Worshipping the AR-15: Cult, Church, or the American Way?

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“This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.”

— Rifleman’s Creed, Major General William H. Rupertus (1941)

Yesterday, worshippers at the Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland, PA exchanged and renewed wedding vows armed with AR-15 rifles. News sources including the Associated Press, CNN, The Washington Post, and NPR carried the story widely, describing the church members as “clutching” the guns during the service and implying that they were objects of worship. The stories went on to note that the church’s leader, Reverend Hyung Jin (aka Sean) Moon, equates the AR-15 with the “rod of iron” described in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (Rev. 2:27). Indeed, the Sanctuary Church’s advertisement for the event stated:

"Blessed couples are requested to bring the accoutrements of the nation of Cheon Il Guk, crowns representing the sovereignty of Kings and Queens, a ‘rod of iron,’ designated by the Second King as an AR15 semiautomatic rifle or equivalents such as an AK semiautomatic rifle, representing both the intent and the ability to defend one’s family, community and ‘nation of Cheon Il Guk,’”

I think it's fair to say that what some would call “the liberal media” jumped at a chance to dismiss the church event as something worthy of ridicule at best and fear at worst. Indeed, with the event coming just two weeks after one of the most lethal school shootings in US history, the nearby Wallenpaupack South Elementary School moved its students to a location farther away from the church.

But let’s look a little deeper in search of the real story behind the event. First of all, the Newfoundland Sanctuary Church is also known as The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary or Rod of Iron Ministries. It's described as an offshoot of the Unification Church, which was founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon in the 1970s (based upon claims of brainwashing and its mass wedding ceremonies involving thousands of members at a time, the Unification Church was popularly derided as a cult in the public eye and its members labeled “Moonies”). Reverend Hyung Jin Moon is Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s youngest son. After his father died in 2012, he was named successor, but fell into a power struggle with his mother and instead split from the Unification Church to form the Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland. In the quotation above, “Cheon Il Guk” (translated as “the Nation of Cosmic Peace and Unity”) refers to the church’s ideal of a heaven on earth. “The Second King” refers to Reverend Hyung Jin Moon.

With that explained, it’s worth noting that Revered Sun Myung Moon was the founder of The Washington Times, a newspaper that's generally considered to be conservative-leaning. Kook Jin (aka Justin) Moon, another son of Revered Sun Myung Moon, is the founder and owner of the Kahr Arms, an American handgun manufacturer. And according to The Chicago Tribune, Kahr Arms and the Sanctuary Church co-hosted a “President Trump Thank You Dinner” on Wednesday, just before its AR-15 friendly wedding event. Suffice it to say that the Moon family has generally aligned itself with “conservative values” and pro-gun politics.

This is evident when we read Reverend Hyung Jin Moon’s post to the Sanctuary Church’s Facebook page the day before the wedding ceremony:

“Contrary to what you have probably read, the Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland is not “blessing guns.” On February 28, several hundred couples will gather to (re)dedicate their marriages to each other and most importantly to God.

We do not worship the “rod of iron.” We worship God who created us in His image and desires to have a personal relationship with each one of us. We seek His blessing on our marriages because we believe that He dwells most deeply in the love between husband and wife and between parents and children. Such blessed marriages are the building blocks of strong communities and the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

…In the Book of Revelation, Christ speaks repeatedly of “ruling with a rod of iron” (Rev. 2:27), but the true meaning of the Greek word, “poimano” means to “shepherd” or “protect.” The scripture tells us that God will shepherd His children with the rod of iron, guarding the flock not as a dictator, but as a loving father.

In the same way, each of us is called to use the power of the “rod of iron” not to harm or oppress as has been done in the satanic kingdoms of this world, but to protect God’s children.

We saw in the horrific shooting that took place in Parkland, Florida, the repeated failure of government institutions to protect the lives of 17 students, teachers and staff members.

The local authorities were contacted 39 times about the out-of-control and violent behavior of the shooter, but did nothing. Two citizens contacted the FBI with specific information about his threats to do a “school shooting,” but the FBI also did nothing.

98% of mass shootings in the last 60 years have taken place in “Gun Free Zones.” The idea that passing such laws will protect our sons and daughters is a dangerous and delusional fantasy.

You and I are responsible to protect our families, communities and, ultimately, our nation. The “rod of iron” allows not only strong men, but also women and the elderly to have the ability to protect themselves and others from such predators.”

So what’s the real story here? A Pennsylvania church, a “new religious movement” that strongly supports gun ownership for self-defense, held a ceremony in which parishioners were encouraged to bring AR-15s to a wedding event. And, to be clear, the church noted that the guns were unloaded.

Is that especially weird or dangerous? Maybe to some, but weirdness is a matter of perspective. Back in 2001, I wrote an academic paper called “Faith or Delusion? At the Crossroads of Religion and Psychosis” that discussed how to disentangle religious delusions that are part of mental illness from religious faith that is part of normal human experience.¹ The key is to avoid being distracted by the subjective strangeness of a belief and to instead focus on its so-called cognitive aspects, with extreme conviction and preoccupation more likely to be pathological and associated with dangerous behavior.

I haven’t read anything in the news about the Sanctuary Church that suggests pathological extremes of religious belief. I haven’t heard anything about a history of violence with members of its congregation. And although it may be tempting to write off the church as "crazy," I haven't heard of anything they do that would set them that far apart from other religious faiths in the US. For example, although the Southern Poverty Law Center denounces the Sanctuary Church as an "anti-LGBT cult," the church's homophobia puts them dead center of most other Evangelical churches. As religious celebrations go, a gun-friendly wedding is hardly more strange than the more well-known snake handling practices of the hundred or so Pentacostal, Holiness, and Charismatic Churches in the southeast US that claim a life every few years. And hosting wedding ceremonies that involve hundreds of couples at a sitting is obviously drawn from the playbook of the Unification Church which has spread worldwide. So while recent news reports about the Sanctuary Church might make it sound strange and cultish, that could be said of most mainstream religious beliefs and rituals from the perspective of an atheist.

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The Secret of the Self, According to the Upanishads

What then, do we make of the Sanctuary Church’s alleged worship of the AR-15? Fake news, to an extent. The reverence for the gun that’s described by the church members sounds well within the bounds of standard American conservatism. Indeed, according to an NPR article reviewing the history of the AR-15, “the National Rifle Association estimates there are some eight million AR-15s and its variations in circulation, and says they are so popular that the ‘AR’ should stand for ‘America’s Rifle.’”

A few years ago, I wrote an article for Aeon magazine called “Running Amok” about mass shootings as an unfortunate extreme of America’s popular gun obsession. In it, I noted:

“Over the past century, generations of US boys have grown up romanticising the Wild West by playing ‘cowboys and Indians’ with replica six-shooters, battling each other as ‘cops and robbers’ armed with plastic revolvers, or staging vast campaigns of toy soldiers in which opposing armies were gunned down in droves. More recently, ‘first-person shooter’ simulations featuring both military and criminal role-plays have become some of the most successful video games of all time. A casual perusal of the top-grossing films of the past two decades is replete with examples of movies intended for children and adults alike that glorify gun violence along with posters featuring heroes posing with firearms, even in comedies.”

In a previous Psych Unseen blogpost called “The Psychology of Guns” that attempted to shed light on why some people revere their guns so, I summarized this by simply writing “gun culture is American culture.”

Recently, Baylor sociologists F. Caron Mencken and Paul Froese used data from a survey of gun owners to conclude that for some people in the US, fervent gun enthusiasm has become a kind of substitute for religion:

"For [a] distinct group of gun owners, gun empowerment delivers a sense of meaning to life that neither economic status nor religious devotion currently provide. These owners’ attachment to guns draws directly from popular narratives concerning American masculinity, freedom, heroism, power, and independence. In turn, owners who feel more emotionally and morally empowered by their guns are more likely to think that guns can solve social problems and make communities safer, and that citizens are sometimes justified in taking violent action against the government."²

And so, in the final analysis, the Sanctuary Church isn’t the Church of the AR-15. The Church of the AR-15 is the United States of America. Or half of it.

Is that crazy? Is the love many Americans have for their guns a cultish obsession or a healthy fetish? The answer, of course, depends on who you ask. And whether or not they own a gun.

To read more about the psychology of the gun control debate and about mass shooters, see:

The Psychology of Guns
Guns in America: What's Freud and Sex Got to Do With It?
Mass Shootings in America: Crisis and Opportunity
Mass Shootings, Psychiatric Medications, and Rick Perry
Active Shooters: Not Mentally Healthy, But Not Mentally Ill
When Racism Motivates Violence