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Thread: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

  1. #1061

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    I doubt it very much. Basics is probably one of the humblest people here.
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  2. #1062

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Has anyone read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics? It's a fascinating read.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German Lutheran pastor and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was the first of the German theologians to speak out clearly against the persecution of the Jews and the evils of the Nazi ideology.

    Ethics (German: Ethik) is an unfinished book by Bonhoeffer that was edited and published after his death by Eberhard Bethge in 1949.[1] The central theme of Ethics is Christlikeness.[5]

    At the time of writing, he was a double agent; he was working for Abwehr, Nazi Germany's military intelligence organization, but was simultaneously involved in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.[4]

    He intended Ethics as his magnum opus, but it remained unfinished when he was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo in April 1943. On April 8, 1945 he was hanged as a traitor in the Flossenburg concentration camp. As he left his cell on his way to execution he said to his companion, "This is the end – but for me, the beginning of life."


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    Last edited by Prodromos; April 21, 2022 at 10:22 PM.
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  3. #1063
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    Has anyone read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics? It's a fascinating read....
    I have only the slightest knowledge of him. An impressive person who navigated a very perilous moral position. As a true believer he'd have faced the wall under Communism, so his loyal service to Germany is understandable, and his treason toward Hitler admirable.

    Bonhoeffer may be confused about the founding fathers mostly frank deism (they explicitly separated church and state and used the language of Reason and the Enlightenment and not the OT in the Constitution), but he makes very good points about the ethical paradox facing the various Left Wing movements from the French Revolution onwards of overthrowing the (sometimes self serving) rule of Gods law with something man made, a problem the revolutionary Founding Fathers themselves face.

    A glib agnostic like myself will evade the ethical comparison by claiming "Gods Law" is also man made, but genuine Christian belief is free to criticise the replacement of a (fairly coherent) ethical set of norms with something cobbled by a journalist (for example) and it has to be faced.

    I like to proclaim "humans are descended from apes" but also "chimps are (in human terms) cruel and violent but humans shouldn't be hehe guys amirite?" and I have to resolve those positions.

    I'd like to weakly argue humans have put good (and bad) ideas of their own into the mouth of the God they believe in. I think its why we should respect religions and religious belief by default (but not absolutely), as people who love God will tend to ascribe their best ideas to the Divine. As I'm just a flawed and stupid human it may well be I am wrong and the best laws do come from God.

    The jibe of Moral Relativism exposes my moral position to the slippery slope argument. I would counter "Gods law" (especially in the OT) is no completely coherent and does not represent a "natural moral pole" from which decline, although it does contain exceptional and wonderful moral principles as well (especially the NT). I think OT law has slipped down a few slopes too, as has Christian ethics, having succumbed to pressure to support slavery, racism and intolerance at times.
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  4. #1064
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Akar View Post
    I don't think anyone doubts that you enjoy condescending to people.
    As I said I enjoy telling of what Christ did for me and could do for you if only you would believe it. Does that make me feel superior to anyone? To tell the truth at times I do because I get amazed by the numbers who cannot or will not see what's right before their eyes as I once did too. I speak of course that there is indeed a God in Whom our present and future lies, Who took a sinner like me and put me in this position amongst you all so that I can tell from experience in the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ is truly the Way, the Truth and the Life.

  5. #1065

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Most if not all the typically regarded “Founders” were opposed to the atheization of American culture and warned against it, and Bonhoeffer's critique alludes to the reasons why. I don’t believe but if anything it has only made me more aware of what they understood.
    Quote Originally Posted by John Adams
    Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

    Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be.
    Quote Originally Posted by George Washington, Farewell Address to the Nation
    Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
    Quote Originally Posted by GW, Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789
    It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.
    Quote Originally Posted by GW orders to the troops, requiring of all officers strict observance of weekly Christian church service
    While we are zealously performing the duties of good Citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of Religion—To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian—The signal Instances of providential Goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labours with complete Success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of Gratitude & Piety to the Supreme Author of all Good.
    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson
    The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty...

    "Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.

    God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever...

    I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ
    Quote Originally Posted by Ben Franklin
    Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

    As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see
    Quote Originally Posted by James Madison
    A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest while we are building ideal monuments of Renown and Bliss here we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven
    Quote Originally Posted by Alexander Hamilton
    I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor.
    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Henry
    It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here
    Quote Originally Posted by John Jay, first Chief Justice
    In forming and settling my belief relative to the doctrines of Christianity, I adopted no articles from creeds but such only as, on careful examination, I found to be confirmed by the Bible.
    Quote Originally Posted by George Washington, Resigning as Commander in Chief
    I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life, by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  6. #1066

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Political figures are in this weird spot where they're either Christian or non-Christian, depending on which can be used to hurt Christians more.

    So you'll often hear people argue that a certain Founder who identified as a Christian wasn't really a Christian because he held an unorthodox view on one theological issue or another, and in the next breath argue that Hitler was a true Christian despite the fact that he denied pretty much every distinctive Christian doctrine, simply because at one point in his life he publicly identified as a Christian.
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  7. #1067
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    Political figures are in this weird spot where they're either Christian or non-Christian, depending on which can be used to hurt Christians more.

    So you'll often hear people argue that a certain Founder who identified as a Christian wasn't really a Christian because he held an unorthodox view on one theological issue or another, and in the next breath argue that Hitler was a true Christian despite the fact that he denied pretty much every distinctive Christian doctrine, simply because at one point in his life he publicly identified as a Christian.
    Yes there's certainly hypocrisy in the attacks on many Christians and on Christianity as well.

    Bornhoeffer is a valuable figure because he's an example of a Christian life lived in action, in a climate of hostility to the form of Christianity he confesses. While there are elements of the political in his life, certainly his explicit moral position seems to be exemplary (and a positive example) of a Christian life.

    When the religious element is less explicitly lived it is less clear. I confidently say i am a cultural Christian, without being a believer. Christianity is an embedded element of the British culture that is the dominant one in Australia. We celebrate Easter and Christmas in a concrete way, that is we cease normal government and business activity by law.

    That said Australian society is pretty secular and while Christian mores and ethics are generally admired and sometimes adhered too, to a certain extent our Christianity is painted on. If you like you can say anything good I do is the shadow of my Christian culture, and the bad things I do are my turning away from Christ, that might be simplistic though.

    I believe the conduct of the US founding fathers may fall into this sort of category? Its a difficult question. Privately many were churchgoers and prayer-givers. Others were not (Mr Franklin, a sort of founding God Father perhaps?) was quite suited to Paris social life (possibly the most unchristian thing in the world at the time).

    In their rhetorical language God and the Creator feature strongly, not denying Christ, and geneally they are positive toward the Church without espousing its doctrines. However Mosaic Law does not get a mention in the actual constitution, rather "self evident truths" of the Creator. This is Enlightenment Deism where the rubber meets the road. YHWH and Deuteronomy are not in any of the Bill of Rights, Voltaire and Rousseau's ideas are clearly apparent and Moses are absent. The Founding fathers seem, to shrink from the more extreme Rationalists who (a bit meanly, but they are reacting to the worst extremes of Papism and Political Protestantism) tear down Christianity as an imposture. They admire Jesus, declare his ethic preaching superior, but careful statements about Providence and the Creator show the infiltration of Reason into the House of Belief.

    The separation of Church and state is a clear indication of Freedom of Conscience (a wonderful tenet central to the Age of Reason) as a central pillar of the Founding Father's political world view. This explicitly excludes the state-religion nexus central to so much of the Calvinist Inquistion states, the Commonwealth, much of the Ancien Regime, as well as earlier examples like Caesaropapism and God Kings, etc. Religion in the Unitted States is a matter for the citizen, not the State, and that is a huge change from much of Christian History from Constantine onwards.

    It would be wrong to say the Founding Fathers were unchristian or not Christians. They were definitely all "cultural Christians" (yes a weak term), and many were faithful Christians. Not mutually exclusively many were Deists which most Christians today would say is not Christian (as many say Mormons are not, or as many say Hiong Xiuquan's preaching was not). Their public life scandalised many Christians concept of a Christian state (some loyalists saw it as a rejection of God's Anointed IIRC), and politically their state was separated from religion.

    Its a great topic, its worth teasing out these meanings because as you say political figures have their religion switched on them for the sakes of arguments in ways the actual person might not agree with.

    Just on the Hitler question, that ****ing bastard was a vile scum. His beliefs seem to have been a disguise, and the fact he was raised Catholic, and may have had a Jewish ancestor, or that he tried to impose some shabby concocted fake paganism on the German people do not bear at all on believers or participants in those faiths. The fact he was part of Western Culture is a disgrace to all of us and a warning to look for evil in our own hearts and not to try and pin the faults of a monster on some other group.
    Last edited by Cyclops; April 22, 2022 at 04:58 PM. Reason: moral not oral, like not lie, typing too fast 'cause its an interesting point
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  8. #1068

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    The Founders were, by and large, classically educated in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Even amongst themselves they discussed interpretations and importance of the Biblical text as intellectual discourse. Harvard was founded to train clergy after all. Whatever their personal interpretations of God may have been, their widely held contempt for certain aspects of organized religion is too often interpreted as agnostic or atheist. Themes from Exodus were integral to how American colonists and the Founders themselves saw the destiny of America, a land chosen to, as Thomas Paine put it, “make the world over again,” that the God who delivered Israel from Egypt would deliver America from Britain. In his words, “A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now…..The birthday of a new world is at hand.” The relevance isn’t to their personal religious beliefs, but to the nature of what they were trying to build.

    The American Republic was built not on the Christian religion, but on what Bonhoeffer called “the congregation of the faithful” who, as Christian refugees, collectively resolved to break the wheel and build a new country upon the law of God. As the Founders themselves often discussed, they are the glue which binds the nation together. Without them, as the Founders also warned, comes a return to the endless cycle of chaos and despotism the Founders saw in Revolutionary France, what Marx saw in history as tragedy and farce, and Hegel, his reference, as a slaughter bench. In Hegel’s case as well as the Founders, the progressive teleology of history as a dialectical battlefield was not random, but according to God’s will. And so, America’s forebears believed, the surest guarantee of American liberty and prosperity is grassroots obedience to the commandments of Jesus Christ. This is the core of what America is designed to be. As Truman put it: “The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.”
    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; April 22, 2022 at 08:44 PM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  9. #1069
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    As I see it man gets what he votes for and it is not necessarily what he expected. Power corrupts and there isn't a nation in all history that has not suffered corruption.

  10. #1070

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Jesus and the Successful Man

    Quote Originally Posted by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity.

    The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done. Success heals the wounds of guilt. There is no sense in reproaching the successful man for his unvirtuous behavior, for this would be to remain in the past while the successful man strides forward from one deed to the next, conquering the future and securing the irrevocability of what has been done.

    The successful man presents us with accomplished facts which can never again be reversed. What he destroys cannot be restored. What he constructs will acquire at least a prescriptive right in the next generation. No indictment can make good the guilt which the successful man has left behind him. The indictment falls silent with the passage of time, but the success remains and determines the course of history. The judges of history play a sad role in comparison with its protagonists. History rides rough-shod over their heads. With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means.
    The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard. Such thought is a denial of eternal justice. Neither the triumph of the successful nor the bitter hatred which the successful arouse in the hearts of the unsuccessful can ultimately overcome the world.

    Christ confronts all thinking in terms of success and failure with the man who is under God’s sentence, no matter whether he be successful or unsuccessful. It is out of pure love that God is willing to let man stand before Him, and that is why He sentences man. It is a sentence of mercy that God pronounces on mankind in Christ. In the cross of Christ God confronts the successful man with the sanctification of pain, sorrow, humility, failure, poverty, loneliness and despair.

    God's acceptance of the cross is His judgement upon the successful man. But the unsuccessful man must recognize that what enables him to stand before God is not his lack of success as such, not his position as a pariah, but solely the willing acceptance of the sentence passed on him by the divine love.
    It was precisely the cross of Christ, the failure of Christ in the world, which led to His success in history.

    Only in the cross of Christ, that is, as those upon whom sentence has been executed, do men achieve their true form.
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  11. #1071
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Aye and mankind thought they were doing them a favour when they crucified Him, little knowing He was actually saving many from a Wrath far far worse.

  12. #1072

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    A distinguished bishop, a priest, and a mere peasant are in a great cathedral. In turn the priest and bishop approach the altar rail, beat their chests and declare, “I am nothing. I am nothing.” The humble peasant, moved to imitate, shuffles to the altar and says the same thing. The bishop turns furiously and hisses in the priest’s ear, “Who the hell does he think he is?”

    Christopher Insole, “Kant for Christmas”
    One searches the New Testament in vain for a theology of the laity. Neither laymen nor priests can be found in it, at least in the sense in which we understand those words today.

    Alexandre Faivre, The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church
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  13. #1073

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Quote Originally Posted by John Calvin
    To obtain the righteousness of Christ we must abandon our own.




    Quote Originally Posted by Matthew 20
    The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

    “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

    3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

    “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

    7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

    “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

    8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

    9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

    13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

    16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
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  14. #1074
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    " For by Grace are we saved.........."

  15. #1075

    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    " For by Grace are we saved.........."
    Yep. That's one of the many things that distinguish Christianity from literally every other religion in history.
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  16. #1076
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Prodromos,

    For sure rather than having a god hanging over us the undeserving Christian has God within him or her.

  17. #1077
    Sir Adrian's Avatar the Imperishable
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post



    I have this to say to Timothy Keller and everybody who thinks like him: James 2:14-26, the parable of the poor women and rich man at the temple, Matthew 7:21.
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  18. #1078
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Sir Adrian,

    Salvation being of God then it must be by Grace for no sinner ever deserves to be saved. What Kellor is saying is that if it was down to man the privileged would benefit over the poor, but alas thankfully, it is God Who by His Grace has chosen all them that are or will be saved. That Grace is fulfilled when a person is born again of the Spirit of God, is imputed with the Faith of Jesus Christ the results being their good works from then on. So what are these good works? Why, preaching the Gospel and obeying the Commandments without fear or favour, to rich and poor alike is all that a Christian can do and that is what James is talking about.

  19. #1079
    Sir Adrian's Avatar the Imperishable
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    No literally says that salvation is not by works, which is a contradiction of the Bible. It's true that no man deserves to be saved and can save himself which is why you must strive to become as Christ-like as humanly possible, and the only way to do that is through ceaseless prayer and good works. Simply claiming to believe in Jesus is insufficient. Those who truly believe also do works.
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  20. #1080
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    Default Re: Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

    Sir Adrian,

    Salvation is clearly not by works, why? Lest anyone can boast that he or she did it rather than God. As for ceaseless prayer and good works the Jews have tried that and failed for centuries. Jesus said, " A man must be born again of the Spirit of God if he is to enter heaven." and " No man can come to the Father except by Me and, no man can come to Me except the Father draws him." How does the Father draw anyone? By the working of the Holy Spirit in breaking through the hardened heart so that that person realizes just how impossible a plight he or she is in and then begs for repentance, which itself is a gift from God should He grant it. Rebirth is the key to being saved and that is all the work of God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

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