The Leader of the Gun Church That Worships With AR-15s Is Now a MAGA Rapper
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The leader of a controversial religious sect that worships with AR-15s has been taking notes from the niche but growing music subgenre dubbed “MAGA Rap.”
Pastor Hyung-Jin “Sean” Moon, the flamboyant figurehead of the Rod of Iron Ministries (also known as The Sanctuary Church) has a YouTube channel where he’s spinning his far-right sermons into rap videos. (YouTube removed the channel shortly after VICE News reached out for comment).
Moon’s rap name is “King Bullethead,” and like others in the genre, he’s looking to spread far-right ideological positions through questionable rhymes and low-budget, bombastic music videos, often while taking aim at the LGBTQ community.
In “Eggplant Emoji,” Moon appears in a rural setting, clad in camouflage, wearing reflective Oakley-esque sunglasses, a crown of gold bullets balanced atop his bald head. He wears skeleton gloves and waves around a gold-plated AR-15.
A group of heavily-armed church members dressed in patriotic colors stand behind Moon, as he fast-raps about how children are being brainwashed into joining the LGBTQ community and praises conservative women who discriminate against trans women. “They got no shlong, ding dong, hot dog, johnny eggplant emoji/ they got no thang swinging between their legs and making them horny,” he raps. “Conservative women knows that only God can make ‘em man and women/ Love Jesus, family, guns, USA they be lovin’.”
In “Big MAGA 20,” Moon appears at the same desk where he usually delivers his rambling hours-long sermons (these days, they’re uploaded to Rumble since the church was kicked off YouTube years ago for spreading election and COVID-19 disinformation).
“They can’t stop us so they silence, censor and act like Communists,” he raps. “Politicians lie to get their power and form their little cliques/Politics is a combination of the words ‘poly’ and ‘ticks’/‘Poly’ means more than one, a few, a group of cliques, and ticks are parasites that suck your blood until the very last drip.”
Moon’s church, which imagines the “Rod of Iron” in the Bible’s Book of Revelations as a modern-day AR-15 and Jesus Christ as a manufacturer of assault weapons, is an example of an extremist group that, despite being somewhat insular and fringe, operates in lockstep with the broader far-right and GOP when it comes to fighting the culture war du jour.
Moon started his church in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, in 2017, with the help of his elder brother, the CEO of a gun manufacturing company called Kahr Arms. It was a spinoff from the Unification Church, an accused global cult founded and led by his late father, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose devoted adherents became known as “Moonies.” It was famous for holding mass weddings featuring thousands of couples.
Like his father, Hyung-Jin Moon has sought to fuse spirituality with right-wing politics, preaching a form of Christian nationalism that has increasingly crept into the GOP and pews nationwide. In his theological framework, anything he considers “unchristian” or progressive is dubbed “political satanism,” an evil force that’s working counter to the holy mission to restore God’s kingdom.
In late 2020, fighting “political satanism” meant contesting the results of the presidential election. Moon and other senior members of the church were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 (though there’s no evidence to suggest they went inside).
Content retrieved from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bvkj/rod-of-iron-ministries-sean-moon-rapper-king-bullethead.
