Rod of Iron Freedom Festival is the work of a gun-worshipping cult

To the Editor:

In the past few weeks I have noted several instances where this little town paper has included some pretty questionable content. First a nearly full-page rant penned by David J. Tongo Sr. which, among other things, stated that we need to have a “traditional election” (meaning no mail-in votes during a global pandemic) and urged us all to read Sean Hannity’s new book “Live Free or Die” so that we might be graced with the “facts.” Second, an extremely illuminating letter to the editor from Gregory Agen entitled “Those who vote for Biden are truly imbeciles incarnate,” which was every bit as well thought out and worthwhile as the title suggests.

But this week’s paper takes the cake with the decision to run the ad for the “Rod of Iron Freedom Festival,” which prominently features the speaker H.J. Sean Moon, offspring of Sun Myung Moon and yes, the founder of the “Moonies” cult from the 70’s-80’s. Well H.J. Sean has formed a homophobic splinter offshoot cult all his own now (Rod of Iron Ministries), which centers around gun worship to protect against “satanic influences.” Not gun ownership, or enthusiasm.....but actual worship.

To highlight this fact, this self-styled maniac messiah wears a crown of large caliber ammunition, as one can see by looking at his picture within the advertisement in The Sparta Independent, which also encourages one to “enter to win a Trump Tommy Gun” (their emphasis). The “parishioners” take their AK-47s to “church” with them. You can find them on any number of cult documentaries which feature other famous cults like the Jonestown Kool-Aid drinkers, Heaven’s Gate, the Manson family, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s cult, Fundamentalist LDS and (dare I mention) Scientology.

Make no mistake, this is a cult, and if I had to take a wild guess, a fairly dangerous one. I am not anti-gun, but you better believe that I am anti-gun worshipping cult, or to be honest, really any cult at all. A perusal of their website additionally suggests some “helpful links” for your valued readers to such wonderful sites as InfoWars, Alex Jones Prison Planet, and CNSnews (“the right news, right now”).

Clean up your act SI and stop selling out your readers’ integrity for a couple of dirty dollars. I would urge you to consider that children in this community read this paper because they often are featured inside. Do you really want to be responsible for lending any kind of legitimacy to this type of organization?

Alex Paraskos

Sparta