GetReligion
Monday, April 14, 2025

North Korea

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'Relig-Un' puns aside, deity downgrade for North Korea's Kim is a big story and UK media notice

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It's the kind of news story tailor-made for the puns and pokes of Britain's tabloid press, and The Sun, the daily redoubt of topless 'Page 3' girls, doesn't fail to deliver.

The headline says it all: "LOSING MY RELIG-UN Paranoid Kim Jong-un executing record numbers of North Koreans who no longer see him as a living GOD" [sic].

This is one of those cases in which the headline is pretty much the same as the lede, so here that is again in case you missed it:

DELUDED despot Kim Jong-un is executing growing numbers of North Koreans who no longer worship him as a living GOD.
His ruthless regime is persecuting thousands who dare to practise “other religions” within its borders, according to a shock new US government study.

It's not the poetry of a Hearstian scribe in the good old days, but it'll suffice. The "shock new US government study" is a nice touch, although someone should tell the paper that America is the U.S., and not a celebrity-gossip magazine. "Deluded despot" certainly fits the bill, however.

This is not our usual media-bash since even The Sun does "get it" here: there appears to be evidence that the literal cult-of-personality surrounding the Kim family, where the current ruler's father and grandfather were quite literally worshipped by the population or else, is showing some cracks.

A more serious London newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, published a story from which The Sun and rival tabloid the Daily Mail, both appear to have cribbed. As the Telegraph reported, citing the U.S. State Department report:

"An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions", it adds.
Those claims were backed up by a North Korean defector who is now a member of the Seoul-based Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea.


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Covering Robert Jeffress and Kim Jong Un: Some media shone, while others flailed

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It certainly made for a lot of waves on the internet: The Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, describing how America's chief executive has authority from God to kill off North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

I’m still waiting for Pope Francis to come up with a statement to refute that one. But first things first: On Tuesday, Jeffress’ remarks were released to the Christian Broadcasting Network, an odd alliance if there ever was one. CBN is very oriented toward the Pentecostal-charismatic side of things and Jeffress most definitely is not, as an old-guard leader on the Southern Baptist right.

But politics always makes for strange bedfellows and with its superior contacts within the Trump administration, CBN has found itself in the unusual role of breaking national stories lately. David Brody’s three-paragraph story was part news, part editorial:

Sometimes you've got to stop evil. It's biblical. In North Korea, it's pretty clear that their dictator is downright evil. So tonight, Pastor Robert Jeffress, a longtime evangelical backer of Donald Trump, just released a statement saying the president has the moral authority to take out Kim Jong Un. This comes after Trump said today that if North Korea continues to threaten the U.S. then they will “be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
“When it comes to how we should deal with evil doers, the Bible, in the book of Romans, is very clear: God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary – including war – to stop evil. In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong-Un. I’m heartened to see that our president -- contrary to what we’ve seen with past administrations who have taken, at best, a sheepish stance toward dictators and oppressors -- will not tolerate any threat against the American people. When President Trump draws a red line, he will not erase it, move it, or back away from it. Thank God for a President who is serious about protecting our country.”
Folks, get ready. I've warned for a long time that North Korea was the biggest problem all along. Memo to North Korea: with Trump as president, you really don't want to mess with America. This could get real ugly real soon. Trump won't tolerate this for too much longer.

Later, CBN did follow up with something more nuanced from other evangelicals.


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Hey, New York Times: Maybe there's more to that Christian-backed school in North Korea

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If there's a nation on this planet harder to understand than the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, I don't know it – and you probably don't, either.

More commonly known as North Korea, it's been a family-led Communist dynasty for longer than any other. It's secretive, wracked by poverty and the government keeps trying to launch a missile that is capable of hitting Japan, or Guam or even Hawaii.

There have been (and are) all sorts of religion-angle "ghosts" in news surrounding the DPRK. Our our own Ira Rifkin last year noted the missing elements when The New York Times examined the country's "Juche" philosophy.

Now, the Times's correspondent who skipped the spiritual "ghosts" in the Juche piece has, er, passed over some key faith-related questions in another story. Choe Sang-Hun tells us about a Christian-led university in the officially atheist DPRK, with only a passing glance at the religion angle. Read this multi-paragraph introduction to see what I mean:

Set on 250 sprawling acres in North Korea’s capital, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology abides by the cult of the Kim family.
Atop its main building, large red characters praise “General Kim Jong-un,” the country’s provocative young leader. At the front of lecture halls hang smiling portraits of his father and grandfather, who led the nation before him.
Yet the school is different in one striking way. In a country that bans religion, it is run by evangelical Christians.


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Trigger warning! Kenneth Bae book about North Korea ordeal may include faith content!

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In a way, this short post is not about Kenneth Bae and he horrors he endured doing hard labor in North Korea.

In a way, this short post is also not about his book on that topic.

I reality, this short post is about CNN and the attitude that someone in the editorial process there has toward the Bae book and (trigger warning: The following language may offend some readers) its religious content.

As a faithful GetReligion reader put it in an email about this particular CNN report, "Kenneth Bae: '735 days in North Korea was long enough' ":

Check out the second-to-the-last graph and see if you don't find yourself tempted to find the nearest brick wall against which you can bang your head.

But first some context, for those who are not following this story (which will soon be the subject of an Ira Rifkin "Global Wire" post:

(CNN) Kenneth Bae spent almost two years performing grueling work for the North Korean regime – and had another decade of hard labor ahead of him.
But he's no longer shoveling coal and hauling rocks. Instead, the American sat down with CNN's Chris Cuomo ... for his first live interview since his 2014 release.


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In gripping 13 stories, Crux charts sweeping worldwide persecution of Christians

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For several months now, Crux, the Sunday religion magazine published by the Boston Globe, has been putting out a series of well-researched pieces from all over the world on the new Christian martyrs mostly written by John L. Allen. There have been 13 stories posted to date, many of them in the final days of December.

One of the most interesting stories was on the new martyrs of Latin America.

When one thinks of that continent, thoughts of fast-growing Pentecostal churches or the homeland of the current pope spring to mind. What most of us don’t think of are the folks in El Salvador and Colombia who are caught in the middle of the wars between left-wing and right-wing death squads. The carnage is enormous and tragedy is that the deaths are so common, few journalists report on them any more.

What’s sad is how rare these stories are. Not since Mark O’Keefe’s five-part series on Christian persecution worldwide that ran in 1998 in the Oregonian has there been anything like it. I also noted Crux's series this past spring, so this is a quick check-in to see how their coverage has progressed. Click here to see tmatt's original post at the start of the series.

Here’s how one article starts:

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador/BOGOTÁ, Colombia -- When two Colombian women, a mother and a grandmother, were shot to death within a month of one another in early 2013, there was tragically little on the surface to make their deaths remarkable. They became merely the latest casualties of a decades-long civil war that’s left 220,000 people dead.


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The Guardian describes 'rice Christians' equation in North Korea, but only one side of it

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Talk about a story that raises some prickly questions linked to faith, evangelism, oppression and religious freedom – in North Korea, no less.

I am talking about a recent piece from The Guardian – "Christianity was the only way out, says North Korea defector" – about Joseph Kim and his journey out of one of the world's darkest dungeons and, rather reluctantly it appears, into Christianity.

I want to stress that this is certainly an interesting and important story. The issue, in this case, is whether The Guardian has only told half of it, leaving a Christian ministry accused of the old "Rice Christians" approach to evangelism, with no way to defend itself. Here is a dictionary definition of that term:

rice Christian
* a convert to Christianity who accepts baptism not on the basis of personal conviction but out of a desire for food, medical services, or other benefits

Now, here is the top of The Guardian report:

The first time Joseph Kim heard the words “Christian” and “church”, he had no idea what they meant. He had never seen a church and Christianity was as unfamiliar to him in his famine-ravaged North Korea as Disneyland.
“Kwang Jin”, a friend said to him, using the Korean name by which Kim was then known, “if you ever go to China, the churches will give you money.”
To which Kim replied: “What’s a church? Why would they just give you money?”
“Because they’re Christians,” the friend said.
“What are Christians?” Kim asked.


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Five for Friday: Zombies and other Godbeat headlines that you may have missed

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I'm on the road today, working on a story and planning to enjoy an authentic Philadelphia Cheesesteak.

Since I'm in a hurry, I thought this would be a good time to provide quick links — with limited commentary — to a handful of stories from my GetReligion guilt folder.

What better way to start your Friday than with a faith angle on zombies, courtesy of award-winning religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune?

The lede:

These days, you can see those lumbering, blood-drenched corpses with vacant eyes coming straight at you just about anywhere or anytime — not just at Halloween.
Zombie walks, as they are called, have become the most popular form of the grotesque genre. Folks dress up as the "undead" and stream down the street by the thousands. Such gory gangs periodically invade urban centers from Rio to Rome, Tokyo to Toronto and Sydney to Salt Lake City.
Zombies are even featured in their own wildly popular TV series, AMC’s "Walking Dead," which highlights the dilemma of a group of people facing enemies who had been their friends and neighbors.
Fascination with death and reanimation is not new, of course, but coming to life again has, in the past, been seen as a more, well, hopeful possibility.
This dark and fearsome image reflects a reversal of what Christians believe about resurrection, says John Morehead, a Utah-based scholar of religion and pop culture.

Next up: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Godbeat pro Lilly Fowler profiles a white female pastor who stands out in a predominantly black denomination and has been at the center of the Ferguson protests.


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People were massacred in North Korea for WHAT?!?

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Contrary to popular belief, the mainstream press really isn’t very effective when it comes to telling individual citizens what to think.


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