North Korea

I presume that the Pharisee who looked down on the tax collector at the temple would have prayed for him too. Of course, his prayer could not be answered, because, unfortunately, hypocrisy hampers prayer.

With the speculation about the health of Kim Jong-un, many American Christians were praying for his overthrow, and are praying for and prophesying the reunification of the two Koreas.

Unfortunately, reunification is unlikely to come until the United States repents of its policies and activities in Korea.

• During the Korean War (1950-53), the United States imposed terrible destruction on North Korea. It dropped more bombs on North Korea than it had dropped in the entire Pacific theatre during World War II. This carpet bombing, which included 32,000 tons of napalm, often deliberately targeted civilian as well as military targets. Whole cities were destroyed, with many thousands of innocent civilians killed and many more left homeless and hungry.

  The United States killed over 2 million people in a country that posed no threat to its security. By 1953, American pilots were returning to carriers and bases claiming there were no longer any significant targets in all of North Korea to bomb.

  In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and the laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans.

  Prior to the war, Korea was a single country. Agriculture was primarily in the south and industry was concentrated in the north. The war destroyed the industrial base, so the North was left without industry or agriculture, making it very poor.

  This destructive bombing of civilians in their home and destructions of agriculture had few military benefits. The motive seemed to vindictiveness, because the North Koreans had initially defeated the southern forces supported by the United States.




• In 1907-1910, a powerful revival occurred in Korea. It started in Pyongyang, which is now the capital of North Korea. After months of persistent prayer, 50,000 people came to Jesus in one year and the entire country was set ablaze. By 1948, more than a fifth of the population of Korea was Christian.

  The number of inhabitants of Pyongyang killed by United States bomb splinters, burnt alive and suffocated by smoke is incalculable… Some 50,000 inhabitants remained in the city which before the war had a population of 500,000. During this bombing, thousands of Christians would have been killed. I suspect that American bombing killed more Christians in North Korea than the Kim dynasty has done throughout its history, so American claims to care about Korean Christians ring a little hollow.



• Korea was divided by an agreement between Stalin and Roosevelt towards the end of World War 2. They agreed the boundary should be the 38th parallel, but the people of Korea had no say in their decisions. Their country was divided by a dispute they had no interest in, and they had no choice about which side they would end up on.

  The United States put Syngman Rhee in control over the south. He had lived most of his life in the United States, so he was loyal, but he turned out to be a nasty ruler. He recruited his security forces from people who had collaborated with the Japanese. Thousands of people who opposed him were arrested and killed. He ruled as a dictator with American support until protests before the 1988 Olympics in Seoul restored civil liberties and direct presidential elections in South Korea. So American claims that it works for democracy do not have much credibility for those who remember.

• The United States has threatened to use nuclear weapons against North Korea. Each year, it holds exercises in which it practices invading the country, during the harvest. Christian pilots fly B-52 bombers that could be carrying nuclear weapons right up to the border, as if they were going to attack. Because the North Korean army has to mobilise to deal with the potential threats, it becomes difficult to bring in the harvest, so these exercises are a threat to food supplies, as well. Why would the people of North Korea welcome the gospel from people who think that this is Christian behaviour.

• The United States keeps a massive army in South Korea, close to the border. They are backed up with aircraft with military weapons. These forces are not necessary for protecting South Korea, because the South Korean forces are far superior to those in the North.

  Americans assume their troops are in Korea to preserve the peace and that they are not a threat to the north. However, history says that is wrong. The United States has invaded North Korea in the past and tried to destroy it. There is no evidence that the United States has given up invading countries. So, the people of North Korea are right to be afraid of a United States invasion. They look out across the demilitarised zone and see a Christian empire that likes to invade smaller nations, and is willing to fabricate excuses to do so. They hear Christian politicians declaring that they want to invade Korea. So why would they trust the Christian gospel.

• North Koreans look out and see Christian ships imposing an embargo and preventing imports of food into their country. Why would you trust the gospel of people who are trying to starve and impoverish your nation?

• The president of South Korea is working hard to bring peace and reunification with North Korea, but often finds that Washington is standing in the way.

  The problem is that the United States does not really want the Koreas united. It wants an excuse to keep a large military contingent close to the border of China. This is hypocritical, given that the United States got antsy at the possibility of Russian missiles being installed in Cuba. Now, with Americans needing a bogeyman to fear, and the President stirring up hostility toward China, Washington will become even more reluctant to see peace break out.

American Christians will not have God’s authority behind their prayers for the re-unification of Korea until their nation repents and stops bullying North Korea. Bullying and aggression is not the solution to bullying and aggression.

North Korea

Prophetic Christians are declaring the people of North Korea are going to come to faith in Jesus in massive numbers. Many other are praying that this will happen.

This seems a bit naïve. Why would the people of North Korea turn to Christianity when a Christian nation is threatening to destroy them? When a Christian leader is threatening to nuke them if they don’t submit to him.

Many Koreans remember how the American bombers wrecked their cities and land, killing thousands of civilians in 1952. They fear it will happen again.

In this context, military threats are not the best method of pre-evangelism.

North Korea (5) What Would Jesus Say

South Korea is one of the most Christian counties in the world. Nearly thirty percent of citizens claim to be Christian. Therefore, we should expect a different response to the problem in the north. Korean Christians should be asking what Jesus would have them do about this situation.

First, South Korea should stop depending on the United States for defence (the US is mostly there to intimidate China anyway). The Bible says that God’s people should not rely on military alliances for their protection, because they stop trusting in him. South Korea should ask the United States to remove all its military forces from the country. It should stop holding joint military alliances with the United States. The alliance with the United States and the joint military exercises just make the entire situation more volatile. It might weaken their protection, but it would push them towards faith in God.

Jesus said to bless your enemies and not to curse them. The Christians of South Korea should look for ways to bless the people to the north. The best way to do this would be to share their material wealth. Here are some things they could do.

• Fill a ship with new cars and send it to the north as a gift.
• Send a load tractors and agricultural and roading equipment to the north.
• Send a ship load of electronic equipment as a gift.
• If Chinese ships were chartered for this purpose, the north would not be threatened.
• Establish places in the demilitarised zone where they can leave food, clothing and other essentials for the soldiers guarding the border.
• Repeat these activities over and over again
• Keep on praying. Prayer motivated by love is more effective than prayer motivated by fear or hate.

Love might break through where threats of force have failed.

When blessing North Korea, Christians should avoid trickery. They should make sure that no spy equipment is attached to their gifts. They should not accompany it with propaganda. The gifts should be given without any strings attached.

Most Koreans want the two countries to be re-united. This will be almost impossible when one economy is so underdeveloped and the other is highly developed. There will need to be a massive transfer of capital and wealth from south to north, if they are to be united. The north cannot afford to pay for this transfer, so it will have to be given as a gift. This giving might as well start now to bring peace.

North Korea (4) Current Situation

The population of South Korea is double that of the north. The GDP of South Korea is eighty times that of North Korea. The latter is feeble compared with the former.

North Korea is not a big threat to the world. It has a huge army, but it is poorly equipped with weapons dating from the 1960s. The military forces spend much of their time building roads by hand and harvesting crops, so they are not very well trained. Their air force is antiquated. North Korea would struggle to defeat the well-trained forces of their southern neighbours. South Korea has modern military and equipment and an air force that can provide close support for its infantry.

There is no evidence that North Korea has a working nuclear bomb. Detonating a nuclear weapon under experimental conditions underground is easier than building a bomb that will explode when dropped from a plane in a war situation.

North Korea does not have bombers that are capable of breaking through the air defences of the surrounding nations, so it could not drop a bomb even if it had one that would work.

Kim Jong-un has had some success in developing missiles, although most have exploded during take-off. Many of the missiles that appear in military parades seem to be fake.

Moreover, Korea does not have a nuclear weapon that is small enough to be launched on a missile. Developing a design that is compact enough to fit on a missile is very difficult.

Bullying North Korea with economic sanctions and threats of military action will not work. When you are afraid of a bully, you do not give up the only protection you have. Economic sanctions and threats of military action just confirm that the United States is really hostile to North Korea. From the Korean perspective, these threats make nuclear weapons even more essential.

Assassinating Kim Jong-un would be pointless. He does not rule on his own. He will be working with powerful relatives and key people in the military and security services. If he were taken out, one of these place would take his place, and they might be worse.

North Korea (3) Threatened King

Commentators say that Kim Jong-un is irrational and unpredictable. They are wrong. If he is understood as a king, like the kings that used to rule most of Europe, his behaviour is perfectly rational.

Kim Jong-un is behaving as kings have always behaved, by striving to preserve his family dynasty. The Kim family has done quite well so far, remaining in power for three generations.

Some of Kim Jong-un support might be the result of propaganda, but that is only part of the story. People ruled by a king get to love him. When their king comes under attack, they idolize him more.

Kim Jong-un is not unpredictable. His response has been very rational. Any king with thirty thousand troops belonging to a powerful empire facing him across the border would be nervous. He will be especially nervous, if the empire has invaded in the past. He would look for a way to neutralise the advantage of the great power and try to prevent it from invading.

North Korea needs nuclear weapons to protect the Kim dynasty. Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein gave up their pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the Americans got rid of them. Kim Jong-un is not stupid. He knows that his nuclear capability has prevented him from going the same way.

The people of North Korea have not forgotten that the United States invaded and destroyed their country. The Americans did far more damage and killed far more people than the Japanese. The Koreans are scared that the US will do it again.

Americans think their troops are in Korea to preserve the peace and that they are not a threat to the north. However, history says that is wrong. The United States has invaded North Korea in the past and tried to destroy it. There is no evidence that the United States has given up invading countries. In recent decades, they have invaded and destroyed Libya and Iraq. So the people of North Korea are right to be afraid of a United States invasion, They look out on the demilitarised zone and see an empire that likes to invade smaller nations, and is willing to fabricate an excuse to do so. They hear politicians declaring that they want to invade Korea.

Every year, South Korea and the United States forces hold military exercises in which the practice and invasion of the north. The North Koreans do not know when the practice will turn into an invasion, so they have to prepare for defence. They see this intimidation as threatening and act accordingly.

North Korea (2) Conflict and War

After ongoing conflict and skirmishes between the North and South, war broke out in 1950.

During the Korean War 1950-53, the United States invaded North Korea. However, the Chinese intervened and forced the US forces back to the 38th parallel. Because they were defeated, Americans have forgotten this war, but North Koreans still remember. The United States imposed terrible destruction on North Korea.

In the early 1950s, during the Korean War, the US dropped more bombs on North Korea than it had dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War II. This carpet bombing, which included 32,000 tons of napalm, often deliberately targeted civilian as well as military targets. Whole cities were destroyed, with many thousands of innocent civilians killed and many more left homeless and hungry.”

The number of inhabitants of Pyongyang killed by bomb splinters, burnt alive and suffocated by smoke is incalculable…Some 50,000 inhabitants remained in the city which before the war had a population of 500,000.

The United States killed over 2 million people in a country that posed no threat to US national security. By 1953 American pilots were returning to carriers and bases claiming there were no longer any significant targets in all of North Korea to bomb.

In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans.

There reasons for this ugly destruction have been forgotten. I presume this was the people's punishment for allowing communism to be imposed on them.

Prior to the war, Korea was a single country. Agriculture was primarily in the south and industry was concentrated in the north. The war destroyed the industrial base, so the North was left without industry or agriculture, making it very poor. The country still struggles to feed itself.

North Korea is now more hostile to Christianity than any country in the world. This is partly because their country was invaded and destroyed by a Christian empire.

The past affects the future.

North Korea (1) Past affects the Present

The history of Korea is not well understood, but the present situation is largely the result of the past.

• Korea is an ancient culture that achieved national unity in 608 AD. Despite living in the shadow of China, it has retained its unique language and traditions since then.

• National independence ended in 1910 after Japan invaded and occupied the country. The Korean emperor handed sovereignty over his the Japanese emperor “completely and forever.” The United States and the United Kingdom were worried about the expansion of Russia, so they did not resist the Japanese expansion.

• Korea was controlled by Japan for four decades. The Japanese used collaborators among the Korean elite to manage their first colony. They used enforced labor to build industries to support the Japanese economy. Many Koreans resisted Japanese control, but were severely persecuted.

• In 1907-1910, a powerful revival occurred in Korea. It started in Pyongyang, which is not the capital of North Korea. After months of persistent prayer, 50,000 people came to Jesus in one year and the entire country was set ablaze. By 1948, more than a fifth of the population of Korea was Christian. Only about 400,000 Christians are thought to remain in North Korea today.

• Korea was divided by an agreement between Stalin and Roosevelt towards the end of World War 2. They agreed the boundary should be the 38th parallel. They were supposed to be setting Korea free from Japanese control, but the people of Korea had no say in their decisions. Their country was divided by a dispute they had no interest in, and they had no choice about which side they would end up on.

• Elections to unite the country were supposed to be held but neither of the great powers were interested in uniting the country. Instead, they each appointed a leader over the part they country they controlled.

• The United States put Syngman Rhee in control over the south. He had lived most of his life in the United States, so he was loyal, but he turned out to be a rather nasty ruler. He recruited his security forces from people who had collaborated with the Japanese. Thousands of people who opposed him were arrested and killed. Protests before the 1988 Olympics in Seoul restored civil liberties and direct presidential elections in South Korea.

• The Russians appointed Kim Il-sung. He had led guerrilla warfare against the Japanese, so he had a bit more credibility with the people.