The Moonie Gun Church

[_Maksutov]

http://www.cultnews101.com/2018/02/loca ... r-day.html

Frances Ruth Harris
The Pike County Courier
February 20, 2018

NEWFOUNDLAND — A multi-day festival to celebrate assault rifles begins in Pike County just one week after one was used to gun down more than 30 people, 17 fatally, in a Parkland, Fla., school.

In recent years, the famous Moon family has brought to Pike County both a company that sells assault rifles and a church that puts them at the center of religious observances. The church's pastor and his followers say their devotion to the AR-15, a weapon of war used again and again in the nation's worst mass shootings, is rooted in Christian love. They do not see the police or the military as a sufficient bulwark against "the tyrants," "the wicked," or "the mafias...raping our children." Nor do they trust public schools, which they say are indoctrinating children into homosexuality. The pastor says it's up to heavily armed "local militias" to save "our children."

The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland will uphold these ideals at its Festival of Grace from Feb. 22 to 28. It includes a "President Trump Thank You" gun rights dinner in Matamoras on Saturday night, and a Day to Bear Arms at the church and training ground next Wednesday, Feb. 28. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Watch calls the church, also called the Rod of Iron Church, an "anti-LGBT sect."

A blessing for assault rifles Pastor Hyung Jin Moon is the youngest son and spiritual heir of Sun Myung Moon, the Messianic founder known for presiding over mass weddings in Madison Square Garden and other large venues back in the 1980s. On the Day to Bear Arms in Newfoundland, Pastor Moon will bless assault rifles, or receipts for rifles, brought in by attendees.

“Attending the blessing, either with an AR15 or alike or without, is valid, but to attend with an AR15 would be a substantial ‘perfection stage’ blessing," says the invitation on the group's website.

The church has its own militia, the Peace Police Peace Militia, and trains members onsite in the handling of knives and guns.