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Called an “excellent apologetic for the 2nd Amendment” and “handbook for dealing with some big mistakes people make when talking about this Amendment, self-defense and limiting the power of government,” Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America, urges citizens to read the “Rod of Iron Kingdom” by Pastor Hyung Jin Sean Moon. For, as we have witnessed again and again, most tragically in school shootings, such as the Parkland, FL mass shooting described in this book, we cannot rely on mere local, state, and federal law enforcement nor politicians, schoolteachers, and or administrators to protect our children and communities from evil.
And what we also find here is a plea to reacquire the Judeo-Christian principles inscribed within the founding documents of the nation, designed to protect freedoms and liberties of the American citizen. And in the spirit of the ‘Black Robed Ministers’ of the pre-Revolutionary War within the original 13 colonies - who led many of the first militias in this country which defended Lexington and Concord - Pastor Moon takes up the cause of also defending the natural God-given rights of all Americans under attack today from the radical Left.
First, Pastor Moon analyzes the ‘Civil War’ in America, as a battle where the “existence and authority of a Supreme Being, God, stands against a belief in an ‘enlightened’ class of ‘experts,’” who compete at the local, state, national, and global levels, too. In this analysis, he sees a small cast of self-described experts usher in this era of “Left-Administrative Branches threatening the democratic consensus of the people, and the very foundation and fabric of this Republic.” And, what can happen when “people replace faith in God with secular ideology,” he points to the estimated 150 million civilians who were killed by their own governments in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, Cambodia, Turkey, etc. during the 20th Century alone. In all these nations, the citizens were disarmed, leaving them largely defenseless against these mass murders.
Next, he takes up the leftist fascist threat to the West most blatantly revealed in America during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration’s New Deal which “envisions a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporate state as it exists in Italy.” This FDR-fashioned federation of centralized power, points out Pastor Moon, resembles the same fascist practice put in place by Hitler’s national socialism. And this “progressive” federation in the U.S., said Mussolini at the time, is a “sea change (that) resembles that of Fascism,” and which stands opposed to ‘Classic French-Anglo liberalism’ which upholds the value of individualism, free markets, and decentralized power.
Thirdly, Pastor Moon identifies Biblical sources that are not only the sources of the founders and colonial people’s spirit and worldview, but are also reflected in the founding documents, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights, inscribed within the first 10 amendments. He traces these sources from the Psalms to Jesus’ preaching of the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom,’ to Revelations, where he sees the ‘Rod of Iron’ as the natural “accoutrement and power” given God’s people to be used within the context of the moral order described in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount to protect and defend the individual, family, community, state, nation, and indeed, all the peoples of the world. Thus, armed with the word of God, who has called His people, each one is to also take dominion of the use of this ‘Rod of Iron’ in defense of the sovereignty and authority He has given Christ’s co-heirs of His Kingdom.
Pastor Moon wraps up his straightforward apologetic outlining the historically rooted description of the practical and spiritual underpinnings of what he sees to be the ‘Rod of Iron Kingdom’. Thus, he states that it follows that “we are each responsible for our own defense.” And therefore, must “each seek and master the way of the ‘Rod of Iron’ self-defense to protect ourselves and others.” And, that the “age that government centralizes and dominates all aspects of life is over. Families should no longer delegate control over their health, education and survival to bureaucracies whose agendas do not align with or tolerate our Godly values.” As, co-heirs with Christ of the Kingdom, and so, “co-kings and queens, we must, claim the sovereignty given us by God, not to oppress others as satanic leaders do, but to empower and protect all of the peoples of this world.”
This is a well-grounded, common-sense understanding that God’s Kingdom on earth must be one where the natural and God-given rights of the people, enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, are practiced in all aspects of daily life. Thus, a greater self-reliance is required. And here, I am reminded of the mantra of the American writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his famous essay on ‘Self-Reliance,’ in which he wrote: “self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their associations; in their property; in their speculative views.” And this revolution, Emerson said must begin with prayer which he defines as “the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view,” and a “soliloquy of the jubilant soul,” which “sees prayer in all action,” including the “farmer kneeling in the field.”
Altogether, Pastor Moon urges the full development of our human and God-given capacity inwardly, spiritually, as well as outwardly, with our bare hands and with the ‘Rod of Iron,’ if necessary, in order to ‘take dominion,’ build and defend His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.
