Though I wouldn’t endores all the tactics and philosophies employed, I’m sure this man and those he trained have done much for those whom Jesus loves: people.
(The headline “bothers” me, especially if it reflects reality.)
| South Korean missionaries spread political message in the North
For years, under the leadership of Choi Kwang, a hard-driving missionary from South Korea, North Koreans seeking refuge in China were taken to apartments where they were put through a rigorous training course in Christianity that began daily at 6 a.m. and continued until 10 p.m. The trainees repeated out loud the words of an eight-hour-long tape recording of the New Testament. Before taking breaks for meals, Choi and the North Koreans would embrace and pray: “Let’s spill Jesus’s blood in North Korea! Let’s become martyrs for North Korea!” By 2001, when his underground proselytizing network was broken up by the Chinese police, Choi had turned about 70 North Koreans who had come to him in search of food and shelter into missionaries. At least five of them are believed to have been executed in North Korea. At least six others are thought to be in North Korean prison camps. |
| Although North Korea’s Constitution, on paper, provides for freedom of religion, in reality religious expression is tightly restricted. Schoolchildren are taught that religion is the “opium of the people” and that missionaries are “a tool of imperialism.” North Koreans who have met with missionaries have been sent to prison camps, according to human rights groups.
Major Christian groups in South Korea have raised millions of dollars to deliver food, medicine and clothing to the North and to build or renovate hospitals, schools and churches there. These groups believe that good will builds trust and helps North Korea open up, a strategy favored by President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea. But many politically conservative Christians in South Korea reject this approach. Instead they dispatch missionaries to northeastern China, where they evangelize among North Korean refugees. They also operate smuggling networks to smuggle North Koreans out, and spread the Gospel into the North via balloons and radio broadcasts. “You cannot expect North Korea to change from the top,” said Yu Suk Ryul, chairman of Cornerstone Ministries International. “The best way to change North Korea from the bottom is to spread the Gospel.” Cornerstone supports underground churches in North Korea by way of ethnic Korean-Chinese traders, who supply Christians there with “mini-Bibles” translated into a North Korean dialect, as well as financial assistance and other goods. The group says that it supports more than 1,000 underground cells in North Korea, and that the number is “growing fast,” Yu said. Cornerstone also releases plastic bags filled with Christian messages and sweets at sea, with the intent that they wash ashore in the North. |