04368
August 20, 2004

North Korean Christians experiencing ‘dramatic changes’

U.S. election result could be key to normalization, church leader says

by Noel Bruyns
Ecumenical News International

ACCRA, Ghana — North Korea, though a closed society, is more open to Christianity than outsiders may think because of the lack of open communication, believe some church leaders from the other part of their divided nation.

      This is the view of Kim Yong-Beck of the Presbyterian Church of Korea (South) who is also moderator of the Theology Department of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), and director of the Asia Pacific Graduate School for the Study of Life, a theology-based ecumenical research institute in South Korea.

      He said it did not help the North Asian nation to be labeled as part of an “axis of evil” by U.S. President George Bush.

      Interviewed by Ecumenical News International during the 24^th General Council of WARC that ended in the Ghanaian capital on Aug. 12, Kim said freedom of religion is increasing in North Korea.

      “A number of churches are being built. Theological schools are operating. International contacts between Christians in North Korea and the outside are increasing,” said Kim. “There is a fostering of trust and confidence within the North Korean government about what the South Korean Christians are doing in cooperation with the North Korean churches.”

      Christians were contacting the north not only through church channels but through civil organizations because these were headed by Christians. In South Korea, Christians account for about 26 percent of the 48 million population with Buddhists making up the same percentage. No figures are available for North Korea’s 22 million people.

      “I think, since 2001, there may have been 100,000 people back and forth, between North and South, though mainly from South Korea,” he said referring to the easing of relations between the divided country, known at home as the “sunshine policy.” Kim said: “That alone is a tremendous change.”

      Christians from North and South had been meeting on numerous occasions in various parts of the world to discuss reunification and peace in the Korean peninsula.

      At the end of the Korean war in 1953, when the North Korean government had formed according to Communist ideology, virtually all the churches were closed down.

      There was a kind of official freedom of religion in the North, but it didn’t mean much. But in the 80s, dialogue between Christians from the North and South began to strengthen, and ecumenical Christians began to make contact with the churches in the North, which led to an official visit from the World Council of Churches.

      “Today, official dialogue is ongoing, and reunification and peace have become a priority,” said Kim.

      In 1995, the North Korean church and the South Korean ecumenical movement decided to pray on the Sunday before or on Aug. 15, for peace and unification. This year marked 60 years since liberation from Japanese rule, the day that Japan surrendered to the Allies, ending the Second World War.

      In the prayer, jointly written by the National Council of Churches in (South) Korea and the (North) Korean Christian Federation, Koreans prayed that “without any reference to the will of our people, outside forces divided our land, and we have carried this painful history of division until today.”

      They said: “Though the wall of division still separates us, brothers and sisters in South and North are crossing the barrier and deepening our mutual trust.”

      Kim acknowledged that political reunification might take a long time. “But social, economic and cultural life of the Korean peninsula may be unified quite soon.”

      He asserted that the biggest problem was the U.S. administration. “That is bigger than the internal problems,” he said. “If the Democrats had still been in power in the US, normalization of relations between America and North Korea might have been achieved by now,” Kim said.

      “North Korea would not be facing the economic problems it does today,” Kim said. “The trade embargo imposed by Washington is the main problem of the North Korean economy.”

      Kim said if Democrat Party candidate John Kerry wins the next U.S. election and resumes the policies of former president Bill Clinton, “this will accelerate normalization.”