Missions and the madman

Jonathan Cheng’s Korean Messiah (Knopf, 768 pp.) is an astonishing work of history that attempts to understand the state cult that holds North Korea in bondage.

This weighty tome is really two books in one. The first half of the book chronicles the astonishing explosion of Christianity on the Korean Peninsula, beginning with a Presbyterian missionary from Indiana who decided to go to Korea in 1889. Samuel A. Moffett became instrumental in securing the church’s foothold in Korea, and his base of operations? Pyongyang.

Cheng details the speed with which many in northern Korea adopted the new religion. In a short time, Pyongyang would boast having the largest Presbyterian compound in the world, and missionaries were excitedly writing letters in which they expressed their confidence that soon the entire peninsula would embrace the faith.

While these days of ministry were fruitful for the missionaries, they weren’t easy. By 1910, Japan had annexed Korea, leaving the Koreans bereft at having lost their state. The Japanese didn’t trust the American missionaries, but evangelism and church planting continued. The missionaries for their part tried to stay out of politics. Their Korean congregants, however, didn’t. Many of the early nationalists demanding independence were Christian converts.

Koreans pinned their hopes for rescue on America, especially after Woodrow Wilson began proclaiming national self-determination, the idea that every people should be allowed to decide their own affairs. After America failed to intervene, some Koreans became disillusioned with the West and began looking to communism for help. The Japanese occupation wouldn’t end until 1945 when the Soviets and Americans rushed to the peninsula, dividing it at the 38th parallel.

While the first half of the book deals with the growth of Christianity in Korea up to the end of WWII, the second half tells the story of the communist leader who would dominate North Korea, Kim Il Sung. Cheng argues that in order to understand Kim, one must understand Christianity in Korea. After all, Kim came from a family of devout believers. It’s a startling revelation about the architect of an atheistic state, and Cheng undertakes to explain how a Sunday school teacher became a dictator.

Ironically, when the Soviets put Kim in power in North Korea, the North had a higher concentration of Christians than the South, and the South had more communists. The disruptions of the Korean War and communist persecutions would shift that balance.

Cheng argues Kim’s ideology morphed into a secular religion, borrowing freely from both Stalinism and Christianity and turning the Great Leader into a god. The typical communist cult of personality became a religious cult akin to that of Jim Jones, an admirer of Kim Il Sung. It’s a fascinating and heartbreaking story, on both the national and personal levels.