Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Rick Warren is accepting an invitation to visit North Korea. The Pyongyang government is launching missiles in another attempt to threaten the U.S. and other governments into stabilizing its government. It can be difficult to understand the motives of this secretive nation, whether it is launching missiles into the ocean or inviting Christian leaders to visit the virulently anti-Christian country. Ronald Boyd-MacMillan has visited the country three times, met with Kim Jung Il, and is writer-at-large for Open Doors. He is author of the forthcoming book Faith that Endures: The Essential Guide to the Persecuted Church. CT online associate editor Rob Moll spoke to Boyd-MacMillan from his home in Scotland.

What do you think of Rick Warren's visit to North Korea?

You can travel as religious VIP, but it's a propaganda exercise. I went in as one, and they took me to the Korean Christian Federation, which is this so-called Christian church in Pyongyang, but it's completely set up for the foreigner's benefit. Later, I sent a friend along who wasn't a Christian. I said leave the hotel on a Sunday morning, this was Easter Sunday morning, and see if that's a real functioning church. And he went along on Easter Sunday morning, the place was locked. So there is the Korean Christian Federation, but it's really just a kind of shell church to bring in religious VIPs so that they can be a kind of go-between, between the North Korean regime and the West, because diplomatic channels are very hard for them to use. Billy Graham did it for years. There may be a role for it. I'm sure Rick Warren's well aware that it's primarily a propaganda exercise for the North Koreans to show that they have a free church, which is utter nonsense.

Is there any chance that they might use that to kind of draw out some Christians?

No, the Christians would be too smart. He will never, if he goes to Pyongyang, meet a real Korean Christian. I'm sure he's well aware of that.

What do you think of these missile launchings from North Korea? What are they trying to do?

It's the only way they relate to the outside world, because they have nothing to offer the outside world any more. They just have to keep looking dangerous so they keep getting bought off. And America and some other countries, particularly China, have been playing that game with them, within certain parameters. It's probably smart enough. They're probably calculating that if they keep the regime stable, the North Koreans won't go launch nuclear weapons at Japan or South Korea.

Were you able to meet with any Christians when you were in North Korea?

No. If you go into somewhere like Pyongyang, you're kept away from every native, and there aren't Christians in the capital that would be known. The only way you can meet Christians is maybe to cross the border up in the north and visit some of the house churches, but that's fairly risky for a foreigner.

I understand there's a lot of ministry from South Koreans up in the area.

Yes, because in the winter the river between China and North Korea freezes over, and you can run the gauntlet and cross the river at night. It's risky, though. You can get shot for it. So there's not a lot of travel, but there is some. That's given us a little pipeline of information as well as the ability to get some supplies and scriptures into the small house churches that are still left in North Korea, but they're very small scale.

Before Communism, the North was significantly Christian.

That's true. They talked about Pyongyang as being Asia's Jerusalem. Ruth Graham was raised in a very famous Christian school there. Kim Il Sung changed all that in the 1940s and then he really upped his personality cult in the 1950s after the Korean War.

next page... |  1 of 3

share this page

July (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50