The Christian right has been gaining traction in Washington, D.C. under President Donald Trump. And now, one Trump-aligned religious group has their sights set on the moon.
“Cross on the Moon Coalition” says they are “on a spiritual mission to send a cross to the lunar surface to consecrate the heavens and remind humanity that God is the King of the universe.”
They say they want to do this by 2030 and have created animations and images showing a robotic cross unfolding from a lunar lander. On Wednesday, I published a video showing some of these incredible Moon Cross videos and also detailing the group’s connection to Trump.
(You can also check out the clip on my Instagram and YouTube pages. We would greatly appreciate if you would subscribe and follow along. There will be more TPM videos to come!)
I came across the “Cross on the Moon Coalition” when researching Freedom 250, the Trump-backed organization that redirected funding from the bipartisan group planning America’s anniversary celebrations and turned the event into a MAGA morass of corporate conflicts of interest, questionable conservative retellings of history and right-wing Christian nationalism.
The Freedom 250 website prominently features another initiative, “America Prays,” which largely seems to consist of an online platform where people can share their semi-anonymized prayers. Recent offerings have included things like; “Please pray 🙏 for my Son Dwight and I that we win our upcoming court case,” “open the eyes of the pastors of churches in the US to the importance of praying for Israel,” and “God bless President Donald J Trump, our great military and God bless America the beautiful.” “America Prays” also features an extensive list of “partners” that includes major right-wing Christian groups, individual churches, religious media companies, the “influencers” Jack Posobiec, Alex Bruesewitz, and “DC Draino,” and the “Cross on the Moon Coalition.”
Justin Park, founder of the coalition, gave an interview to the Catholic Messenger, a church-backed publication in his home state of Iowa. In it, Park talked about the group’s lunar ambitions and how it hopes to achieve this galactic goal.
“(The cross) sits on top of a lunar lander, and yeah, it’s got a little high-gain antenna on top,” Park said. “There’s also a drill … It augers into the lunar (surface) because we also don’t want to get knocked over later on … (We’ll) have a video stream of the earth, and in front of it will be Jesus Christ.”
Park says he carries a miniature moon cross lander almost everywhere he goes. According to the coalition’s website, the group hopes to make “millions” of similar models to give to “believers around the world.”
Of course, all of this will not be cheap. Park said he hopes the Moon Cross can hitch a ride on a commercial spaceflight craft. He knows that will cost well over a million dollars and, as of last month, Park told the Catholic Messenger the coalition had “raised about a quarter of a million.” But Park has a plan for how to get the rest of the cash.
“The idea is really to find a big space advocate who hasn’t found the Lord yet. Ideally, we would want to convert someone like Elon Musk. The world would just be a whole lot better if we could, evangelize Musk and then make him into an evangelist,” Park told the Messenger.
Earlier this week, I emailed Park to see how all of that is going. He told me they “are actively fund-raising and working towards evangelizing the tech community.”
“Reaching Elon and others is an ongoing process that our team works on and prays for every day,” Park wrote.
I also asked Park about the political aspect of his coalition. He told me that the group is “definitely aligned with Trump’s efforts to bring more prayer to America.”
“I have volunteered at multiple Freedom 250 events and applaud his participation in honoring our Savior Jesus Christ,” Park wrote.
Overall, the Moon Cross, America Prays, and the various religious displays at Freedom 250’s “Great American State Fair” are examples of how the Trump administration and its allies are increasingly doing away with any notion of the separation of church and state while bringing Christianity into official public events. In this MAGA era, the cross is all over DC. Will the moon be next?
— Hunter Walker
Platner Decides to Gift Us All One Final Bout of Anxiety
Graham Platner reportedly told his staff that he doesn’t plan to officially file paperwork to drop out of the Maine Senate race until Monday — the last possible day he can do it in order for state Democrats to replace him.
He published a video to social media Wednesday night announcing his decision to suspend his campaign, framing the sexual assault allegations against him as establishment sabotage of his insurgent candidacy.
“We went toe to toe with one of the most entrenched political systems in the history of the world, and we won. We beat them on June 9th in overwhelming numbers,” he said, adding: “And now, they are not going to let us have it. Not if it’s me.”
The executive director of Maine Democrats said this week that the Platner camp was trying, unsuccessfully, to influence the party’s choice of replacement. The party will hold a nominating convention to select the new candidate.
— Kate Riga
One Republican Has Questions About Kash Patel’s BMWs
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel about some of his lavish spending of taxpayer dollars on personal perks. Specifically, Grassley reportedly has taken issue with the FBI’s purchase of BMW vehicles and his use of the official FBI plane for personal travel.
“For each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law? If yes, please provide the records,” Grassley wrote to Patel, according to MS NOW which exclusively obtained a copy of the letter.
He reportedly acknowledged in the letter that he understands that Patel has to use the FBI jet for security reasons, even for personal travel, but insisted that Congress deserves to know how he’s used the aircraft.
“Please explain why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans,” he also said.
Democrats have been trying to get Patel to answer for some of his demands for special perks while on traveling on official business — like snorkeling around the wreckage of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.
— Nicole LaFond
More Good Stuff to Read From TPM Today
Khaya Himmelman is out with a new edition of The Franchise, TPM’s voting rights newsletter. This week, we’re focused on the expansion of the Fulton County probe as the FBI recruits analysts to help it find something, anything to back up Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the the 2020 election: FBI Demands Backup As It Tries to Substantiate Trump’s 2020 Delusions
David Kurtz has the latest on E. Jean Carroll’s payout after a judge forced Trump to pay up this week: E. Jean Carroll on the Verge of Forcing $5M From Trump
Here’s a rundown of all the various Big Lie-era election deniers who are running for elections where they could actually become in charge of election administration: All The Places Election Deniers Could Be in Charge of Elections After the Midterms
Yesterday’s Top Story
A Response to Matt Yglesias About ‘Fight’ in Democratic Candidates
What I’m Reading
Texas ICE Killing Darkens: Rep Says Witnesses Pressured to Self-Deport
A New Poll Shows a Tight Fight for Platner Replacements
Security Precaution Led Trump to Use Old Air Force One in Leaving Turkey
“Cross on the Moon Coalition” says they are “on a spiritual mission to send a cross to the lunar surface to consecrate the heavens and remind humanity that God is the King of the universe.”
Surely there’s a congressional majority that’ll authorize that public expenditure easy peasy.
It’s so clearly a more necessary and profound investment than, say, the National Weather Service.
It seems to me that the population of the Moon is a little low to be installing the infrastructure for capital punishment.
send a cross to the lunar surface to consecrate the heavens
Idiots. If you believe God is omnipotent, then he knows he owns the heavens and they’re fully ‘consecrated’ already. Basically you are so arrogant that you think your deity needs help? Or is this just more strutting and hubris so you can show the rest of us how ubiquitous you think you are?
Waste money on a cross on the moon. But I’m pretty sure if you read the bible, you’d find your deity would be more pleased if you fed widows and housed orphans with the money.
I guess insane giggling on my part is poor form.