold over 10 million copies in the United States and Latin America. Millions have listened to his talks. Marcos Witt is the message: the pee-pee boy turned religious music magnate. The fact is that theres a marked difference between yesterdays preachers and the new generation of mellifluous tongues. In the irresistible oratory of Zwingli, Luther, Bossuet or the Cur of Ars, the preaching centered on Jesus Christ. The new preachers have put themselves at the center of their discourse. In Joel Osteen as Cultural Selfobject, Christine Miller and Nathan Carlin analyze how Osteen has turned himself into a cultural object who can heal his followers self-esteem.
part of his or her own identity. In the extreme absence of cultural goods in his or her immediate environment, the individual looks for them and assimilates them as part of his or her own being. For example, to compensate for the lack of cultural objects in their immediate environment, AfroAmericans from marginal neighborhoods create identitybestowing objects such as basketball players, boxers and great athletes through a remedial action. An idealized father figure, a sportsperson, a pastor, serve to generate cohesion in a group and build identity. According to Miller and Carlin, thats what the NeoPentecostal faithful are looking for: People dont go to Lakewood to learn about the Bible intellectually or academically. They go, rather, to be restoredemotionally and spiritually. They go to be transformed. They go to find their best self. Thats why the theological content of Osteens messages isnt as important as his personal and affirming presence in them. Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria are beautiful, welleducated suburbanites who live in a lovely house. They are the perfect example of Osteens message to the United States: following Jesus Christ is profitable. Osteen and Witt present themselves as prime examples of idealizing transferences, so the faithful will fuse with them. Harold Caballeros of El Shaddai and Cash Luna of the House of God in Guatemala; Ren Pealba of the International Christian Center (CCI), Misael Argealof the Harvest, Mario Barahona of My Vineyard and Evelio Reyes of Abundant Life in Honduras; Carlos Rivas of the International Revival Tabernacle in El Salvador; and Arsenio Herrera of Hosanna in Nicaragua all emulate him. They talk about themselves and lock away the Christ of the Gospels in the chest of obsolete junk. Cash Luna is an outstanding disciple of Osteen, with a kind of intuitive knowledge of Stanislavsky. He knows what he has to put into the building of his character, of himself as character. But in terms of being a cultural object in himself, hes bettered by the Salvadoran Vladimir Rivas, who certainly didnt beat about the bush in generating a cult to himself, naming his ministry the Vladimir Rivas Mini-
Prosperity through the correct positive attitude is the recurring prescription in all of Mark Witts sermons. Does it work? The pastors are living proof that it does
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If the syncretism of the primitive Christian church was achieved by incorporating the new dogmas and beliefs into pagan rites and Roman institutions, the current syncretism assimilates marketing and the new artifacts of communication that have generated so many benefits in the worldly world of non-religious show business
The leaders of Hosanna in Nicaragua; El Shaddai, the House of God and Christian Fraternity in Guatemala; the International Revival Tabernacle and the COMPAZ Ministry in El Salvador; the International Harvest Ministry, the Apostolic and Prophetic My Vineyard Ministry, the International Christian Center, the House of the Potter, the Meeting of the Lord, the New Canticle Church, the International Shalom Ministry and Abundant Life in Honduras, all clone Osteen and Witts sermons. Their churches promotional brochures are sprinkled with a host of Caucasian youths, examples of success par excellence because, as Carlos Monsivis says of the CEO mentality, the First World is the realest reality.
stries. As a banner on his web page declares, Vladimir Rivas has got it all. The topics these pastors address are themselves and the incidents involved in their success. They cultivate a militant narcissism. These gurus ascend to the kingdom of screens, where they are incorporated into the being of their admirers. Their followers take on their elegance, their fights and their itinerary for reaching stardom. They acquire momentary confidence in being able to lose weight, overcome an addiction, get a promotion, or successfully apply for a job.... But given that there are always unsatisfied expectations, the flipside to this dynamic is that they will become eternally dependent on their identity-bestowing objects. In other words, the remedial action can last for the rest of their lives. This search for identity-bestowing objects forms the basis of the links between Lakewood Church and the Central American Neo-Pentecostal churches. Harold Caballeros did his training in Lakewood Church in 1981, when he was still working as a lawyer. His mentor was Joels father, John Osteen, the founder of Lakewood Church. Caballeros and his wife Cecilia were ordained there in November 1982. Marcos Witt is a frequent visitor to El Shaddai and Hosanna, where his talks are highly publicized. These churches web pages declare the same mission and vision, formulated with the same vagueness, as Lakewood Churchs web page: to form disciples of Christ and send them out to preach. Evelio Reyes, Cash Luna and Marcos Witt were celebrated as the greatest American evangelists at the Ibero-American Leadership Congress Passing the Torch.
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churches. If the syncretism of the primitive Christian church was achieved by incorporating the new dogmas and beliefs into pagan rites and Roman institutions, the current syncretism assimilates marketing and the new artifacts of communication that have generated so many benefits in the worldly world of non-religious show business.
given an advance of $13 million for one of his latest successes, Become a Better You, whose 3-million print run was one of the biggest ever for a first edition hardback.
PastorPreneur: Outreach Beyond Business as Usual isa manual to get pastors thinking like businesspeople, encouraging them to establish partnerships with non-religious groups and use marketing techniques to attract new members
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This reworking of Calvinismyour prosperity proclaims the authenticity of your faithomits the sacred role that political skills and connections play in Evangelical prosperity and the accumulation of talent. In 2004, Lakewood Church reached an agreement to lease the old NBA sanctuary for a 60-year period, paying $13 million in cash for the first 30 years rent. Before disbursing a penny more, fortune smiled on him: on March 31, 2010, the Houston City Council voted 13 to 2 for the city to definitively cede the land to the church for just US$7.5 million. Later, Osteen invested $95 million in outfitting the premises, a task that included purchasing and installing a 32 x 18-foot screen and two twin waterfalls that rise and fall in front of a revolving golden globe and a pulpit from which Osteensavaged by critics for his superficial theology, as he lacks any theological education invites his followers to remain positive, filled with the same zeal as those who in days gone by preached purity, cleanliness of heart or the three cardinal virtues.
entertain more and more loyal followers. Their purpose expanding the faithgoes hand in hand with a happy collateral effect: expanding the profits. The mega-churches average income in 2003 was estimated at $4.8 million, a tidy sum for those who also have the privilege of being taxexempt. They are the children of Elmer Gantry, the character from Sinclair Lewiss novel of the same name (1927): a cynical alcoholic who is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister, eventually becomes a Methodist minister and makes a fortune as an itinerant preacher.
To be financially prosperous
This entrepreneurial and managerial spirit is coming to Central America. Its symptoms can be detected in each product of Central American Neo-Pentecostalism. The Hosanna temple in Nicaragua produces a weekly bulletin. I have the one dated January 8, 2012. Its a sheet of paper folded to give four sides, with the national colors of blue and white predominant. A positive slogan stands out: With God, the impossible doesnt exist! The offer of $30 baptism classes in the School of new believers is the only ad I could identify as properly confessional. The rest of the space is dedicated to the cult of managerialism and other pecuniary topics: a diploma course in human talent management with a managerial curriculum, a conference for young adults on how to have a healthy financial life and a business seminar advertised with an image of young executives in suits and ties positioning gigantic jigsaw pieces. The Christian Fraternity of Guatemala, popularly known as the Mega-frater, is the biggest Neo-Pentecostal temple in both Guatemala and Central America. It couldnt be any other way as Neo-Pentecostal temples are a gauge of the size and prosperity of the middle classes in each country, in relation to which Guatemala ranks top and Nicaragua bottom. The Mega-frater cost $29 million. One minor detail: its complex of 113,000 square meters can accommodate 12,000 devotees per shift, who will pay those millions and many more besides through their tithes: big is profitable. According to Jorge H. Lpez, its founder and main pastor, We wanted it to be something majestic as a testimony to society that Evangelicals can put up dignified and big buildings in Guatemala, as a reflection of all their potential. Jorge H. Lpez is autor of Cmo salir de la crisis financiera [How to get out of the financial crisis]. He presents it has an approach based on the Word of God to reduce the economic impotence to which people see themselves subjected as a result of credit purchases, laziness, superfluous spending, greed and the desire to have more, which lead them to financial chaos as the result of debt. It is also a
The mega-churches average income in 2003 was estimated at $4.8 million, a tidy sum for those who also have the privilege of being tax-exempt
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practical guide to identifying the enemies that impede fulfillment of the Lords promises to be prosperous, and teaches a life built on the firm basis of purchasing in cash and on how to confront worry and embarrassment when they cause dejection. Calvin must be smiling in his grave! Another book penned by Lpez is Frmulas bblicas para prosperar (Biblical formulas for prospering): It is an invitation to travel the biblical paths sustained by the will of God and a clear answer to those questions that arise when one is living in adverse financial circumstances, when we are in crisis, when we are in debt. Step by step, sermon by sermon, you will receive the necessary understanding to be freed from your finances and know how to free yourself from any chain of economic oppression. There is no great distance between this offer and the kind made by life-coach speakers or CEOs rallying their teams. As Barbara Ehrenreich said, A positive message not only sold better to the public than the old-time religion but also had a growing personal relevance to pastors, who increasingly came to see themselves not as critics of the secular, materialistic world but as players within itbusinessmen or, more precisely, CEOs.
Now they talk of added value rather than heaven and hell
The books on offer at Ren Pealbas International Christian Center follow the same trend. One that particularly stands out is Principios bblicos para una administracin eficaz [Biblical principles for effective administration], which includes a training plan and even a printed diploma and develops the following topics, among others: We are all administrators, Administration from a biblical perspective, A God that delegates the administration of his resources, God as responsible for our prosperity and eager for us to have an abundance of resources Also up there is Vladimir Rivas and his cry for Financial Freedom and the International Revival Tabernacle with the seminar offered by the famous international life coach Alex Marvel in 2011 during the celebrations of the churchs tenth anniversary. Guatemalas El Shaddai offers Spanish versions of the following books: Strategic Plan for Transformation by Alistair P Petrie; Authority in Heaven, . Authority on Earth by Tom Marshall; The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life by Tommy Newberry; and Cents & Sensibility: How Couples Can Agree about Money by Bethany and Scott Palmer, among many other examples showing that the cross and the billfold are the new neocolonial binomial. Everything is practical in the San Pablo University, explained the receptionist at the university, which has
Caballeros as its rector and is located in the El Shaddai complex. Theres a notable pragmatism to its curriculum, which hits the bulls-eye in the business world: Marketing and Sales Management: Highly innovative major that is a requisite for organizations competitiveness. Business Management and Entrepreneurship: A major that develops professionals with an entrepreneurial spirit, capable of managing a national or international organization. Investment: 32,500 quetzals (approximately US$4,148). Its the preferential option for entrepreneurs. In other times, not as far off chronologically as psychologically, that little university would have concentrated on Bible courses. The most worldly teachers would have gone there to offer training on rhetorical skills. But the Bible is no longer everything. We cant talk about fundamentalism or Lutheranism anymore. Faith alone isnt enough. What were seeing is a sacralizing of capitalism at levels Weber never dreamed of. To paraphrase Gramsci, why call them universities and religious temples rather than business schools? The managerial discourse has permeated to the very bones of neo-Pentecostalism, both in the United States and in Central America. Bill Hybels was an admirer of Peter Drucker and hung a poster quoting the business expert outside the entrance to his office: What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value? Like Hybels and Osteen, the leaders of Central American Neo-Pentecostalism talk about incentives and added value. Pecuniary topics and the world of finance are as present in their sermons as the fires of hell and the Archangel Gabriel were in sermons a century ago. More realistic winds are blowing.
Like Hybels and Osteen, the leaders of Central American Neo-Pentecostalism talk about incentives and added value. Pecuniary topics and the world of finance are as present in their sermons as the fires of hell and the Archangel Gabriel were in sermons a century ago
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The managerial abilities that lead one along the narrow pathways of prosperity are frequently associated withor reinforced bypositive thinking. In fact, what is often attributed to positive thinking was actually the result of the pastors penetrating business sense
corporations in both design and ornamentation. The very lifestyle and strategies of the Neo-Pentecostal pastors also seek to exactly replicate the entrepreneurial CEOs who have made a fortune through their managerial abilities. From his pulpit in the House of God, Cash Luna, flaunting the whole lifestyle and income of a CEO, talks about the devil, but not in the old style. The devil that Cash rails in numerous sermons against is the internal demon that whispers Its wrong to prosper. Against that demon he declares the conviction that God wants to bless you, He wants your soul, your body, your economy to prosper. It is his desire. So let your Father bless you! It is Gods will for your soul, your body, your economy to prosper. One of the things you must learn is that being prosperous is not so much your desire, but rather you Fathers desire. With his Christian Fraternity, Jorge H. Lpezs project was to found a church that would turn the mentality that a Christian has to be poor, ignorant and with no influence in society into a thing of the past. In this new view, opposing prosperity and social climbing amounts to opposing the divine will. It is a curse. Low salaries, unemployment and labor mistreatment are just excuses devised by the devil. A positive attitude and managerial skills are enough to unmask any cunning arguments and destroy evil. I hear Satans voice whispering to me: But, what about Jesus? They say he was poor? Was he accursed? What an outlandish idea! The exegete Cash illuminates us with a subtle distinction worthy of Thomas Aquinas: He didnt live in accursedness, he became a curse for us; he took the sin, the sickness, lived under the curse, became accursed, but didnt live under a curse. In terms of prospering, was he poor? No! He became poor. They are two very different things.
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In this neo-Calvinism, prosperity isnt an option; its an obligation. The prosperity that God gives us, Cash insists, is the product of an ordered life. A disordered life will not prosper. If you give tithes and offerings, God gives to you. But if you squander it, the devil takes it from you. This is the most explicit condemnation of poverty, branding it as the opprobrious outcome of a disordered life. And it is also the easiest shortcut for Cash to say Your prosperity is mine, through tithes. The insistence on tithes is common to the NeoPentecostal churches. In the International Christian Center, when I asked for leaflets on their activities and purposes, all I could get were little tithe request envelopes bearing phrases from one of Pauls letters to the Corinthians justifying their insistence: They gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability; Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
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Roosevelt Calzada road in 1985. By 1991, the church had inaugurated a four-story building, bought another plot of land measuring over 17 acres in San Cristbal and finished building an auditorium for over 12,000 people, with parking for 2,531 vehicles.
Only the Neo-Pentecostal faith seems able to bring together what politics, wars and racism gave birth to in separation and raised in confrontation
provides us the key to the sex appeal of Caballeros, that homogenizing alchemist of irreconcilable ingredients: Harold sees things where nobody else sees them. He isnt self-conscious: he teaches to think big.
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The Neo-Pentecostal creed and its irresponsible magic optimism provide lethal hallucinogens that make people believe in the possibility of everimminent success in the world of shaky economic structures in Central America, with its scandalously unequal social and economic structures
it feels chosen. Individuals dont have to realize themselves separately from the effort and work that lead to the greater glory of God, to which end they grant God the needed energy and will. For Bloch, the chosen come to feel more securely free in earthly work because once they have been the object of grace they cant lose that state. Divine justification, the only presumable indication of positive predestination, is thus only revealed in self-discipline, energy and coherence of working, as Gods activity operating unceasingly within the believer. This is particularly true for business success, a visible reward for that work, not for depth and fervor of feeling or for the quietist signs of Lutheran mysticism, removed from and superior to the world. Bloch argues that self-discipline is the subjective guarantee of the certainty that one has been saved, while success is the objective guarantee. If Luther left the world in its abjection, putting it at the mercy of the princes, moving the soul and his God inward, Calvin preached a bourgeois faith in which Renaissance secularity is sacralized in the church of Mammon, the money god. Luther fell into idolatry of the State; Calvin into idolatry of money.
To be continued
Jos Luis Rocha is a member of the envo editorial council and consultant researcher for NITLAPAN-UCA.
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