1). “Church That Worships With AR-15 Is Giving Away Trump Rifle”, Oct 11, 2024, Monica Sager, Newsweek, at < https://www.newsweek.com/
2). “Rod of Iron Ministries Pastor Sean Moon preaches with rifle and crown of bullets – 2024”, Oct 14, 2024, News2Share, duration of video 23:38, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
3). “Cold-War Fascism, and Neo-Moonies: The Bizarre Story Behind the AR-15 Church Ceremony”, Mar 3, 2018, Elliott Gabriel, Mint Press News, at < https://www.mintpressnews.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: I was up early this morning and saw a rerun of the Rachel Maddow Show, from Monday Oct 14. The last 15 or 20 minutes was about the truly weird far-right “church” that featured a “Golden AR-15” and a presiding extremist fascist Preacher; who is one of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's sons (the one who more-or-less won the power struggle that took place after Moon Senior died). The overall weekend Show's Speakers at this truly bizarre event included; Mike Flynn, a retired far-right general, who was convicted of “lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the presidential transition” and who was later pardoned by Trump; and Tom Homan, (who was acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump Regime). Homan clearly stated he would run a multi-million person deportation operation, that would include armed agents forcing their way into people's homes to round up undocumented immigrants, if Trump resumes the throne. Item 1)., “Church That Worships With AR-15 ….” provides a good background on this Moonie church with its militant heavily armed agenda. Item 2)., “Rod of Iron Ministries ….”, presents the actual “church” cermony of the “holy golden AR-15”.
Item 3)., “Cold-War Fascism, and Neo-Moonies: ….”, provides a very good detailed background of just who these Neo-Moonies are, details the convoluted story of the father of the current crop of Moonie Leaders, Rev. Sun Myung Moon. It discusses the many areas where the Unification Church supported, often with massive amounts of money, murderous death squad campaigns in Third World places including El Salvador, Argentina, Guatemala, and the Philippines. As always the Mint Press News article is detailed and thorough in its examination of the background of the Moonies.
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Church that worships with AR-15 is giving away Trump rifle
There have been two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump this election cycle, but that is not stopping the Rod of Iron Ministries from holding a raffle for a Trump-themed AR-15 at its annual Freedom Festival this weekend.
People are encouraged to register early for the Freedom Festival to receive free tickets and the chance to win a "Trump AR-15."
The festival is put on by the Rod of Iron Ministries, a group headquartered outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, that allows its congregants to bring their weapons to church. The group offers courses for pistol and rifle marksmanship, home defense shotgun and the "art of the draw."
Newsweek reached out to a representative of the Freedom Festival for comment.
Sunday services, which the group calls "Sanctuary Church," focus on scripture while also supporting "the right to bear arms and focuses on where God's word, politics, morality and culture intersect," according to the website.
Pastor Sean Moon, founder of the Rod of Iron Ministries, believes the AR-15 is an instrument of God's justice, the "rod of iron" from Revelation 2:27. Moon is the son of the late global religious leader Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader of the Unification Church.
"The citizens of the Kingdom of God, who will share in Christ's sovereignty, bear the responsibility to defend their family, neighbors, and nation with their own rod of iron," Moon wrote in his book, Rod of Iron Kingdom, according to Rolling Stone.
The ministries' rallies are meant for "Christian patriots." The website says that they stand for issues of law and order, traditional families, medical freedoms, life and the U.S. Constitution.
"We are Constitutional Christians who are serious about electoral integrity and also believe in Making America Godly Again," the website says.
Moon's prayers to his community for "a kingdom of peace police and peace militia where the citizens, through the right given to them by almighty God to keep and bear arms, will be able to protect one another and protect human flourishing," Business Insider reported in 2018. The ceremony blessed the group's marriages as well as their weapons.
Moon has given other sermons, like one from 2023, in which he said "all human beings should have the right to self-defense" and that "God sent good men with guns."
This year's Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, which starts on Friday, will feature the premier of Retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn's movie Deliver the Truth. Whatever the Cost. at the Tommy Gun Warehouse Grounds in Greeley, Pennsylvania.
Flynn was the White House national security adviser under Trump for less than a month before he resigned and was charged with lying to the FBI about conservations he had with Russians on Trump's behalf. He pleaded guilty twice but was eventually pardoned by Trump. Flynn, with Oklahoma entrepreneur Clay Clark, launched the ReAwaken America Tour, a far-right and Christian nationalist movement, and has been a leader in peddling claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
The rest of the Freedom Festival weekend features an art show, a session with Tom Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a talk by the author of STEALTH: Kamala Harris' Communist Roots, as well as a gun auction with proceeds benefiting the Friends of the NRA.
A shooting range will also be an "ongoing activity" throughout Saturday and Sunday by the Kahr Firearms Group.
Gun control does not rank as a top issue in an election mostly focused on the economy, despite several high-profile instances of gun violence this year that have come amid the presidential contest.
The most shocking was on July 13, when Trump was grazed by a would-be assassin's bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. An AR-15 was used by Thomas Matthew Crooks to shoot the former president, striking his ear and killing one crowd member.
On September 4, two students and two teachers were fatally shot by a student at Apalachee High School near Winder, Georgia.
Two weeks ago, another would-be assassin hid in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, as the former president played. A Secret Service agent noticed the suspect before he was able to take a shot, possibly saving Trump's life again.
As of March 2023, one in 20 Americans owned an AR-15, which was about 16 million people nationwide, according to research from The Washington Post and Ipsos.
The Pew Research Center's June election polling showed voters "have starkly different opinions" about gun ownership, with 80 percent of President Joe Biden supporters saying it is important to control gun ownership. As almost identical inversion, 85 percent of Trump supporters had said it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.
On Wednesday, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online surveys taken on September 26 and between September 29 and 30 found that 51 percent of likely voters believe the country needs stricter gun control laws.
Earlier this week, Trump during a rally in Wisconsin called on gun owners to vote for him, saying that despite his endorsement from the National Rifle Association in May, gun owners don't "vote much."
A website lists a weapon, titled "The MAGA Patriot AR 15," as an "extremely limited, custom-designed, commemorative AR-15 designed to 'Trump' every other rifle available."
The website states that behind the initiative is Caleb Lee, the founder of a shooting training center and "boutique gun manufacturing firm" in Alabama. The first 20 MAGA Patriot guns cost $2,997 each, and, according to the website, they come with six bonus gifts, including 30-round Magpul magazines, a "covert" rifle carrying soft case, a rifle training course at Lee's firing school and more.
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Rods of Iron, Cold-War Fascism, and Neo-Moonies: The Bizarre Story Behind the AR-15 Church Ceremony
Moon’s Unification Church — which formed at around the same time as L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology — earned notoriety for its mass weddings between total strangers and its massive chaebol business empire. The reputation for eccentricity eventually took a sinister turn after stories of sleep deprivation, enforced malnutrition, forced labor, physical abuse, and sophisticated forms of mind control at Unification camps began to catch headlines.
Hyung-jin Moon formed the Pennsylvania-based Sanctuary Church with the support of his arms-manufacturer brother, Kook-jin “Justin” Moon, following the death of his father.
In a 2016 video posted to Hyung-jin’s YouTube channel, President Donald Trump’s son Eric can be seen speaking at the opening of the Tommy Gun Warehouse in Greeley, PA, a business owned by Kook-jin Moon’s Kahr Firearms Group. Afterwards, Hyung-jin is seen socializing with Eric Trump and assorted militiamen as his wife and church co-leader, Yeon Ah Lee-moon, engages in animated conversation with Eric’s wife, Lara.
Watch | Eric Trump at the Tommy Gun Warehouse grand opening
Like his father, Rev. Hyung-jin is an ultra-right anti-communist extremist. Clad in camouflage jackets, a bullet crown, and black Carhartt overalls, Hyung-jin nurses a single-minded obsession with the divine power of firearms, martial arts, and the “Rod of Iron.”
In a February sermon, Hyung-jin uses the language of the alt-right in a three-hour rant in which he comes off as a macho, spoiled rich-kid — not unlike Eric Trump or Donald Trump, Jr. Speaking in a rapid, clipped tone, he offers “Bro”-accented fulminations to parishioners about how they’re “little babies” and “little beta-male wimps, beta-girl, beta-women wimps,” “dumb idiots” who have “clearly never been beat up by MMA guys” or “high-level alpha-guys” like him who can “see right through your crap.”
The latest neo-Moonie stunt provides ample reason for looking into the strange history of the Moon sect, which was born in the neo-fascist national security and foreign intelligence circles of Asia at the dawn of the Cold War.
Washington’s King of Peace (or Lord of War)
Reverend Sun Myung Moon died in 2012 at age 92 while firmly at the helm of a lucrative religious and commercial empire.
The controversy surrounding Moon – who was variously called a tax swindler, a media kingpin, a spy, and a real estate mogul – reached an apex in 2004 when he was crowned the “King of Peace” in a ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington that was attended by a dozen U.S. lawmakers, including Senator Lindsey Graham.
The event was organized by a Moonie front group, the Interreligious and International Peace Council, which claims to represent Christians, Jews and Muslims. Lubovitch orthodox Rabbi Mordecai Waldman even sounded a shofar and proclaimed Moon the “messiah,” declaring:
I have never seen this miracle where Jews, Christians and Muslims come together for peace!”
Watch | Sun Myung Moon crowned King of Peace at the US Senate building
Wearing white gloves, Congressman Danny K. Davis carried a pillow with a crown to Moon and his wife as they were dubbed “the King and Queen of Peace.”
Wearing regal, medieval-style robes and speaking before the crowd of dignitaries in Korean, “King” Moon spoke of his numerous seances with figures from the “spirit world”:
[M]any other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new person … Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution…. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”
Days later, Moon official Chung Hwan Kwak crowed:
The crowning means America is saying to Father, ‘Please become my king.’ … The ‘outside’ view of the Capitol Hill event was that Father received a crown, an award for his years of dedication and leadership in reconciliation and peace-making. The ‘inside’ view of the event was that America surrendered to True Parents in the king’s position.”
From humble preacher to global anti-communist kingpin
Born on Jan. 6, 1920, in present-day North Korea during the period of Japanese colonialism, Moon joined the Presbyterian Church when he was 10 years old, a convert from the Confucian tradition.
Moon claimed that while praying at the age of 16, he received a revelation from Jesus Christ beseeching him to establish God’s kingdom on earth, prompting him to become a preacher. Later, he recounted that he was visited by a range of other religious figures from the spirit world, including (but not limited to) Abraham, Moses, the Lord Buddha, and the Prophet Muhammad.
Following the Japanese defeat, the preacher moved to Seoul where he attended a church headed by a pastor who called Korea the “new Israel,” stipulating that a new messiah would soon arise – a message Moon clearly took to heart.
He eventually brought his messianic proselytizing to Pyongyang, where he founded the Kwang-Ya Church and allegedly took part in sexual rites with his flock. Moon was subsequently arrested by the state security forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on suspicion of spying for the rival right-wing Republic of Korea, which was backed by the United States and had been undertaking a major campaign of repression against Korean leftists. In 1954, Moon was freed by advancing U.S. troops. Later in Seoul, Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity or Unification Church.
A 1978 article from the Washington Star shows that a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency report dated 1963 said (South) Korean CIA founding director Kim Jong-pil “organized the Unification Church … and has been using the church, which has a membership of 27,000, as a political tool.”
In the 1986 book Inside the League, authors Scott and Jon Lee Anderson detail Moon’s shady role in the cloak-and-dagger Cold War politics of the time:
One Moon mission was to rally anti-communist, pro-Korean forces in Asia. With the backing of the Korean government and with funds coming partly from his share in state-controlled Korean industries, including the Tong-il Armaments Company, .. Moon established the International Federation for the Extermination of Communism. Although the dramatic name probably endeared him to the Korean military, it was a little much for other countries; the U.S. branch was called the Freedom Leadership Foundation.”
Moon eventually linked up with like-minded Japanese tycoons and ultranationalists who were accused of grievous war crimes during the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes Trials.
One of Moon’s backers was yakuza (Japanese mafia) crime boss and fascist organizer Yoshio Kodama (1911-1984). The notorious Kodama earned fame as a shameless looter of Southeast Asia and China through his private army, the Kodama Kikan. He was also an opium trader, original financier of the present ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and a “behind-the-scenes power-broker” of U.S. military contractor Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Kodama was later revealed to have extensive ties with the CIA — but the agency never trusted the opportunist yakuza don owing to his corrupt nature as a “professional liar, gangster, charlatan and outright thief.”
Moon’s primary Japanese backer — “Japan’s archangel,” in his own words — was philanthropist Ryoichi Sasakawa (1899-1995). Sasakawa was a pre-war fascist leader, proud Class-A war-crimes suspect, and billionaire magnate, who cut his teeth alongside Kodama as a war-profiteer in the Japanese campaigns of aggression during World War II before becoming a gambling tycoon after the war. In his advanced years, he resorted to shameless Moon-like self-promotion, funding a number of NGO initiatives in his own name and attempting to bribe his way to a Nobel Peace Prize as a way to recast his legacy as one of humanitarianism. This was accompanied by an outlandish multimillion-dollar series of TV commercials depicting him as a sweet old man, and literature such as the 1981 biography Sasakawa: The Warrior for Peace, the Global Philanthropist.
An Imperial-era Mussolini-admirer who flew the first entirely Japanese-made airplane to Rome to meet Il Duce, Sasakawa took pride in his close friendships with the dictators Syngman Rhee of South Korea, Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, and the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos. The philanthropist was also a World Anti-Communist League founding member who bragged to Time magazine, “I am the world’s richest fascist.” From around 1960 onwards, the Japanese blackshirt Sasakawa was a top advisor and principal funder of the Moon organization’s religious-commercial empire.
Moon’s worldwide business ventures could only expand from there, and eventually included newspapers in various countries (including the right-wing Washington Times), seafood multinational corporation True World Foods, United Press International news agency, the five-star Marriott Hotel in Seoul, a titanium mine, a pharmaceuticals and tea company, tens of thousands of acres of land in South America, a ballet company, a construction firm, a car plant in China (and eventually in North Korea), and a weapons plant belonging to Tongil (“Unification”) Heavy Industries in South Korea.
The Andersons offered evidence that the Japanese ultra-rightists’ close alliance with Moon wasn’t a matter of their shared politics alone. There was a much more pragmatic reason for the partnership — namely, the smuggling of arms to the Japanese yakuza gangs who doubled as fascist anti-labor shock brigades:
Since the end of World War II, Japan has had extremely strict gun-control laws, and weapons for the yakuza gangs have had to be smuggled in one by one. Under the Korean government’s patronage, the Unification Church owned and operated Tong-il Industries. Tong-il is a weapons manufacturer that makes rifles and components for M-16 assault rifles. It also operates the Yewha Air Gun Company in Kyonggi-Do, Korea.
In 1975, seven years after the Yamanashi conference, the Japanese importer of air rifles from Korea was a shadow company, Angus Arms Company, which was not registered or in any corporate directory. The rifles, according to political analyst Pharris Harvey in a memorandum to the House Subcommittee on International Relations in May 1978, ‘are sold, exclusively it seems to members of Shokyo Rengo and UC [Unification Church].’”
The M16 assault rifle is, of course, the U.S. military variant of the ArmaLite AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that the Pennsylvania congregants were clutching on Wednesday. The Moon organization denies that it took part in the manufacturing of those firearms.
A multinational paramilitary Messiah
When Moon relocated to the United States, he quickly integrated into right-wing Republican circles, warming to several figures including President Richard Nixon. The eccentric anti-communist earned fame during the Watergate scandal when he fasted three days on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building in a bid to prevent God from letting Nixon be impeached, calling his National Prayer and Fast for the Watergate Crisis “the only way to heal and unite this nation.”
In 1978, following Watergate, Moon’s fortunes briefly soured after he was implicated in the Koreagate scandal, where he was found to have played a role in the bribery of U.S. officials by South Korean businessmen.
In a withering report by the Congressional Subcommittee on International Organizations, the Unification Church was called “a multinational corporation … a paramilitary organization … and a tightly disciplined international political party.” The report added:
Among the goals of the Moon Organization is the establishment of a worldwide government in which the separation of church and state would be abolished and which would be governed by Moon and his followers.”
The investigation into Moon’s proprieties was dropped after Ronald Reagan was elected president. In 1982, however, he was found guilty of tax fraud and sentenced to 18 months in prison — drawing the protests of U.S. clergy, including the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Upon his release after 13 months, Moon became fast friends with U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Senators Strom Thurmond and Orrin Hatch, former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, Reverend Jerry Falwell, and numerous other notable figures in Western Cold War geopolitics.
Moon’s newspaper, The Washington Times, was founded in 1982. Before long, the Times became a major propaganda outlet and attack dog for the Republican Party, as well as the Unification Church’s global business empire and extreme right-wing network. As late investigative journalist Robert Parry wrote in his extensive expose of the Times:
The Times … has targeted American politicians of the center and left with journalistic attacks — sometimes questioning their sanity, as happened with Democratic presidential nominees Michael Dukakis and Al Gore. Those themes then resonate through the broader right-wing echo chamber and into the mainstream media.
Washington Times articles are routinely cited by C-SPAN, for instance, without explanations to viewers that the newspaper is financed by an ultra-right religious cult leader, a convicted tax fraud and a publicly identified money-launderer. Most American listeners just think they’re getting straightforward news.
The Times also has led attacks on investigators who threatened to expose crimes committed by Republican and right-wing operatives. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Times targeted Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, who recounted in his memoir Firewall the importance of the Times in protecting the Reagan-Bush administration’s legal flanks.
Moon’s organization played a strong role pumping funds and support into anti-communist efforts in South and Central America throughout the 70s and 80s, through the Confederation of the Associations for the Unification of the Societies of the Americas (CAUSA), which promoted “Godism” as an answer to “godless” Marxism-Leninism and Catholic liberation theology.
While Catholics abhorred the Unification Church initiative — the Honduras Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops said the group was “truly anti-Christian” and promulgated “a species of material and spiritual slavery” — the Moon organization continued to fund Latin American death-squad leaders and right-wing officials, even organizing trips to South Korea to meet their right-wing Korean cohorts.
CAUSA boasted of its presence in nearly every Latin American country. Members offered financial and logistical aid — including basic supplies, cash and emergency relief — to the MISURA indigenous contras of Nicaragua who fought the Sandinistas. War correspondent Scott Anderson directly observed anti-communist combatants in Honduras wearing red CAUSA T-shirts.
Moon’s reputation eventually suffered amid increased scrutiny and widespread mockery of his mass wedding ceremonies, as well as his anti-semitism, homophobia, sexism, family in-fighting, and racism.
However, his enduring clout was confirmed in 2004 at the notorious Washington “messiah” ceremony.
Watch | Legacy of South Korea’s Unification Church under threat
Palace intrigues plague the True Family
While Sun Myung died in 2012, his empire still thrives. The Unification cult dubs the Moons the “true family” — implying infallible, divine perfection, despite tales of cocaine abuse, adultery and partying that would make Tony Montana blush — yet the Moons have had no shortage of embarrassing games of thrones.
Sun Myung’s seventh son Hyung-jin “Sean” Moon was passed the baton as rightful heir to the Unification Church in 2008 but, after the elder’s death, a succession struggle tore the family apart. Hyung-jin’s mother, Hak-ja Han, demanded he return to Korea in what amounted to a coup against the anointed “Second King” — an event known to Sanctuary neo-Moonies as “the fall of the Han Mother.”
Instead, Hyung-jin moved to Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, and declared the Unification Church invalid and the new Sanctuary Church to be the “true” Moonie faith.
Hyung-jin had the support of his brother, Kook-jin “Justin” Moon, the founder and head of Kahr Firearms Group, a U.S.-based arms manufacturer affiliated with the Tongil Group that owns the Kahr Arms, Auto-Ordnance and Magnum Research brands.
A brief perusal of Hyung-jin’s sermons reveals a young man who’s still seething and snorting with rage over his mother’s having “betrayed Christ.”
In an online invitation to a “President Trump Thank You Dinner,” the Sanctuary Church declares:
President Trump has stepped into his calling as God’s representative. We all have to be serious to do our best to support the providence and help convince Senators that The (Concealed Carry) Reciprocity Act HR38 needs to become law.”
With its bullet crowns, AR-15 honor guard, and outlandish origin story, Rod of Iron Ministries may be one of the most bizarre “Mad Max”-style cults in modern U.S. history. The sect’s sudden appearance on the U.S. public radar is a reflection not only of the country’s gun culture, but of U.S. imperialism’s history of political dealings with corrupt reactionaries and religious extremists across the globe.
Top Photo | The Rev. Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, the leader of Unification Sanctuary, left, and his wife, Rev. Yeon Ah Lee Moon. preside over a ceremony at the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, Wednesday Feb. 28, 2018 in Newfoundland, Pa. The woman seated at the back is Hyun Shil Kang, who is regarded by the Unification Sanctuary as the first disciple and follower of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, as well as his spiritual wife. (AP/Jacqueline Larma)
Elliott Gabriel is a former staff writer for teleSUR English and a MintPress News contributor based in Quito, Ecuador. He has taken extensive part in advocacy and organizing in the pro-labor, migrant justice and police accountability movements of Southern California and the state’s Central Coast.
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