Dr. Robert Thiel
In my view and experience, the concept and teaching in WCG and now most splinters, of fleeing or going to the Place of Safety to experience God's protection during the final times before the Second Coming was and still is one of the most dangerous misapplication of scripture they ever came up with. It was the theme of Gerald Waterhouse's long winded and fanciful sermons, along with loyalty to HWA and belief in his all wise leadership, as he toured the churches spreading the Gospel of Fear and "How the hell is THAT going work?"
Waterhouse added the extra fact, one of many, that it was not just a place of safety but a place of final training to be, as I assumed, God as God is God and ruling over the nations. I detested Gerald's visits, from my youthful self until the end and told him in the end that he caused more fear, worry and questions in the congregation than he answered and that I was no longer going to answer for him after he left. I have related that at the same time I asked him what he was going to do when HWA died. I never thought he wouldn't. He said that he'd believe it after three days and three nights. That was one of the last straws for me and he never had many straws to deal with from me to begin with over the years.
The Place of Safety is, by far, the most dangerous and ill conceived teaching of WCG and HWA or those around him. Let me be clear. I never believed it and like BI, divine healing only and divorce and remarriage, never gave a sermon on it. I handled questions on it personally and privately and reminded folk that much of this was speculation and simple opinions that we could wait and see about. BI never made a big impression on me as the NT did not care who your ancestors were from all I could tell nor made a point of it. But the prophecy based WCG/HWA was hooked on it for any number of reasons.
I took it as wild speculation based on scripture hoping along with cut and paste theology and wasn't about to tell any church I might have pastored at the time that "it's time to go." I may have lacked faith, but I did not lack common sense. That was just never going to happen.
It is an insane teaching based on taking practically all scriptures related to the topic wildly out of context, both in historical and even some kind of future context. Ass kissing Evangelicals are trying every way they can to put their idea of how such end time fantasies can be brought about by POTUS, who we all know said with a straight face , "No one loves the Bible more than me" and Evangelicals fanaticize as being chosen by God. (I like the concept that this might be so only if God has run out of Locusts:)
Nevertheless, Bob Thiel teaches it as in days of old.
"Are some of God’s people actually going to flee right before the tribulation?
According to Jesus, the answer is yes."
"Let this be perfectly clear, there are two groups of God’s people mentioned in Revelation 12–one which goes to a place of safety and one which does not."
"The idea that those going to the place will undergo final training is one that we in the Continuing Church of God also embrace. We do not believe that the faithful are simply going to save their physical lives, but also be trained so that they can be more effective servants of God. To learn to better spread the love of God to more of humanity.
Most end time Christians, however, are not Philadelphian, but Laodicean and are not promised the type of protection that Jesus promised the Philadelphia Christians."
I believe most here know the routine and most of the reasonings and meanderings through scripture to "prove" that a Place of Safety, most likely in Petra, Jordan or vicinity is a supposed very real promise for the true church (there is no one true church) today. .(Or ever).
It falls on deaf ears to say that the Book of Revelation is a failed first century prophecy meant to encourage Jewish Christians trapped in the final days of the Temple in Jerusalem under Roman assault. In this case, as in the days of the Maccabean uprising, the Romans won again. Any fleeing to be done has been done or was unable to be done but it is all done. Take the Book of Revelation as a guide to our times at your own risk. I'd be a bit careful following a Bob Thiel out into the Jordanian countryside to get away from chaos in the Middle East or anyplace else on the planet. Certainly a Dave Pack, as failed a seer as he has proven to be cannot be trusted to get this right as if was the right thing to teach or do in the first place, which it is not.
The Book of Revelation is not for today and of course, that will start a brawl right there. It does not predict helicopter gun ships with the faces of men and is full of hyperbole which was a perfectly fine way to write apocalyptic literature. "So only today could we get a 200 million man army" is a bogus and inappropriate response just as much as trying to figure out how the stars of heaven could fall to earth knowing, as we do today, the nature of stars. It is, however, exaggeration at its best. It was most likely written sometime between January and September of 70 AD, just prior to the Fall of Jerusalem and never even made it to the three and a half year mark where Messiah would come. The Romans put an end to that pipedream in 8 months. Whole other topic.
As noted in The Religion of the Orient, which I have quoted in the past:
"Revelation was the swan song of Militant Jewish Christianity. When Jerusalem was destroyed, when Rome waxed grater and more powerful, when the False Prophet gained more and more followers, when the book itself was proved totally false within two years, when it became evident that the Jewish Messiah-Christ would not come, the Hebrew Christians lost their virility and their cult faded under the combined assault of orthodox Judaism and of Gentile Christianity."
pg 479-
So to the point. The teaching of a Place of Safety and/or Final Training is the most dangerous and anxiety fraught mistaken belief of the WCG and now most splinters of note. It is foolish and a formula for a disaster in religious shenanigans. While the writers of the day may have themselves felt this to be true if one just waited to see, they were as mistaken then as they would be now again.
Christians and humans have always looked for safety and hope in troubled times. Revelation was written for just such a purpose. Relying on the proof texting waltz through scriptures by those so inclined or the cobbling together of scripture on the answer to this troublesome question of physical survival until the Second Coming is looking for deliverance in all the wrong places.
It never seems to occur to these folk that "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed" found in Job might be safer for all concerned. But then facing death graciously as all have in the past and must still is not a strong view of the Church either. Getting out of it seems more the way to go and the teaching of The Place of Safety goes a long way in the specialness that does not really belong to the Churches of God to begin with. They will be as mistaken about "we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed" (I Cor 15:51) as Paul was when he had to come to grips with his own mistaken views on the soon and shortness of his times.
31 comments:
I know definitely where the "place of safety" will be.
ANYWHERE that Thiel is not at, which IMHO is a very dangerous place indeed! (Goes for Malm, Pack, Flurry, Weinland , et al. )
All place-of-safety proponents assume that the woman of Revelation 12 is the church. Wrong. The woman is clearly identified in verse 13: "the woman who gave birth to the male child". Sorry, but the church did not give birth to Jesus. The Jews did (or, Israel, if you prefer). The Christians are identified in verse 17 as that woman's "offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
Thiel is right in that there are two groups of people in Revelation 12 -- one that goes the place of safety (the Jews) and one that doesn't (the Christians). These same Christians are mentioned again in Revelation 14:12 (note the same characteristics), where they are being persecuted by the beast.
Hmmmmm - Revelation and HWA talks about fire to consume the earth. More HWA fear motivation tactics.
Revelation is a part of Jewish history that is totally fulfilled. Here's something to think about on the revelation everlasting fire!
May the fire of love grow in our hearts.
May the fire of transformation glow in our movements.
May the fire of purification burn away our sins.
May the fire of justice guide our steps.
May the fire of wisdom illuminate our paths.
May the fire that spreads over the Earth never be extinguished.
If only Hurb would have understood!
ACOG members should be grateful that Loma chose to admire a National Geographic article about Petra, rather than one about Antarctica.
Bob Thiel is not smart enough to realize that thanks to Loma, two of the biggest frauds fostered off on us was the formation of the church itself and the Petra lie.
thanks to Loma
Yes, as reported before, GTA (in his CGI days) gave a sermon refuting the "Place of Safety" and "Church Eras". I remember from some now-defunct website the cover of the National Geographic issue Loma was reading which led to the Petra doctrine.
Will get pretty crowded around Jerusalem with a two hundred million man army plus the beast power army.
I wonder how they will all fit?
pretty crowded around Jerusalem
Back when I listened to Dave Pack sermons (for their soporific qualities if you could ignore the shouting) he gave a very detailed description of the coming trip to Petra. Everyone* in the RCG will get on planes to go to Jerusalem. Once in Jerusalem, everyone would make their way to Petra. The purpose of going to Jerusalem (which was not stated) was apparently because Matt 24 says to "flee Jerusalem", so you have to be there to flee it.
Or perhaps Dave didn't know that the RCG-booked planes would almost certainly land at Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv and they would have to find other transport to Jerusalem. The recommended route to Petra from Jerusalem is by bus via Eliat. Or maybe everyone is expected to walk...
I'm sure that sermon series has been replaced with Dave's more updated visions of the future.
* conditions apply
I say let the assholes go to the middle east. They will be greeted when they land and escorted back on the plane if the muslims don't off them first.
People like Thiel and Pack, and even the 6-pack prophet are going to get people killed with the stupid shit they are planning.
I hate to break one of the HWAcaca bubbles (OK, I lied. I really don't!), but back in the 1940s, an evangelical minister named William E. Blackstone was so sure that Petra was going to be God's place of safety for the Jews during Armageddon, that he spent $8,000 having Bibles printed in Hebrew, and he left them in the caves of Petra for the Jews to read so that they would understand what was going on, and finally accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Savior. Did Loma and Herbert know of this? We do know that HWA borrowed and plagiarized the vast majority of the truths he claimed were revealed to him by God, so it would not be unusual for this to be yet another example of the borrowing.
Secondly, if you examine the trials and tests of people throughout the Bible, generally the strongest ones received the most extreme tests, not the weak ones. Not that there actually are church eras, but if there were, to be consistent with God's character, the harshest trials and tests would most likely be visited upon the strongest, allegedly the Philadelphians. What kind of person fearfully joins a church that fraudulently preaches that they are the gatekeepers for the place of safety from the tribulation and Armageddon in the first place? Armstrongism was never anything more than "save your ass" Christianity. Weak people who could be cowed in that manner could be manipulated six ways to Sunday (oops, correction, in this case, Saturday!) any which way HWA desired. His hook not only got peoples' attention, it provided the ultimate tools in profiling and selectivity! My Gosh, it was better than Jacob's breeding poles!
That people no longer fall for the old Petra gag is evidenced by the drought and miniscule harvest being reaped by the ACOGs today. This flew during the '50s when soldiers were taught that if they dropped to the ground and hid behind rocks they'd be protected from the
worst aspects of a nuclear blast, but as more was learned about fallout and nuclear winter, everyone realized that if Russia and the USA nuked each others' major cities, there was no safety anywhere on planet Earth. This Petra vestige provides yet another example of wilfull ignorance and the continuing cultic mentality.
BB
I asked aloud a few years ago if one particular COG quietly had purchased land somewhere for a "place of safety".
I was surprised to learn the answer was no - that the Church followed Biblical guidance, trusting in faith that God would show the Church where to go at the right time.
Isn't that the exact opposite of the reasoning COGs give for conducting the rest of Church business? Everything from "strategic plans" to negotiating Feast sites and evaluating "headquarters" locations?
They might have Scripture for that approach. But it makes the Church look very contradictory.
BB
Interesting piece of history.
Blackstone deposited the "Hebrew" translations 4 years before hwa was born and died a couple of years before "1940". No doubt the "portland library religious section" would have old "national geographic" mentioning those exploits.
Very interesting to see this zealous American minister believing Jews should return to Palestine, while the Jews themselves were still negotiating a "promised land" in Uganda with her Majesties imperial "world" government on" whose ancient green pastures Jesus himself had walked according to common accepted belief.
A visit to Petra or Tuscon at the time could get one shot by the Beduine or Saloonfolk at that time and only a couple of Jews lived in Jerusalem while the rest of civilisation concentrated on more important matters in Vienna or Paris while sounds from the minor backwater nation of USA were largely ignored............. then WWI and II happened and a "new order" emerged.
Nck
I obtained my information on Pastor Blackstone from the Nabatea website, nck. If he placed the Bibles into the caves of Petra at an earlier date, as you indicated, so much the better for the purpose of having a go at Armstrongism. We also need to remember that the revival of Hebrew from dead language status did not occur until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Now, of course, it is the sole official language of Israel.
BB
R.L. said...
I asked aloud a few years ago if one particular COG quietly had purchased land somewhere for a "place of safety".
I was surprised to learn the answer was no - that the Church followed Biblical guidance, trusting in faith that God would show the Church where to go at the right time."
My sense for this would be that there is a difference between that which you know you are going to do to as a part of your real life vs that which you think you see might be the case, but has repercussions in treating it as if you know it is part of your real life.
Personally I don't think most members actually believed in the reality of the Place of Safety and fearfully tolerated those who spoke of it as if they knew. One could tease it out of scripture but of course, context and historical perspectives and issues of the past were not part of the mix. I also believe most hoped it wasn't true and actually feared it ala Jonestown connections and being terribly wrong at the least.
The concept raised more real questions than they answered. It was not an encouraging teaching in the least. But, it could be maintained by appealing to the example of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea and the supposed miracles in the Wilderness leading to entry into the promised. The part where no one in the actual 2-3 million plus people who were said to have left Egypt plus their cattle ever made it to the promised land and died in the waste howling wilderness pretty much betrayed and blamed by the Deity for being hungry, thirsty and not a bit frightened for themselves and children lurks in the background or is not part of the scenario during the sermon. It can be used effectively, however, to show what having no faith in the whole mess can cause you.
You can't win. The Bible is not a coherent text. Much of what is in it either did not actually happen or was wildly exaggerated for effect and is not the Greatest Book in the World. But it can be used, as many other religious texts, to manipulate or at least teach what is not so in real life and about things to come which won't actually come at all.
Personally I prefer the Tao Te Ching or the newest "Smithsonian, Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life-The Definitive Guide to Prehistoric Animals", along with "The Power of Now".
The newest perspective on the Younger Dryas cooling event due to a comet strike or meteor burst over Saginaw Bay, on the Laurentide Ice Sheet 12,900 years ago taking out all the mega fauna and Clovis people and creating the Carolina Bays by ice splatter is pretty cool too. :)
All that to say, preparing for a festival site you know you are going to use and choosing a in some kind of weird faith that you got the Bible right, place to save your ass are two different things. One most can't wait to come to pass and the other they hope never puts you in the position to have to actually do or go to because "what if they are dead wrong about this?" (Spoiler: ..which they are)
And too, I don't personally think most members actually believe it to begin with and tolerate it just in case but hope it is not so.
You have to be drunk to believe everything Dennis writes. His war on the book of revelation is a prime example. Did a third of the animals in the sea die at around 70 AD as stated in Rev 8.9? Dennis is a crab in a bucket Christian. He is a failed Christian who tries to pull down other Christians, just like crabs in a bucket.
Lock up your wives and daughters (metaphorically) when Dennis is in town.
PS most of the 200 million army would have been destroyed by the time they approach Jerusalem. Most of their corpses litter Europe.
one particular COG quietly had purchased land
In a sermon GTA gave at ICG about 20 years ago he mentioned some people at one of his "personal appearance campaigns" who had been scammed by a COGlet. The splinter tried to convince them that the "place of safety" was at a place in the USA, and the scam was apparently getting the money to buy the land.
As a former minister, Dennis may have a different perspective of what the brethren did or did not believe, and part of the equation could also relate to whatever happened in the church post-1975 after the lying and backpedaling. However, from 1956-1975, I never met a member who did not believe in Petra as the place of safety. In fact, prior to sometime in 1972, many of the brethren in casual fellowship would remark that they had just purchased a car which would last them until "the end", that their drivers license didn't expire until after the end, so they didn't have to worry about that aspect of the government coming down on us, and many similar remarks. "When we get to Petra" was a constant topic, and HWA was seen as a type of Moses or Joshua in that he would be leading us into safety.
It still amazes me that the majority percentage of church members allowed the leaders to reprogram them (they still do). The failure of 1975 was a very major event. I don't believe that everyone who is part of the ACOGs today grasps the full significance of that event. There were many of us who woke up and came to our senses at that time, and reaped the many benefits and rewards.
BB
I agree with Byker Bob. I knew WCG members who had pre-packed suitcases in their homes ready for fleeing to Petra.
To state that fleeing to Petra was not believed by the wider WCG membership is wrong.
My mother kept a detailed calendar in our kitchen cupboard where she marked off the days will we were supposed to flee. She got that calendar from our idiot minister who went to Pasadena and received the timeline there. He came back and at a joint service in Columbus pulled out a large blackboard and drew the diagram of the months remaining till we were to flee. It was a holiday service and we had two services. He told everyone before we were dismissed that they must be back on time because the doors to the auditorium would be locked because there was something serious from Pasadena that needed to be discussed.
Anyone who says Petra was never an official doctrine or teaching of the church are liars.
BB I had never heard of WCG until 65 and the POS until early 70's and only radically expressed by Waterhouse in my congregations
For me, this topic post was a timely topic post. A previous post topic entitled “Why the Church” got me thinking and didn’t have time to post questions that came to my mind before other subsequent topics moved it into archive.
The Radio/Worldwide Church of God once had a booklet entitled “There Is A Way of Escape”. One of the hooks that drew people into the Church was the promise to escape the Great Tribulation which the booklet explained. “Watch and pray always that you be accounted worthy to escape all these things and stand before the son of man” Luke 21:36. Classic Armstrongism taught the Great Tribulation occurring in the first week of January, 1972 (end of second 19 year time cycle) with the German attack on America. The Philadelphians are taken to a Place of Safety and the remaining “Lukewarm” Church members left were the Laodicean Church era going through the Great Tribulation. Classic Armstrongism taught half the Church would be taken to Petra Place of Safety and the other half would be tried in the Great Tribulation (another Lake of Fire type fear threat). “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your LORD will come. Matthew 24:40-42
So the question that arose in my mind when I read “Why the Church” post was how do the splinters and HWA wannabes teach Matthew 24:40-42 today? If each splinter and HWA wannabee teaches that their own splinter (and their splinter alone) are the Philadelphian era remnant and all the other Splinters are the Laodiceans in the Laodicean era, then how does the math work for the fulfillment of Matt 24:40-42 the way that classic Armstrongism always taught; i.e. half the Church taken to place of Safety and the other half remaining to go through the great Tribulation tried by fire?
If “the elect” have been spread among all the splinters, and each is claiming that they are the Philadelphian remnant, then the numbers don’t work 50%/50%. Even if they still taught classic Armstrongism; i.e. that within their own splinter group, 50% will be taken to a Place of Safety while 50% are left behind to face the Great Tribulation with all the other Laodiceans in the other Splinters, the math still doesn’t work overall to fulfill Matt. 24:40-42, thus the question I posed.
If the Armstrong Churches of God are as many as 50,000 people today consisting of two types of people: 1) Philadelphian remnant in the Laodicean era; and 2) Laodiceans in the Laodicean era, then there is no one Splinter Group that is large enough for 25,000 Philadelphians (50%) worthy to escape all these things (Luke 21:36). Which means ALL of the HWA wannabees have to acknowledge that there are Philadelphians in other Splinter groups for the math to work. BUT WAIT, that would mean that, consistent with classic Armstrongism, we are still in the Philadelphian era and the two eras co-exist together.
OH, BUT WAIT! It gets even better – Herbert Armstrong admitted that the dead Sardis era – the Church of God, Seventh Day – was also God’s true Church too, just doing a dead work!!! So do their membership numbers get included in the Place of Safety Matthew 24:40-42 prophecy that classic Armstrongism always taught that half the Church would be taken, and the other half left to go through the Great Tribulation? That would imply there are Philadelphians and Laodiceans in the Sardis era remnant.
Now that we are out of it, isn’t Armstrongism fun?
Maybe the Doctor from the degree mill “Almost arrested for Sabbath keeping, doubly blessed” Thiel can prophesy an answer to my simple naïve question.
Richard
Petra was never official doctrine!
A place of safety was.
Nck
I posed same question to several ministurds and other COGlodytes during my exit, 8:18, and never really got a straight answer. IIRC, the most detailed explanation (as in actually trying to answer the question instead of spitting out a lot of deflections) was that originally the woman WAS Israel (twelve star garland and all that), but after Jesus' death the woman somehow became the church (sort of a twisted version of Replacement theology) and the Israelites just sort of vanish into nothing, except that the church was full of them, and the "rest of her offspring" was the "Laodiceans" somehow birthed by this Israel-church hybrid, who just got lucky enough to be credited in the text with commandment keeping. Except that as you can see now, most COG successors dont give the "Laodiceans" that kind of credit.
Didnt say it made sense, just that it was the best attempt I heard at trying to defend the COG position.
Revelation 16.3 '..and every living thing died that was in the sea.'
History is about to repeat itself with a near animal extinction. This is also mentioned in other scriptures.
Hosea 4.3 ..and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.
Zephaniah 1.1-3 .,I will sweep away man and beast, I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the face of the earth.
Contrary to what Dennis claims, this didn't happen in Roman times. The games played by abusive cult leaders such as Herbert Armstrong and similar, doesn't invalidate the bible and it's prophecy's.
All I can say, Dennis, is that Petra was constantly invoked in correcting or "encouraging" members, and there were those infamous "Petra Packs" stashed in members homes, not unlike the restart kits outlaws, spies, and Mafia members kept around in case they got burned.
To an extent, you did have the power to create your own reality in your own congregations, and as one of the prematurely enlightened ones, you may have downplayed Petra, but most did not. The tribulation, and being spared, was HWA's hook. It's what enabled him to trap and leverage us in the first place.
BB
I had never heard of WCG until 65 and the POS until early 70's
Which POS are you talking about? Herbert? GTA? Waterhouse? Or any number of petty little local dictators, each of whom for sure was a POS?
The Jews won't be in the place of safety. The 12th chapter of Zechariah is a prophecy of the end-time battle in Jerusalem.
v3 "On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it shall grievously hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth shall come together against it.."
v5 "Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, 'The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through YHVH of hosts, their God.'"
v6 "On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot on a pile of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem."
v7-9 And YHVH will give victory to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over that of Judah. On that day YHVH will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of YHVH, at their head. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem."
Armageddon is a distraction from the truth.
The actual end-of-days is not called Armageddon. It is Ragnarok. It will not come till Loki bursts out of the chains that hold him to three boulders in a cave where an adder is suspended over him to drip venom onto his face and cause convulsions that trigger earthquakes in Middle Earth. He will join with the Giant Race to totally destroy the cosmos. Nothing will be spared: no true believing humans, no doubting humans, no animals, vegetables, minerals, or heavenly bodies. All gone. No place of safety.
It will be so far in the future that nobody now alive will be affected, so churches that preach this doctrine cannot use it to defraud their members by promising a refuge.
Maybe you are the kind of person who uses the phrase "I choose to believe." As long as you are in the habit of choosing a belief without evidence, why not pick this one? If you're going to place your trust in a fantastic fairy tale, better to pick one that is free and doesn't promote false hope than one that sucks away a major fraction of your income and keeps you stressed out all the time.
Hey Prof, why are you deceiving people by hiding from them the message of Cthulhu's impending apocalypse? Cthulhu, imprisoned and spreading "vibes" of chaos and despair, is the true prince of the power of the air, but he is neither good nor evil by human standards. He is simply HUNGRY, and when he emerges from the depths he will EAT the masses of humanity, including foolish Christians who have imagined for millennia that they were eating their God.
The worshippers of Cthulhu don't pray for peace or bliss or rule over cities. Their prayer is simple. They pray that Cthulhu will eat them first, so they may be spared the worst horrors of his rise. If he chooses to listen to those prayers, he will be a much more merciful God than your Loki.
Hey, anon 5:01 AM, thanks. Another choice of belief. I have heard of this one, but never met a missionary or read the scriptures. I plan to look into it. The more options there are out there, the more likely a particular person is to find a satisfactory one.
Megiddo is mentioned in the 12th chapter of Zechariah as a reference to a past event that a future event is likened to. Zechariah was using the national mourning that happened in Jeremiah's time to illustrate the degree of the mourning that will happen in the future (v10). This mourning interrupts the victory in the first 9 verses of the chapter.
Zech 12:11 On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
Josiah was killed by the archers of Necho in Megiddo (2 Chro 35:20-25).
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