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Growing in Grace

www.cegenglish.com

The leader of this group certainly knows how to draw attention to himself. While his name is (or used to be) Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, a former Puerto Rican heroin addict and felon, he has since declared himself to be the living incarnation of Jesus Christ – and, at the same time, he also says he is the AntiChrist. (Talk about your sacred "mysteries!") Actually, he's been moving up the ranks: he first declared that he was the Apostle Paul in 1998, then moved up to calling himself the Jesus in 2004; the self-labeled Antichrist title came in 2006.

De Jesus (that's from his name, so we don't have to call him "yet another Jesus") likes his followers to address him as "Father," in the same way that Jim Jones did with his Jonestown followers; yet he's laughing off claims that his congregation is another dangerous cult. Regardless, his churches are raking in cash at a rate that would make many televangelists green with envy. They started to get international press coverage in early 2007, when their followers began tattooing themselves with the dreaded number 666, and also with the letters "SSS" (which stands for this Jesus' motto, salvo siempre salvo). They've also taken to picketing and protesting competing Catholic congregations, and have occasionally burned crucifixes to get their message across (and get attention).