The DPRK and Its Attitude Toward the Church

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The DPRK and Its Attitude Toward the Church

For three decades, North Korea and Albania were two countries that had no organized religion of any kind inside their borders, but that has changed. The changes first started showing up in 1974, when the Korean Christian Association was brought back. It had originally been established in 1946, but was disbanded in 1960. It could have been brought back to show the world that the DPRK has religious freedom.

In 1988, the first North Korean church since the 1950s was opened in Pyongyang after pressure from overseas religious circles. North Korea now has two Protestant churches and claims to have 150 believers. This could show that there is religious freedom in the North. However, some visitors to these churches have made the observation that the services seem to be genuine if still strictly controlled.

These two Protestant churches (and one Catholic church) exist in a country that once was home to 3,000 churches and 250,000 believers. During the Japanese occupation, between 1910 and 1945, the area we now know as North Korea was a seat of revival for the peninsula. Protestant missionaries came to Korea in the 1880s. By the early 20th century, Koreans had come to associate Protestantism with modernity and progress. Christians still only composed 1-2% of the population, but many of that group were intellectuals and professionals. Since Korea was colonized by Japan, a non-Christian nation, the teachings of Jesus were fortunately not associated with colonialism.

By the early 1940s, 25-30% of the adult population of Pyongyang were churchgoing Christians. That's why you hear of Pyongyang once being called “The Jerusalem of the East.”

Kim Il Sung was born into an active Protestant family. His father was a supporter of the local missions and his mother was the daughter of a prominent activist. Even though many common people were not Christians, a majority of early Korean Communists had Christian family backgrounds. Most Protestant preachers and activists, though, became enemies of the new Communist regime. Most pastors were from affluent families and didn't like the idea of redistributing wealth or the nationalization of industry. Also, many Christians had connections to the West and admired the democratic system of the United States, so they did not like the ideology of the new government coming into power there.

Because they did not align themselves with the Communist regime, from 1946-50, many Protestant refugees moved South. When the Korean War began in 1950, many Protestants who were still living in the North even helped the advancing Southern army. This helped to turn the leaders in Pyongyang against the Christians.

In the 1950's all kinds of religious worship was banned and churches were closed. Protestantism especially was labeled as “wicked teaching of the US imperialists.” Remaining Protestant leaders were labeled as “American spies” and removed. Those who renounced their faith were spared their lives but were still labeled as members of “Group No. 37” for the rest of their lives.

The official media of North Korea worked to explain the image of Christians from their point of view. The missionaries had made inroads into education, but those were labeled as part of a plan for U.S. invasion. Christian pastors and activists were said to be spies or murderers. Stories were written about how missionaries killed innocent Korean children in order to harvest body parts (even before organ transplants had been successful). Today at the Sinch'on Museum (in the North), there is a collage of prominent American missionaries active around 1900 with the caption, “The American missionaries who crawled into Korea, hiding their daggers in their clothing.”

By the mid-1950s, all the churches were closed down. Some believers have continued to worship quietly, but we will perhaps never know how many. The underground church has to be very quiet. North Koreans who leave and go to South Korea have been asked about those who escape but are then caught and repatriated. They are not treated well, but are likely to be set free unless they make a confession that they have participated in “dangerous activities.” The activity that was seen as the most dangerous was having contact with missionaries and bringing religious literature into North Korea.

There are signs of spiritual life in North Korea. From the mid-1990s an increasing number of ROK Christian workers have been traveling to Northeastern China for contact with North Koreans, who can travel across the relatively porous border between North Korea and China. Christian organizations are among the few that work for justice for these people.

Christianity is also spreading among the community of those who have come from North Korea to the ROK. Many convert as new residents of the South. This can also be partially attributed to the involvement of Christians in the resettlement process. The secular society is generally indifferent, or sometimes hostile to these new residents. No matter how you explain the conversion of North Koreans to Christianity, it is clear that they embrace it with particular zeal. The collapse of Juche will leave an ideological and spiritual vacuum that may lead to Pyongyang to becoming the “Jerusalem of the East” again.

(a summary of pages 204-209 in North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea, Andrei Lankov, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2007)

A Letter to North Korea, November 2008:

(the letter below was written by an American)

North Korea, you are in my thoughts today. While I celebrate my second Thanksgiving feast of the week with plenty of food to spare, you hurt with children that are much shorter than your brothers in the South because you don't have enough food for your people. The scraps my relatives took home . . . would be a welcome meal for you.

North Korea, I knew nothing about you just 6 years ago, but I have come to love you without even setting feet on your soil. My eyes have seen you across the river; my hands have touched the leaves of your branches as a tourist on a bamboo raft; my heart has been broken in hearing your stories. I've wept at the injustice that is life within your borders. I pray for you and long to learn from your people, you diamonds that are being formed out of the pressure in the dark and hidden places.

North Korea, I don't know how life will lead me next. I don't know if I'll ever cross the river to experience the chill of your winter, the relief of your spring, the green of your summer, or make kimchi with your fall harvest of cabbage, but the lump in my throat and the tears welling up in my eyes tell me that my heart is with you. You are my sisters and my brothers, my aunts and my uncles, my grandparents, my teachers, my friends.

North Korea, you have my permission to reclaim the parts of my heart that I've closed off out of fear that my hopes may never be realized. I've tried controlling our future together, but I know that release is the best way to open the future up. My life has been shaped by knowing Koreans - your brothers and sisters - south, north, east, and west of your borders. The world has been taught to fear you or to pity you, but rarely to love you. I love you and am telling you tonight that whatever is in store for us, I can't forget you.

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