Revival in North Korea

By Tony Lambert

The few tourists who visit the traffic-less city of Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (otherwise known as North Korea) are taken to pay ritual homage to the gigantic gilded statue of Kim Il-Sung —”the Great and Beloved Leader.” North Korea is unique among communist states in having set up a dynastic succession. Now not only Kim Il-Sung but his son, Kim Jong-Il,—the absolute ruler of the most totalitarian state on the planet—are worshiped with an adulation that puts the former Mao-cult in neighboring China into the shade. North Korea has long sponsored terrorism and kidnapping, and now is in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with its democratic neighbor, South Korea, and with the United States over its developing of nuclear weapons. Perhaps 2 million of its people have died of starvation in recent years. Its industry (except for military weapons) has virtually collapsed and its agriculture is medieval. Now a few cracks have appeared in its grim facade. Tourists and aid agencies are allowed entry. But how many of the Western visitors are aware of a totally different and almost forgotten history as they are led by their well-trained guides from one propaganda venue to another?

Recent reports from those who have escaped from North Korea tell of incredible cruelty vented against Christians in North Korean labor camps. Some were martyred reportedly by having molten metal poured over their bodies. For Christians worldwide who pray and weep for the martyr church of North Korea, it is deeply significant that during the first half of the 20th century Pyongyang was the center of massive spiritual revival. As in China, during the Cultural Revolution, it now seems the church in North Korea has been systematically and ruthlessly wiped out. As in China in the early 1970s, so now in North Korea there are tantalizing reports of small groups of believers meeting secretly in house churches. As in China, we should pray with expectancy for the day when God sovereignly intervenes in North Korea to rebuild his church and spread the Good News on an unprecedented scale to a people cowed by decades of dictatorship. In the purposes of God, the great revivals in Pyongyang over 50 years ago surely provided a firm foundation for the future salvation of the North Korean people.

According to J. Edwin Orr, the great writer on world revivals, and on whose account I largely draw, there were three great waves of revival in Korea in the early 20th century:

1. 1903–1904 at Wonsan
2. 1905–06 at Pyongyang, Seoul etc
3. 1906–08 at Pyongyang and across the country.

Although many areas of the country were influenced by revival, it can be seen that, in general, the North, and in particular, Pyongyang, was often the main center. One sociological reason given is that Koreans in the North were traditionally more independent and less bound by Confucian moralism compared to their cousins in the South—and therefore more open to the gospel.
The first revival in 1903 began at Wonsan in North Korea when missionaries confessed their sins to one another. It spread to local churches where confession of sin was a prominent feature and a realization of the power of prevailing prayer. The lives of church members were transformed to a higher plane of sincerity and purity and there was immediate acceleration of growth in church membership.
The second wave of revival which swept Korea in 1905–06 also began in the North. In Pyongyang there were remarkable meetings. Both Central and South Gate churches were crowded out and 700 converts enrolled in two weeks. It was described as a spreading fire with hundreds of conversions not being due to any sudden impulse. More conversions were reported than in any previous year from all over Korea. It was also, significantly, the year after the Japanese occupied the country after their victory over the Russian Empire.

In 1906 news of the great revival in Wales arrived in Korea. Half the missionaries were Presbyterian (from the U.S.A., Australia and Canada) and were deeply moved by accounts of revival among the Welsh Presbyterians. An awakening broke out in Mokpo in the South in early 1906. The church was packed out and had to be enlarged to double its size to accommodate everybody! Men stood six deep eagerly waiting their turn to testify of sins forgiven, differences reconciled and power received.
In 1906 Dr Moffett reported from Pyongyang: “We are having another great movement this year, not only in the North but also in the South.” At New Year 4,000 attended evangelistic services in Pyongyang whose population then was only 20,000. In North Pyongyang province, 6,507 adherents increased to 11,943—an 83 percent increase. In the capital, Seoul, in 1906 many denominations united together for the first time and 1,000 converts were enrolled. John R. Mott addressed 6,000 men in a meeting lasting three hours.
The third wave of revival began in the North in August 1906 when missionaries in Pyongyang met for a week of prayer and Bible study led by Dr. Hardie, the Canadian missionary who had already experienced personal revival. All of them shared a deep concern for Korea during the time of its humiliation by Japan. At New Year 1,500 representatives from various churches far and wide met together for Bible study. So many men wanted to pray that the leader told them, “If you want to pray like that, all pray.” The effect was beyond description—not confusion but a vast harmony of sound and spirit like the noise of surf in an ocean of prayer. An intense conviction of sin settled on the meeting giving way to bitter weeping over their sins.
An elder arose and confessed a grudge against a missionary colleague and asked for forgiveness. The missionary stood to pray but could only cry, “Aboji! Father!” when, with a rush, a power from without took hold of the meeting. Its manifestations were awesome. Nearly everyone present was seized with mental anguish. Before each one, their sins seemed to be rising in condemnation. Some sprang to their feet pleading for an opportunity to relieve their consciences by making their abasement known. Others were silent but rent with agony, clenching their fists and striking their heads on the ground in the struggle to resist the Power that was forcing them painfully and agonizingly to confess their sins. The meeting continued from 8 pm to 2 am. Meetings continued for days after with the same anguish and the same confession. Conviction of sin and reconciliation of enemies continued. Non-Christians were astounded and a powerful opportunity for evangelism was given. The movement had lasting results. In Pyongyang, 15 years later, one church had 1,000 members while between 1,700–2,000 attended regular Wednesday prayer meetings. Nine-tenths of the students in Unbion Christian College in Pyongyang professed conversion in February 1947. Many became zealous evangelists carrying the flames of revival to Chemulpo and Kongju.
Delegates to the New Year Bible class carried the revival to many churches. Everywhere there was deep conviction of sin, followed by confession and restitution, and audible prayer en masse—an entirely new mode of intercession which has since become common among Korean Christians.
In five years of rapid growth, 1906–1910, the net gain of new converts for all the churches in Korea was 79,221. By 1912 there were about 300,000 Korean church members out of a population of 12 million. The whole church was raised to a higher spiritual level and there was an almost entire absence of fanaticism (which has marred some recent movements in Western churches at the end of the 20th century) because of careful Bible teaching.
In 1909–1910, however, the Korean church learned the salutary lesson that genuine revival is a work of God—not of man. The missionaries met in council in Seoul and decided on 1 million converts for Christ in a mass evangelistic campaign that adopted Charles Finney’s man-centered principle that “revival is nothing more than the right use of the appropriate means.” The Million Souls Movement was a spectacular failure. The Methodists had hoped for 200,000 converts—in reality they won only 2,122. Overall instead of 1 million converts only 15,805 were won to Christ. Orr rightly comments:
“That it was a worked-up campaign seems certain but not to say there was no prayer, no powerful preaching, no preparation. It seemed just that the Holy Spirit would not surrender his prerogatives for a Pentecost to anyone. In the next decade occurred nine lean years. It was obvious that the Revival was over.” This is a salutary lesson to us in the 21st century when too many mission agencies plan grandiose evangelistic projects which rely more on dubious statistics and man-centered activity than on the leadings of the Holy Spirit.
There was another outpouring of the Spirit in Pyongyang in 1945–1947 after the communists had already seized power in the North. In the autumn of 1945 a revival began at a conference of 400 elders and deacons in Pyongyang marked by confession of sin, weeping and repentance. By the end of 1946 the revival had spread widely but its leaders were arrested by the North Korean communists. In the spring of 1947 40 pastors gathered for prayer and voted to hold 40 days of prayer meetings in all of the churches. Many were filled with the Spirit. In April a united prayer meeting was held at the Central Presbyterian Church in Pyongyang which provoked an even greater awakening. More than 1,000 students at Kim Il-Sung University followed Christ. Such was the outpouring of the Spirit that Pastor Chee, a leading evangelist, was forced to stop preaching by the volume of united prayer and confession of sin. More than 10,000 people attended mass prayer meetings. Hearts were being strengthened for a great tribulation. The awakening of 1947 spread throughout North Korea. Despite intense communist pressure, many young Christians volunteered for the ministry. Pyongyang Seminary had 500 students by autumn 1948. Then in 1950 the Korean War broke out and deep darkness fell over the North. Many Christians in the North were martyred. Others went underground. Thousands fled south, and the influx of refugees from the North had an immediate effect on the South Korean church. They brought with them a spirit of prayer which built up into an extraordinary awakening in the South and the amazing church growth with which we are familiar.
Today the seeds of the North Korean revivals have been scattered far and wide by the harsh winds of persecution. Now in North Korea itself they lie deep underground. But one day the Spring will come.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Evangelical Awakenings in Eastern Asia. J. Edwin Orr. Bethany Fellowship, 1975.
Wildfire: Church Growth in Korea. R. E. Shearer. Grand Rapids, 1966.
History of the Expansion of Christianity: Vol 7. Advance through Storm. Kenneth Scott Latourette, Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1945.
I Will Pour Out My Spirit: A History & Theology of Revivals. R. E. Davies, Monarch, UK, 1992.