A Tale Of Two Koreas
By RAY CAVANAUGH
This July 27 marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement. The war, which lasted for just over three years, is technically unfinished. It has essentially been on pause since 1953.
At the time of the armistice, the battle line became the dividing line between North and South Korea, and each side agreed to pull back about one mile, thereby creating a demilitarized zone (DMZ).
This rather narrow division separates one of the world’s highest-functioning countries from the closest thing this world has produced to a pure dystopia.
While South Korea is now one of Asia’s Christian strongholds, the dystopian North Korea, land of the tyrannical Kim dynasty, is quite possibly the world’s most inhospitable place for the faithful.
Ironically, the North Korean capital of Pyongyang once had so many churches that it was known as the “Jerusalem of the East.”
Catholic missionaries, mostly French and Chinese priests, arrived at the end of the eighteenth century. The faith began to make significant inroads, but there were also periods of hardship, such as the Catholic Persecution of 1866, which saw thousands of martyrs made across the countryside.
In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Korean authorities grew more tolerant toward Christianity. Missionaries (mostly Protestant at this point) began establishing hospitals, schools and publishing houses.
Pyongyang rapidly became the heart of Korean Christianity, with Methodist and Presbyterian denominations seeing particular success.
Between 1910-1945 Korea was absorbed by the Japanese Empire. Christianity, however, actually grew stronger during this period because Koreans viewed it as an act of defiance against Japanese encroachment.
A rather strange detail from North Korea’s Christian glory days is that the parents of Kim Il-Sung (the founder of North Korea’s Kim dynasty) were themselves devoutly Christian. The mother, in fact, had been a deaconess in the Presbyterian Church. And decades before establishing a tyrannical dynasty, young Kim Il-Sung himself had played the organ during church services.
Until 1945, most Korean Christians had lived in the northern half (where as many as one in seven persons were Christian) of the Korean peninsula. After 1945, as Communism took hold in the north, Christians headed southward. They knew things were about to get bad up north, and the results likely exceeded their wildest fears.
For many years now, North Korea has received a number one ranking in the Open Doors World Watch List of nations that persecute Christians.
It is quite certain that most North Korean Christians are Protestant. However, precise statistics are very difficult to obtain in such a closed society. Estimates of the number of North Korean Christians vary drastically, with secular media outlets generally providing much lower figures than those provided by religious organizations.
North Korea reviles Christians because they regard Jesus as more important than the country’s supreme leader. Believing that there is something greater than the Kim dynasty is regarded as a severe act of betrayal.
Christianity is also viewed as a main attribute of the detested Western world and its ultimate monster, the United States. Thus, the faithful are regarded as agents of American imperialism.
Aside from a few state-sponsored religious venues (complete with busloads of fake parishioners), there are no churches. Any legitimate group worship takes place in secrecy, and at immense risk to those involved.
When North Korean authorities discover Christians, they either execute them on the spot or send them to labor camps. Many would consider execution a more humane alternative.
And when North Korean authorities send someone to a labor camp, they also typically send three generations (children, parents, and grandparents) of that person’s family to the labor camp as well.
Regardless of religion, anyone sent to a North Korean labor camp is treated dreadfully. But survivor accounts relate that Christians are treated even worse yet: They are interrogated longer, encounter more bodily harm, and die more often.
The Christian rights organization Open Doors reports that, in the previous year, “several dozen” members of North Korean underground churches were discovered and executed.
The CIA World Factbook says that, in North Korea, “autonomous religious activities [are] now almost nonexistent” and that “government-sponsored religious groups exist to provide the illusion of religious freedom.”
The CIA adds that about 20 percent of South Koreans are Protestant and eight percent are Catholic. These are sizable numbers when considering that almost 60 percent of South Koreans have no religion.
South Korea’s Christian population is also very active internationally. Multiple media outlets, including The New York Times, have reported that South Korea produces the world’s second highest number of missionaries, trailing only the United States.
In August 2014, Pope Francis visited South Korea, where he beatified 124 native martyrs. Meanwhile, in North Korea, Christians continue to meet with a nameless martyrdom amid the cold tyranny of a Godless regime.
Seventy years into the ceasefire, North Korea remains a haunting example of how much difference a bad leader can make. The two Koreas are the same race, same language, and the same peninsula — but a universe apart.
