One of the top stories in
the world news for 1998 was that Chung Ju-yung, the founder
of the Hyundai group, who fled to south with just one cattle
sixty-five years ago, returned to North Korea across the
heavily armed border in June 16, bringing 500 head of cattle
as a gift. The message being communicated by this human
drama is that the two Koreas, North and South, have a
family-tie no matter what the political reality.
In the international community North Korea is often
described as a troublemaker of peace, a land with food
shortage, and a country with one of the most unreached
populations in the world. But I wonder if these are complete
portraits of North Korea. The rest of the picture is that
North Korea is a nation with hope for the jubilee year, a
land blessed with the most beautiful scenery and rich
natural resources, and a country whose capital city was once
called “the Oriental Jerusalem.
My early spiritual formation is much associated with my love
toward North Korea. When I was a soldier, I would pray one
hour every evening for that nation against whose attempt I
was in duty bound to bear arms. I was not alone in this
prayer movement. I saw and heard thousand of my fellow
Korean Christians praying for North Korea early in the cold
morning, all night on the cold floor, and sometimes during
their fasting. This prayer they have been continuing for
fifty years! I am often amazed by the intensity of this
prayer movement.
If we could visit North Korea in the first half of the
century, we would find a land that was not spiritually
barren, but futile. Christianity was so flourishing in the
country that its capital city Pyongyang had won a reputation
as the “Oriental Jerusalem" within a few decades of the
arrival of the first Protestant missionaries. Before the
division of the Korean peninsula in 1945, two thirds of
Korean Christians were northerners. Their churches numbered
2,934.
It was in 1949 that the new Communist regime began to close
churches by force in North Korea. The Korean War, which
broke out in the following year marked the physical
disappearance of the Christian churches in the land. Some
churches still managed to survive without sanctuaries until
1958, when the remnant Christians of the underground church
suffered martyrdom or banishment to concentration camps.
Until 1980 it was generally believed that no church could
survive under the circumstances, but then the existence of
the underground church was exposed to the outside world.
The first sign of hope for the suffering Church in North
Korea was the Communist regime’s 1986 decision to allow the
printing of the New Testament and hymnbooks. In 1988, the
regime opened up two Christian church buildings—one
Protestant and one Roman Catholic Church. The two notorious
signs of hope in 1998 were that North Korea accepted a
medical missionary from South Korea for the first time, and
a church building project in Najin, a northeastern port
city, provided by funds from South Korean churches.
North Korea as a nation appears to be a prodigal child who
was long left the Lord for historical materialism. But in
our prayer we hope that her people will return in
realization of their spiritual starvation, and we know the
time is coming when, in a time of reconciliation, we will
see them in their best robes, rings on their hands, and
sandals on their feet. Indeed, now is a high time to declare
the jubilee year for the suffering Church in North Korea.
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