Hello, and welcome back to Nations 4 Jesus. This is part two of our series on the Korean church. In our last episode, we talked about how Christianity came to Korea and how believers stood firm during the brutal Japanese occupation from 1937 to 1945. Today, we're going to look at what happened after liberation—and it's both heartbreaking and miraculous.
When our family lived in Seoul from 2006 to 2008 with the U.S. Air Force, one of the most striking things we experienced was the constant awareness of North Korea just 35 miles away. You could feel the tension, see the military presence, sense the pain of families still separated after more than 50 years. At our church, Jubilee, we regularly prayed for North Korean believers suffering persecution we could barely imagine. We also had an outreach to the North Koreans who somehow escaped to South Korea. They had been so brainwashed about the rest of the world, believing that what they saw in North Korea was better than anything, that when they saw the wonder of Seoul, many fell into such despair that they would take their own lives. Our church brought them the hope and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.
So today I want to tell you how one nation became two—how Pyongyang, once called the "Jerusalem of the East," became the world's worst persecutor of Christians, while Seoul became home to some of the largest churches on earth. It's a story of division, devastating war, and God's faithfulness in both suffering and blessing.
[Liberation and hope - 1945]
When Japan surrendered in August 1945, Koreans erupted in celebration. After 35 years of brutal occupation, they were finally free! Churches that had been driven underground emerged. Believers who'd been imprisoned were released. There was incredible hope that Korea would finally become an independent, unified nation again.
But that hope was quickly shattered. The Allied powers—the United States and Soviet Union—divided Korea along the 38th parallel as a temporary measure. The Soviets would oversee the surrender of Japanese forces in the North, and the Americans would do the same in the South. Everyone assumed this division would be temporary. No one imagined it would still exist 80 years later.
[Two very different occupations]
But the two occupying powers had very different visions for Korea. In the South, the Americans supported the formation of a democratic government and allowed freedom of religion. Churches flourished. Missionaries returned. Christian schools and hospitals reopened. The church that had survived Japanese persecution now had freedom to grow.
In the North, the Soviets installed a Communist government led by Kim Il-Sung, a guerrilla fighter who had spent years in the Soviet Union. Kim Il-Sung immediately began implementing Soviet-style policies: collectivization of agriculture, nationalization of industry, and most devastatingly for Christians—state atheism and suppression of all religion.
[Pyongyang - from Jerusalem to persecution]
Pyongyang, where Robert Thomas had died throwing Bibles from a burning ship, where Pastor Joo Ki-Chul had preached until his martyrdom, was the center of Korean Christianity. Before the division, Pyongyang had over 100 churches and was home to one of the most vibrant Christian communities in Asia. It was literally called the "Jerusalem of the East."
But under Communist rule, everything changed. Churches were forcibly closed. Pastors were arrested. Christian schools and hospitals were seized by the state. Church members faced a terrible choice: publicly renounce your faith and pledge loyalty to the Communist Party, or face imprisonment, torture, and death.
Many chose to flee south. In the years between 1945 and 1950, hundreds of thousands of North Korean Christians made the dangerous journey across the 38th parallel, leaving everything behind—their homes, their land, their extended families. They carried only what they could pack and their faith in Christ. These refugees would become the foundation of South Korea's explosive church growth.
[The Korean War - devastation and division sealed]
But for those who stayed in the North, the situation got even worse. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, launching the Korean War. For three years, the peninsula was devastated by fighting. Millions died—soldiers and civilians alike. Churches were destroyed. Entire cities were leveled. Families were permanently separated.
When the armistice was signed in 1953, the division that was supposed to be temporary became permanent. The Demilitarized Zone—the DMZ—became one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. And on either side of that border, two completely different stories unfolded for Christians.
[North Korea - the hidden church emerges]
In North Korea, Kim Il-Sung established what can only be described as a religious cult with himself as god. He created the Juche ideology, which demanded total loyalty to the Kim family above all else. Any competing loyalty—to God, to family, to truth—was considered treason.
Christians who remained in North Korea faced systematic persecution unlike anywhere else on earth. They were sent to political prison camps—gulags where entire families, including children, were imprisoned for the "crime" of believing in God. Estimates suggest that between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians are currently imprisoned in these camps, enduring forced labor, starvation, torture, and execution.
But here's what's remarkable: The church in North Korea didn't die. It went deeper underground than it had even under Japanese occupation. North Korean Christians developed an incredibly sophisticated system of secret worship. They memorize Scripture because owning a Bible means death. They pray silently. They sing hymns in their hearts. They pass faith to their children through whispered stories and Bible verses shared in absolute secrecy.
[Stories from the hidden church]
Let me share some stories that have come out from North Korean defectors. One woman reported that her grandmother would take her into the forest as a child, pretending to gather firewood. Once they were alone, Grandmother would whisper Bible verses she'd memorized decades earlier. "This is our greatest treasure," she told her granddaughter. "More valuable than food. Guard it in your heart."
Another defector reported that his father was executed for owning a Bible. Before his execution, his father told him, "I'm going to meet Jesus. Don't be sad. And never forget—Jesus is real, and He's worth dying for." That father's faithfulness meant his son carried the Gospel in his heart even after escaping to South Korea years later.
A North Korean woman who escaped told of underground house churches where believers would gather—never more than three or four at a time, rotating locations constantly, meeting in the middle of the night. They would whisper worship songs, share communion using whatever they could find, and pray for each other's survival. One betrayal to authorities would mean death for everyone present. Yet they continued to gather because their hunger for fellowship and worship was stronger than their fear of death.
[North Korea today - worst place to be Christian]
Today, North Korea ranks #1 on Open Doors' World Watch List as the worst place on earth to be a Christian—a position it has held for over 20 years. The regime considers Christianity the greatest threat to its power because Christians give their ultimate loyalty to God, not to the Kim family.
If you're discovered to be a Christian in North Korea, you and three generations of your family are sent to prison camps. Your children, your parents, your grandparents—all imprisoned because of your faith. The regime uses this policy to terrorize believers and ensure that even if someone comes to faith, they'll keep it secret to protect their family.
Yet despite seven decades of brutal persecution, despite the prison camps and executions, despite the complete absence of religious freedom, there are an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 underground Christians in North Korea today. That's less than 2% of the population, but it's a miracle that any believers survive at all under such conditions.
[South Korea - explosive growth]
Meanwhile, in South Korea, the exact opposite was happening. The Christians who had fled from the North, who had survived Japanese occupation and then Communist persecution, brought an intensity of faith that ignited South Korean Christianity. They had lost everything except Jesus—and they discovered that Jesus was enough.
In the 1950s and 60s, massive evangelistic crusades swept South Korea. The Billy Graham crusade in 1973 drew over 1 million people to Yoido Plaza in Seoul—one of the largest Christian gatherings in history! Churches grew explosively. By the 1970s and 80s, South Korea was experiencing revival unlike anywhere else in the modern world.
Prayer became the distinctive mark of Korean Christianity. Churches hold all-night prayer meetings—not monthly, but weekly! Some churches have prayer meetings that last for days. When we attended Jubilee Church in Seoul, we were amazed by the prayer culture. Pastor Dave would give a message and then everyone would stand at the end. He would pick out 4-5 main points from the message. For each point, he would pray for a few minutes followed by the entire congregation praying over each point. This went on for an additional 20 minutes each Sunday. It was amazing to hear all these voices raised…Korean, English, tongues. The intensity, the passion, the expectation that God would actually answer—it challenged everything we thought we knew about prayer!
[The megachurch phenomenon]
South Korea also became home to some of the largest churches in world history. Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, founded by Pastor David Yonggi Cho, grew to over 580,000 members—the largest single congregation in the world! I’ve visited this church twice. People literally run into the services…thousands every Sunday! Listening to all of these people sing at one time…I can only imagine what Heaven will be like, but I think it will be a bit like Yoido. Other churches in Seoul have memberships in the hundreds of thousands.
But it's not just about size. Korean churches are known for their commitment to missions, their emphasis on Bible study, their cell group systems, and their expectation that every believer should evangelize. South Korea, with only about 10 million Christians in a population of 51 million, sends out the second-highest number of missionaries in the world—over 27,000 serving in more than 170 countries! Only the United States sends more.
[Why such different outcomes?]
So how did one nation produce such radically different results? Both North and South Korea started from the same place in 1945—same people, same culture, same church history. What made the difference?
The difference was freedom. In the South, Christians had the freedom to worship, to evangelize, to build churches, to train leaders. That freedom, combined with the intense faith of believers who had survived persecution, produced explosive growth.
In the North, brutal persecution drove the church underground but couldn't kill it. In fact, persecution may have purified North Korean Christianity. When the cost of following Christ is three generations in a prison camp, only those with genuine faith remain. There are no nominal Christians in North Korea. Every believer there has counted the cost and decided Jesus is worth it.
[The refugee connection]
Here's something remarkable: When North Korean refugees escape to South Korea or China, many of them encounter Christianity for the first time through Christians who help them. Organizations run by South Korean Christians provide safe houses, food, medical care, and the Gospel to North Korean refugees. Many come to faith through the kindness shown by believers.
And when these North Korean refugees become Christians, they often become the most passionate believers! They've seen the darkness of life without God. They've experienced the emptiness of the Juche ideology. And when they encounter Jesus, they embrace Him with wholehearted devotion. Some even risk going back into North Korea as missionaries to share the Gospel with their people!
[Personal reflection - living with the division]
Living in Seoul from 2006 to 2008, we became acutely aware of this tragedy. We could see the mountains to the north where North Korea lay just 35 miles away. We knew that while we worshiped freely at Jubilee Church with hundreds of passionate believers, there were Christians in the North who couldn't even whisper a prayer out loud without risking death.
Our Korean friends at church all had family members they'd never met—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins separated by the division. They prayed for reunification not just politically, but spiritually—that one day the Gospel would spread freely throughout the entire peninsula again. And now our daughter will be going to Korea next March for five months of missions training with YWAM, continuing to pray and prepare for the day when North Korea opens to the Gospel.
[Hope for the future - what lies ahead]
So what lies ahead for Korea? No one knows when or how North Korea will change. But Christians around the world are praying and preparing for that day. South Korean churches are training thousands of missionaries specifically to go to North Korea when it opens. They're preparing Korean-language Bibles by the millions. They're developing strategies for how to rebuild churches and disciple new believers.
Because history shows us that when Communist regimes fall, the underground church emerges incredibly strong. We saw it in the Soviet Union. We saw it in Eastern Europe. We're seeing it in China. And we believe we'll see it in North Korea too. The seed that Robert Thomas planted in 1866, the faithfulness of believers under Japanese occupation, the courage of underground Christians in the North for 70 years—all of it will bear fruit when North Korea finally opens.
[Closing challenge and prayer]
In our next episode, we'll look at South Korean Christianity today—what makes it unique, what we can learn from it, and how Korean missionaries are impacting the world. But for today, I want to challenge you to pray for North Korea. Pray for the hidden church there. Pray for believers in prison camps. Pray for the day when the Gospel can be preached freely in Pyongyang again.
Let me pray:
Thank you for joining me today. This has been a heavy episode, but these are our family members in North Korea suffering for Jesus. We can't forget them.
Until next time, remember—keep your eyes on the nations and pray for our suffering family in North Korea!
Episode Description: After 1945, Korea divided—Pyongyang ("Jerusalem of the East" with 100+ churches) faced Communist persecution. Churches closed, pastors arrested, Christians fled south or faced death. North Korea now holds 50,000-70,000 Christians in prison camps, ranks #1 on Open Doors World Watch List for 20+ years. Yet 200,000-400,000 underground believers survive through whispered worship and memorized Scripture. Meanwhile, South Korea experienced explosive growth—now sends 27,000+ missionaries to 170 countries (2nd globally). The gates of hell have NOT prevailed.
Scripture: Matthew 16:18, Hebrews 13:3
Sources: Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs
Read more: nations4jesus.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment