Pennsylvania Church Tells Followers To Be Ready To Die For Trump In 'A Gun Fight With Police'
Rev. Hyung Jin, or Sean Moon, broadcasting from Scranton, Pa. Photo screenshot of the livestream, found on YouTube.
In a livestreamed address to his believers, self-proclaimed King of Kings Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, who also goes by “Sean,” warned his following that they must be prepared to take up arms and die for President Donald Trump against a future persecution of thought crimes by a globalist cabal.
"Do you understand what kind of unbelievable totalitarianism you will live under if you don't stand up against this crap?” Moon asked his followers from behind his broadcasting desk in Scranton, Pa. “And yes, you may have to die for it."
He also said even if the Democrats win with the election of Joe Biden, it’s his followers’ duty to stand up to them for President Trump to serve a second term. He did not elaborate on what that would look like.
Less than 24 hours after his broadcast, the video had more than 1,000 views, 95 thumbs up, and only one thumb down.
Moon is held as the undisputed and unquestioned King of Kings by his followers, often called Moonies outside the church. He derives his title and authority from his father, Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, who passed the torch to Sean in a coronation ceremony before his death in 2012. Their followers believe Sun Myung was the second coming of Jesus Christ, and use his book Divine Principle as an additional text to the Bible.
The Unification Church began in Seoul in 1954 and quickly amassed a worldwide following through missionary efforts. Sun Myung was born in what is now North Korea, and his family converted to Christianity when he was a child. He was sent to a North Korean labor camp as a young man for spying on the government for South Korea and moved to the U.S. in 1971. Sean Moon, Sun Myung’s youngest son, was born in New York in 1979. By 1975, the Unification movement had grown to host 1.2 million followers at an international gathering.
The Unification movement followers became known in American media for their mass arranged weddings, where Sun Myung would match couples in the church to marry on the spot, and allegations of sexual abuse and cult-like brainwashing from ex-members. Sun Myung was also convicted in 1984 for knowingly filing false income tax returns and served 13 months in prison, saying racial discrimination was in part to blame for his conviction. Some prominent evangelicals like Jerry Falwell publicly defended Sun Myung and saw the case as a threat to religious freedom.
Sean Moon’s group schismed from the Unification Church after in-fighting over leadership between the late Sun Myung Moon’s wife and Sean. Sean’s Pennsylvania-based Sanctuary Church claims to be the true successor to his father’s institution.
Moon preaches a set of God-given inalienable rights that are ideologically aligned with right-wing American political values, including the necessity of gun ownership, which the church encourages, and opposition to far left-wing political structures such as socialism and communism.
During the run-up to the 2020 election, Moon gathered followers from around the world — most from Korea and Japan — to campaign for President Trump in order to fight a Satanic encroachment upon the world by Communist China. Many took multi-week unpaid vacation from work or even quit their jobs to join Sean Moon’s political movement across Pennsylvania.
Japanese flags were seen across the state at Trump rallies as members from Japan promoted their “Japan Loves Trump” campaign. Members were optimistic about the ability of the president to fight back against “globalists” and “Satanists” from the Oval Office due to his status as an outsider.
The positivity of the movement, however, has now been replaced by a loud rage from Moon, who in his broadcast continuously pounded the table while insisting that his members must be prepared for violent clashes with government henchmen.
Moon now regularly wears an ornate crown made of bullets on his head as a symbol of his kingship.
"What kind of young person will you be?” Moon asked on the Nov. 12 live stream. “Are you gonna be the kind of little bitch that says, 'Oh, I'm under threat to die. Oh crap. But I really like life, and I really like video games. And if I just go along with this, maybe I can play for a couple more years. And be able to enjoy my life a little bit. And what about my wife and my young baby?'"
Moon dismissed any hypothetical excuses, emphatically yelling that the time may be too late for people to stand up to Satan, who is attacking the world en mass via political machinations domestically and abroad, saying, "You don't think every warrior on the face of the planet thinks about that? That is not an excuse. There comes a point in time where there is no turning back if you allow it to pass a certain precipice.”
He continued, yelling, "The place that you will raise your wife and children will be hell. And they will be taken from you, especially your children. And you will live in perpetual guilt for not doing the right thing."
Of the non-American followers attending Trump rallies around the clock, Moon said, "They should win a freaking medal. God bless them. They're out there three times a day, and there's a whole bunch of yellow people out there.”
Moon then quickly escalated in volume until he was shouting loudly, “It's like, where the freak are the Americans? What crack are you smoking? This is your freaking country, you idiot! Get your lazy ass up and get your ass out there! You're gonna lose it! You freaking idiot!"
At one point, Moon offered a hypothetical situation in a future police state under President-Elect Joe Biden and asks how many would be willing to “die in a pile of lead.”
"Let's say Biden gets in,” Moon said. “Let's say he orders confiscation of guns and passes executive orders on red flag laws. How many conservatives are actually going to go out in a pile of lead? Or brass, a pile of brass? That means you're going to be in a gun fight with the police. How many conservatives are going to do that? Because in a gun fight, because of the numbers, eventually, they'll probably win, and you will die. And your whole family will die.
In conclusion, the religious leader asks, “How many people are really that serious?”
Sanctuary Church seeks to establish an earthly kingdom of God that it claims was desired by both Jesus Christ and his successor, Sun Myung. However, both died before such a vision could be realized — a sovereign nation known as “Cheon Il Guk.”
The church’s official Constitution of Cheon Il Guk reads:
Cheon Il Guk, The Kingdom of God (and/or Heaven), a sovereign and actual nation does not yet exist in this world, but is the long awaited culmination of the End of Time as prophesied in the Biblical Scripture. The Divine Principle and the Eight Great Textbook Curriculum revealed by True Father, Christ at His second Coming, is the spiritual foundation of this Constitution. It is upon this foundation of these eternal truths that the future nation of Cheon Il Guk will be politically and legally established. This Constitution is not an ecclesiastical Constitution of a church or religious body, but is a Constitution for a real and sovereign, future nation, being the literal fruit of God’s Providence.
Death and a willingness to die for the cause was a recurring point throughout the sermon. At one point, Moon expressed that a well-ordered man should be proud to die for “God’s will,” and hope that his children and wife watch and learn from his death.
"Instead of the slow, ignominious, ignoble castration of the alpha-male... the slow killing of him anyway through the leftist system,” Moon said, visibly upset.
Moon believes Christianity is “a fighting sport”, not a “spectator sport” and Christians have a duty to fight the devil wherever he attacks, even to the death.
He asserted that such a death would prove most inspirational for the community, saying, "That is what inspires everybody, not just your children, or your grandchildren, or your spouse."
"Why do you fear dying? Don't you believe in a spirit world?” Moon asked. “Don't you believe in a life after death?"
Towards the end of his speech, Moon said that because time is now of the essence in securing the re-election of Trump, the last man sent by God that can save the world, people must give up anything that holds them back from giving their entire effort.
"This is your freaking country. And when there's a big rally, you've gotta come,” he said. “It doesn't matter if you're gonna be fired from your freaking job or not. You won't have a job, you won't have a damn country.”
Timothy Nerozzi is a writer and editor from northeastern Pennsylvania. He covers religious issues with a focus on the Catholic Church and Japanese society and culture.
Meagan Clark contributed reporting to this story. Meagan is the managing editor of Religion Unplugged.