Many consider me an expert on the subjects of Hell and Universalism of the Biblical or Christian variety. Hundreds of books and writings on Hell and Universalism of the scriptural variety fill my bookshelves and computer. Having wrestled with the subjects of Hell and Universalism earnestly combing through thousands of resources to help me determine what the original Hebrew and Greek texts say on the subjects and what the early church fathers taught, I must concur with William Barclay, one of the best Bible commentators of the twentieth century who said in his Spiritual Autobiography “I am a convinced universalist.” (William Barclay: A Spiritual Autobiography, pps. 66, 67, Eerdmans Publishing, 1977).
Understand, dear reader, Barclay said this after decades of intense study of the original languages of the Bible. While I cannot hold a candle to Barclay’s skills in the ancient languages, I, too, after intense study and prayer, am a “convinced universalist” of the biblical, Christian kind.
Why is Hell such an easy Sell
I also know a little about Christian publishing and marketing. Hell sells. Books about a loving, wise, resourceful, powerful God who desires and is able to draw all mankind to Himself do not sell very well. Even popular books like The Shack and Love Wins which present a much more loving view of God than traditional Christianity has presented in the last sixteen hundred years or so must leave a door open for the possibility that part of mankind will be separated from their Maker for all eternity if they are going to be successful. The authors of both these books were accused of teaching universalism when they first came out. Immediately the authors, William P. Young and his editors and Rob Bell and his church came out with statements, “I am not a universalist.” That statement helped the sale of those two books tremendously. In Christianity, selling the “fear of the Lord” and vengeance still works better than “Love your enemies.”
Encouraged by the success of HarperOne’s Love Wins by Rob Bell, a whole slew of books is scheduled for release in upcoming months. Personally, I think Rob Bell’s Title Love wins does not convey the theology Bell teaches in his book. According to Bell in Love Wins, one can get as much hell as they want. It is not God who sends people to eternal damnation, according to Bell, “the doors of Hell are closed from the inside.” This is a famous statement borrowed from C. S. Lewis who made that statement famous in his book, The Problem of Pain. According to Rob Bell, C.S. Lewis and millions of Christians who have bought into this new philosophy that people choose to be eternally damned through the use of their own “free will.” Why was Rob Bell’s Love Wins so successful?According to Christian blogger, Mark Sayers, “The reason that Love Wins has sold so many copies, the reason that it has set twitter and the net alight, the reason that I am even talking about it here, is not because of its importance, its theological insight, its high quality writing or its radical new viewpoint. Rather we are discussing the book because of successful marketing.” He is mostly right. HarperOne, publisher of Love Wins (Also publisher of Satan’s Bible) pulled out the plugs to hype this book. HarperOne is owned by News Corp that owns a whole armada of media companies including Fox News. They know how to sell anything except truth. They deal in lies and half-truths. Let’s face it — fear, terror, lies, sleaze, gossip, violence, rape, murder, slander — sensationalism sells.
Encouraged by HarperOne’s successful marketing with Love Wins, a slew of books is coming out this summer to capitalize on the hype generated by the media machinery and the social media like Facebook and Twitter.
Hell’s Armada is on a Rampage
At the top of the list of books defending the gates of Hell, with a six digit marketing budget is Erasing Hell: What God said about Eternity and the Things We Make Up by the very charismatic bestselling author and pastor Francis Chan (David C. Cook, publisher, July 2011). His Crazy Love sold more than 1.6 million copies. I don’t know why Chan entitled his book Crazy Love — the only thing crazy in his book is his portrayal of God. His God is crazy. Actually it is Chan who has been driven crazy by the concepts of God he has received from the traditional church. These concepts of Hell and the guilt he feels from not doing enough to save people have driven him crazy. And Chan drives other people crazy by injecting his fears into those who watch him at church, in videos and through his best-selling books. One reviewer of the book wrote “With every chapter I read I felt like he was hitting me over the head with condemnation and guilt and works theology.” You see, fear, guilt, works theology, condemnation, hell for your enemies — it all works — if you want to sell books and if you want to herd people into Hell teaching churches.
Right behind Chan is Mark Galli with God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News is Better than Love Wins (Tyndale, July). Galli is senior managing editor of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. Christianity Today magazine has been a leading Hell’s gatekeeper in the evangelical community for a long time. Jesus said the “gates of Hell/hades will not prevail against His called out ones.” It is rather interesting to see that the largest institutions of “church” are the leading voices demanding a God who will consigns the majority of mankind to eternal damnation. Jesus said He came to save the world, not judge it. Leading authorities and institutions keep watch on the outside of Hell’s gates to make sure most of mankind remains eternally damned while Rob Bell informs us that Hell’s occupants are there because they like it better than heaven. What a queer bunch of people, these keepers of the gates of Hell. Incidentally, as a little side bible study note, the term “gates of Hell” speaks of people and their powers and the institutions they control. In ancient Semitic cities, “businessmen” and politicians did their business at the city gates. In this series of articles on the business of Hell, we will see who some of Hell’s gatekeepers are.
The next Hell gatekeeping book in the list is scheduled for an August release: Hell Is Real (But I Hate To Admit It) by Brian Jones (David C. Cook publisher, August) Let me paraphrase Brian Jones’ title: “Hell is really an embarrassment to me. I would never have created such a horrible place. I can’t, for the life of me understand why a loving, all-powerful, wise God would create such an awful scenario, but then who am I to argue with God. If He wants most of mankind to be tortured forever and ever, who am I to argue with Him?” If Brian Jones would carefully read a handful of books like Hope Beyond Hell, Restitution of all things, Christ Triumphant, The Inescapable Love of God, Absolute Assurance in Jesus Christ, Razing Hell, Raising Hell, A Gentler God and many other fine books which prove the traditional teaching of Hell is false, then Jones wouldn’t have to write books in which he has to admit that he hates hell but has to believe in it. “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)
Next on the short list of Hell defending books releasing this summer Is Hell Real? Or Does Everyone Go To Heaven? which is a compilation articles from various contributors including Timothy Keller, R. Albert Mohler Jr. and others well-known in the evangelical community. These major publishers and their authors will be backed by media campaigns and evangelical networks that will push these books in hope of high profits. Zondervan, Is Hell Real publisher is owned by HarperOne which is owned by NewsCorp which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, king of yellow-journalism, a polite word for sleaze. Rupert Murdoch is notoriously famous for his sensationalism and his insatiable appetite for money and power. Presently, he is under investigation for tampering with the phones of 9/11 victims. Rupert Murdoch is extremely political and ruthless. Anyone who has ever watched his Fox News, knows that his version of “fair and balanced” is not even remotely close to anything one would call truth. Why would people like Rupert Murdoch own conservative Christian book publishers like Zondervan? We’ll find out in subsequent editions of Hell Sells.
What I personally hate about these books and the sleazy way in which they are marketed is that they all give God such a bad name. Rob Bell teases us with the title Love Wins but after analyzing what his book really says, God’s love doesn’t really win at all. He tells us that people still can have as much of Hell as they want; that “the doors of Hell are closed from the inside.” Adam’s transgression forced all mankind to death, but Christ’s cross cannot draw all mankind out of eternal damnation because of “free will.” According to Bell, God will never force Himself upon anyone; Bell considers that rape. So every single human being is forced into being slaves to sin because of Adam’s transgression, consigned to death meaning eternal damnation, forced to live under the dominion of Satan who is the “God of this world” who comes but to kill, steal and destroy — but Jesus, who God the Father sent to save the world can’t free one from this state of insanity unless they “choose” of their own free will to be set free. Anyone that would want to live in a state of eternal misery is insane! According to Rob Bell, Hell may be full of insane people Jesus can’t free because that would be violating them. Really Rob? To me, Love Wins was a very bad tease — the contents of the book did not meet the title. But hey, Rob Bell and company know, Hell sells. ” For the sake of book sales, he was wise enough to say, “I am not a universalist.” I personally believe he will one day regret those words.
In recent months, I have been in correspondence with many authors who have published God defaming books for major Christian publishers. Many of them privately tell me they believe in universal salvation, but are afraid of the consequences of changing position on the subject of Hell. Yes, Hell sells, intimidates and holds billions of sheeple in bondage to money and power hungry men and women who control institutions like Church denominations and book publishing businesses.
It is quite possible the sales of a single title aimed at scaring Hell into people has outsold all the titles teaching universal salvation through Jesus Christ combined (biblical or Christian universalism). A book such as World Aflame by Billy Graham, Left Behind by Timothy LaHaye (estimated sales of 65 million), or The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey (estimate sales of 28 million) has probably outsold all the books teaching universal salvation combined that have been published in the last two centuries.
As long as authors make sure there is a permanent place of eternal separation between Christians and the likes of Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Stalin, Pohl Pot, Mao ZeDong, then they may present a pretty liberal and loving view of God and still have a successful book. But to publish material for the Christian market that there is no Hell or that it will ultimately be empty ,at this stage of the game will not work — at least not if one wants to make money. And we will see that money is the game when it comes to the Christian publishing industry.
William P. Young came close to crashing the gates of Hell with The Shack (16 million copies). Close, but no cigar. While the book clearly portrays God much more loving than does traditional Christianity, Young and his editors clearly stated they were not universalists. They do not believe all mankind has been redeemed by the Cross of Christ. They, along with Rob Bell (Love Wins), believe God must leave the doors to Hell open forever because love cannot force itself upon anyone. Free will demands there is always a hell, according to those who have been promoting a new, sanitized version of Hell that the traditional church leaders like Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, the Catholic Popes, Ignatius, Wesley, etc knew nothing about. In the last few decades Hell has gotten a huge facelift and makeover by ministers and Christian publishing. The modern Evangelical/Protestant/Catholic Hell is just a vast nebulous place of eternal separation from God. No more pitch forks, literal bodies with literal fire and brimstone with worms and snakes crawling through eye sockets and flesh peeling off only to be put back on again. And the average Christian pew-warmer has not even noticed this subtle reinventing of Hell.
Free Will: God’s Gift, Curse, Myth or Illusion?
Do you find it strange that the instrument God uses to determine whether a soul will be able to spend eternity with Him is also the instrument which will cause most of mankind to experience eternal tortures which human beings would be incapable of inflicting upon each other even if they wanted to? Professional torturers can only maintain their cruelty towards their victims for a short period of time before they must take a break. Yet for the joy of having a new creatures love Him out of their own “free will,” God will endure watching the majority of the children He created to suffer endlessly. According to William P. Young, Rob Bell, their editors and publishers and the majority of the Christian publishing industry, God, who is all powerful, all-knowing, wise, whose mercy supposedly never comes to an end and who wrath, according to the Bible DOES come to an end, has tied His own hands and must helplessly watch billions upon billions of human beings be endlessly tortured. What an utter failure!
It is like God creating a hundred billion human beings over thousands of years subjecting them to all sorts of ignorance and cruelty, putting them through some kind of boot camp or obstacle course and whoever makes the right decisions at the right time and “endures to the end” deserve to be loved by Him forever while the greatest majority of them get consigned to an eternal land-fill. But since they are eternal beings, they must live with their defects forever. Since God doesn’t like defects, imperfect beings He won’t visit them in their burning land-fill He must have purposed from the very beginning of time. One must be insane to have such a wicked view of God. And I believe that is the condition of much of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. They are truly insane. I thank God He has shown me that He will deliver all of us out of our insanity and restore all of us to a sound mind and a pure heart.
Universalism Doesn’t Sell
Books that present what I call “The Victorious Gospel of Jesus Christ,” that God the Father of us all, will redeem all mankind, have received very little to no promotion and typically have no marketing budgets. The books are often self-published. You will not find them on the shelves of your local Christian book store. You will have to “come out of her” to find resources that help you discover the God who is able to fulfill His promises, word and oath. He says His arm is NOT too short to save.
A classic among books that teach biblical or Christian universalism is Restitution of All (1867) by Andrew Jukes. Concordant Publishing Concern has been publishing it since the 1980’s. According to Jim Coram, who heads up Concordant Publishing, they have sold about 3,000 copies. Another classic book on biblical universalism is Christ Triumphant (1890) which they also have sold for many years. They’ve sold about 2,000 copies. A book the Concordant Publishing Concern has printed since the 1930’s authored by the founder of the Concern, A. E. Knoch, is All in All. It has sold 4,000 copies since the 1930’s.
Thomas Talbott, author The Inescapable Love of God made his book available through a print-on-demand publisher in 1999. Talbott is a retired philosophy professor at Williamette College. The book has sold less than 5,000 copies. I probably have almost a hundred titles of books published in the last 20 years on the subject of Christian universalism. In sales volume, they amount to almost nothing when compared to traditional Christian books on Hell.
There are some small success stories among books that touch the touchy subject of universal salvation. Brian McLaren’s book The Last Word and the Word After That sold about 20,000 copies according to him. For the most part, however, most books touching the subject of universalism from a biblical, Christian point of view, so far, do not sell very well because of lack of distribution, marketing, financing and because of fear, intimidation and ignorance. I probably have in my library nearly a hundred titles on universalism published in the last twenty years. There is scarcely a parishioner or pastor in my town who would be familiar with any of the titles.
Sometimes, if the author conceals the message of universalism beneath a larger more popular subject, they might be able to get away with introducing universalism to an unsuspecting audience and have sales success. For example, Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Priest, sprinkled some universalism amongst his titles such as Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality. Richard writes and speaks much on contemplative prayer, mysticism, spiritual awakening, consciousness transformation. There is a wider audience for that subject than for universalism. His books are published by small Catholic publishers like Crossroad Book and St. Anthony Messenger Press.
Robert L. Short (deceased) was somewhat successful in promoting biblical universalism through cartoon characters. Few people know that Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts cartoon products, believed in universal salvation. Robert L. Short, a Presbyterian minister was a good friend of Charles Schultz. Many fans of Peanuts do not realize Charles Schultz put a lot of biblical messages into his cartoon series. Mr. Short brought out some of these themes in several books including The Gospel According to Peanuts, Short Meditations, and The Gospel According to Dogs. The message of universalism was clearing portrayed in Short’s The Gospel According to Dogs and Short Meditations. Robert L. Short also pointed out in The Parables of Dr. Seuss (WJK Press) that Dr. Seuss (Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel) also believed in biblical universalism. A quote from The Parables of Dr. Seuss:
Must our happiness be the result of others being so unhappy and our remembering how unhappy they are? Well, what’s the point of ‘hell’ in the New Testament, especially after all we know through Christ about God’s final salvation of ALL people? First of all, hell is in the New Testament to describe the present predicament of people who don’t know how lucky they are; and second, it’s there to remind us one more time how lucky we are: God could have been some other kind of God, like the terrible God who creates the trap and creates people with the strong tendency to go into the trap, and then leaves them there like ‘something someone forgot.’ And, mind you, Duckie, there are plenty of religious groups, including many that call themselves “Christian,” that believe just that! God could have been the kind of God who could easily decide to send you to hell for all eternity! And we have no right to take God’s choice in the matter for granted. Nevertheless, the God of Jesus didn’t choose to be this kind of God. For through Christ we know that in Christ:
…the complete being of God, by God’s own choice, came to dwell. Through Him God chose to reconcile the whole universe to himself, making peace through the shedding of his blood upon the cross — to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, through him alone. (Col. 1:19-20, NEB)
So just remember to remember, Duckie, how lucky you are! You and everyone else with you! Has anyone ever told you this — how lucky you are? Well, they should, because this is ‘the message of the truth, the good news of your salvation’ (Eph. 1:13, NEB). And telling people this is not an optional for Christians, something they can do or not do as they please: ‘For it was his will that we, who already enjoyed the hope of Christ, should cause his glory to be praised’ (Eph. 1:12 NEB, variant reading).
And this is really news; it’s not anything we can just wishfully think up and tell ourselves. Like all that’s really new, it’s not anything we just naturally know; here fore, it must always come from the outside-in. Everyone needs to be told this news.
And it’s always good news too, not just partially good, or good for some people but not for others. This is why the gospel, the message itself, the good news as it’s addressed to all people, will always sound exactly like this: ‘Did I tell you how lucky you are?’” ——(From The Parables of Dr. Seuss by Robert L. Short, pps. 89, 90, Westminster John Knox Press, copyright 2008)
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hos 4:6)
“You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matt. 6:24, KJV)
“‘No worker can serve two bosses: He’ll either hate the first and love the second or adore the first and despise the second. You can’t worship God and the Bank.’ When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch. So Jesus spoke to them: ‘You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God knows what’s behind the appearance. What society sees and calls monumental, God sees through and calls monstrous.ʼ” (Luke 16:13-15, MSG)
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1 Tim. 6:10, KJV)
I personally love the way Eugene Peterson, author of The Message paraphrase of the Bible comes through so plainly. I think the reason many preachers love quoting the antiquated 1611 King James Bible rather than a more contemporary English version is that sins like greed for money, (a trait common to all of us) is somewhat concealed in the KJV. Covetousness and a lust for “mammon” sound more like some kind of Old Testament disease than a character flaw that is still all too common in church today.
Speaking of covetousness, greed, mammon and money, it’s amazing how much of that stuff comes up in my research for Hell Sells. Jesus accused Jewish leaders of making the temple a den of thieves. “You cannot serve two bosses…you cannot worship God and Money both!” If we love Money, we will conform the image of God to our lusts thereby transforming God’s image to our own corrupt nature. By the way, one doesn’t have to have a lot of money to have a love for money and what money can do. Poor people may have just as much lust for money as rich people.
Jesus was the true image of God expressed in the earth. He was the Truth made flesh. And yet most of the leadership of Israel (a consortium of religious, political and business socialites) sought to kill Him. Why? Because they had exchanged the true image of God for a lie. If Jesus stepped into our modern Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman Western world would things have gone any better for Jesus today? I personally believe that the same unholy trinity is at work in the Western “Christianized” world that was in the earth in Israel when He walked the earth. “What society sees and calls monumental, God sees through and calls monstrous.” The “monster,” as we shall see, cleverly disguises itself using well camouflaged societal institutions to hide its murderous wickedness.
The Gates of Hell
Jesus prophesied that the “gates of Hell/Hades” will not prevail against His ekklesia, His called-out ones (Matt. 16:18). I purposely avoided using the English word “church” because I personally do not believe the institutional church is Christ’s “called out ones.” I have a lengthy teaching on this subject one may order entitled The Church is a Sorceress. Briefly, the English word “church” does not come from the Greek ekklesia, it comes from the Greek “Kirke,” a mythological character who had the power to turn men into animals. And now you know why “Church History” is so dark. For a thorough study, you may want to get the CD.
The term “gates” in the ancient Semitic world implied much more than physical gates of a city. At the gates, the entrance to a walled city, the leaders of the city sat to do business, to make contracts, to control what went into and out of the city. Those men who sat at the gates politically, religiously and economically controlled the city’s populace. The people were at the mercy of those “gatekeepers.” If those gatekeepers were true servants of people and not into personal power and wealth, the people would have had a good life. But if the gatekeepers were covetous and were more concerned for their own welfare and power, (as well as those who dwelt in the city or those living outside that depended upon the goods and services of the city) would all suffer.
This is what is happening today in the world, only on a world-wide scale. A few “gatekeepers” have amassed political, military, religious, economic, educational and media control on such a large level that they almost have control of the wealth of the world. On a spiritual level, what kind of ideas about God do these gatekeepers, past and present, allow to come into our minds? Were they ideas and teachings that presented a true image of God? Chapter 14 of Ezekiel speaks about the many idols Israel’s priests had in their heart. What kind of false images of God are in the 30,000 plus denominations of Christianity? They can’t all be right. Who are the gatekeepers of the modern institutional church? What kind of teachings do they allow into the “city of God,” (those who call themselves Christians)? Do they present a true image of the incorruptible God? Or do they cause confusion, contradictions and gross misrepresentations? Isn’t it strange that the average Christian is not concerned that there are tens of thousands of denominations often named after some long deceased church leader, especially in the light of Paul’s warning in his first letter to the Corinthians against dividing the body of Christ and following men?
Spiritual Wickedness in High Places
“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6:12)
Let us take a closer look at some “spiritual wickedness in high places.” As we have seen, from a spiritual point of view, the gates of Hell are people — powerful people who control institutions that determine the welfare of the people under them. The Greek word behind our English word Hell is Hades. The word Hades is made up of two components a (not) and dases (seen). These counselors, then, control the world of the unseen, that which is covered up. The origin of our English word Hell has a similar etymology. The Anglo-Saxon hel, or hele in its secular, common form simply meant covered up, hidden, concealed. Even today in Scotland, when farmers cover up potatoes with earth to protect them from cold in the winter are said to “hell their potatoes,” they are covering them up. We find then, before the gatekeepers got into the act, when a person died and was buried or cremated, they went to the unseen, they were hidden from us, they were out of sight. Men of power (who felt our natural fear of the unseen could be used to control people on this side of the grave) invented stories of what went on beyond the grave. Let us uncover what men and women of great power have covered up so cleverly that I believe they, themselves can no longer see the wickedness of their actions. I think the teaching of Hell by men who lust for power is perhaps Satan’s greatest “cover-up.” The lust for power by unscrupulous men (and a few women) is, I believe, the source for the invention of the church “hell.” Because of the perpetuation of this lie we ignorantly think it is in the original writings of the Bible. It is not!
Gold Calf Worshippers
Before I begin “uncovering” the Christian Publishing Industry, I want to say that I am sooooo grateful for God’s grace. If God had not stopped me twenty-six years ago, I would have undoubtedly created a monster similar to the ones I am about to reveal. Let me explain. Before Jesus redeemed me, I was a small businessman. As I began to fellowship with other Christians, I was naturally attracted to other businessmen trying to make their businesses successful so that they could use a portion of the income generated to help bring people to Christ. Most of us wanted to make a lot of money so we could pour a large portion of it into “God’s work.” I was in the process of trying to start a chain of Christian book stores focusing on books and products pointing to being born again. I had all kinds of bright ideas for this chain of stores. When it came to purchasing the books for the first store, I realized that I did not have maturity and understanding of doctrine to know which books to put into the stores. When I told the Lord that I couldn’t move further because I couldn’t decide which books to order, He made it plain to me that He never gave me the OK to start this project in the first place. My own zeal to “help God” was the driving source to start these book stores, not the Holy Spirit. Had I continued in my Christian book store endeavor 26 years ago, even if successful financially, it would have been a disaster, spiritually speaking. I’m sure I would have grossly misrepresented the true God of the Bible. I shared this information to let the reader know that I do not judge the people I will be talking about in the rest of this series. The individual people are not the issue, it is the system that must be closely looked at. Children who are born into families of great wealth, for example, typically never come to the realization in their lifetimes that their wealth was often accumulated at the expense of the poor and often gained by means God would not approve of. Very few children who inherit great wealth walk away from it or simply give it away or try to change its way of generating income to a more noble way.
The Christian Publishing Industry: Loyal to “The Prophet,” or Profit?
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Sadly, it is not the love of truth that greases the political and economic machinery of this world. It may come as a surprise to the Christian reader that the love of the truth is not what greases the Christian Publishing Industry either. Profits, not Prophets rule much of the Christian Publishing Industry. The God of wrath and eternal damnation has been the choice of the Christian Publishing Industry for many centuries. Let us take a quick look into some of the leading companies in Christian Publishing. Perhaps we will be able to uncover and to reveal the power of darkness known as “counselors of Hell.”
Since Rupert Murdoch and his son James, both heads of News Corporation, have made headlines in recent months for wiretapping heads of state, victims of 9/11, family members of victims of the 7/7 bombings of London’s transit system, family members of British troops killed overseas, a 13-year-old missing British girl who was later found dead and others, it might be appropriate to begin with them. What does the world’s second largest media conglomerate (just behind the Walt Disney Company) have to do with Hell and Christian publishing? Much more than is being revealed by the very media they control.
To be continued ….
[Editor’s note (2026): We have combined the three parts that originally made up this blog post writing. The last one ended in “to be continued” but from what we can see, Gary never wrote another one continuing the theme.]