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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Underground Christianity growing in North Korea |
| 2005-03-15 |
| Churches are opening in North Korea, a country long known for its hostility to any religion, and especially Protestantism. But it is not the handful of officially sanctioned churches that are interesting so much as reports of a revival of the North's "catacomb church". Given the privation and suffering in North Korea, it's not surprising that the masses would find solace in the opiate of the people. North Korean defectors to South Korea recently were asked about the fate of those escapees who were apprehended in China and sent back for interrogation in North Korea. Their treatment is harsh but they are not necessarily doomed. If an arrested escapee does not make some dangerous confessions while subjected to relatively mild beatings, he or she is likely to be set free very soon (not very nice, but still it's a vast improvement over the situation that existed two decades ago). This correspondent asked, "What do interrogators see as dangerous activity?" The answers were virtually identical across the board: "Contacting missionaries and bringing religious literature to North Korea." For three decades North Korea and Albania were distinct in being countries without any organized religious worship and without a single temple of any religion. But this is changing fast - and the Pyongyang authorities obviously worry that they do not have complete control over the fast-developing new situation concerning religion. The central authorities also are losing control, as cracks appear in the country's "Stalinist" ideology. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 So from now till kingdom come, taste the words on the tip of my tongue. 'Cause we can't run truth out of town, only force it underground. The roots grow deeper in ways we can't conceive. --"All I Need is Everything" Linford Detwiler & Karin Bergquist Recorded by Over The Rhine |
| Posted by: Mike 2005-03-15 8:32:40 PM |
| #3 South Korean Christians have built rows of prayer closets, like phone booths, into their churches; and churches have people inside praying nearly 24-7. Anybody from NK who shops in the neutral zone at the border is required to turn in any religious literature within 24 hours. This at least gives people a chance to look at the information. Christian businessmen have also been very creative about getting scripture verses printed on merchandise and selling them for cost. I won't say what they're printed on; let it suffice to say that the Word of God keeps going out and it never returns empty. |
| Posted by: mom 2005-03-15 8:24:02 PM |
| #2 BigEd: My cousin married a Korean lady who is a daughter of a Baptist minister from Seoul. I am not surprised at this. There are many mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics in Korea. South Korea is 49% Christian. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-03-15 2:00:04 PM |
| #1 My cousin married a Korean lady who is a daughter of a Baptist minister from Seoul. I am not surprised at this. There are many mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics in Korea. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-03-15 1:37:34 PM |