Article and pictures are credit to Taylor Chang
Claims of Christianity's growth in North Korea are garnering attention. Recent reports and statements from experts suggest a potential resurgence of faith in one of the world's most closed and repressive societies.
Tim Chang, a professor at Liberty University, spoke at the Oxford Symposium for Religious Studies, at Oxford University, about North Korea this summer. As a strong advocate for freedom in North Korea and a knowledgeable source, Professor Chang provided valuable insight into Christianity in North Korea. His presentation discussed North Korea's history and how Pyongyang was once the "Jerusalem of the East" in the early 1900s.
After Japan surrendered at the end of World War II and left Korea on August 15, 1945, the USSR introduced Kim Il Sung as the new leader of North Korea. Kim Il Sung worked to systematically remove all Christianity from North Korea, seeing it as a threat to the “fatherland.”
Professor Chang then expands upon Christianity in North Korea and how Christianity started to reemerge in North Korea. He discusses how, in 1972, North Korea revived religion for political purposes and that North Koreans constitutionally now had "freedom of religion."
Around the 1980s, Kim Jong Il raised his father's status to a deity to secure leadership. In 1992 and 1994, Billy Graham visited North Korea and preached about Christianity; support for Christianity increased in North Korea, and NGO organizations provided much more humanitarian aid to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Professor Chang concludes that Christianity is now growing in North Korea. He explains that many North Koreans fled to China during the Great Famine, which lasted from 1995 to 1998. Professor Chang claims during the Great Famine, nearly 10% of the population died, and many of the North Koreans that survived went to China and returned after the Great Famine. Many North Koreans who returned from China came back as missionaries and evangelists, spreading Christianity to their friends and family.
Professor Chang says that North Korean Christians are the most persecuted Christians in the entire world and that in their time of hardship, we, as Christian brothers and sisters, should keep them in our minds and pray for them. As Hebrews 13:3 says, "Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body."
