“The collapse of Kim Jong-il’s rule someday is likely to leave a serious ideological and spiritual vacuum, which can be easily filled by Christianity. The associations between Christianity and South Korean prosperity will not hurt either – as well as right-wing sympathies of Korean mainstream Christians (the left is unlikely to be popular in post-Kim North Korea for at least a generation). And it seems likely that in many cases the new-found North Korean Protestantism will take rather extreme forms.”

– Dr. Andrei Lankov, Associate Professor at Kookmin University, in Seoul

One thing I have been thinking about this week, which I’ve blogged about a good bit, is how the US could fund, work with, and/or imitate the efforts of the Christian groups that have been working with North Koreans in Manchuria and North Korea.
At its most successful, the spread of this movement could benefit us in many, many ways, but the ultimate goal would be to provide a thought system that would connect North Koreans with the greater world – that would help bridge their transition from an ultra-hermit kingdom status defined by hatred and fear of the outside world into one accepting major components of that outside world. It could do things like help them understand better the nature of democracy as viewed in Western (and now global) civilization. It could help ease the possible consequences of a collapse of the North by providing them with a spiritual meaning at a time of deep crisis…..
……it could also help distance them away from China as well as bring them closer to the US and West and South Korea…..given China’s stance on religion and Christianity…..

“You cannot expect North Korea to change from the top,” said Yu Suk Ryul, chairman of Cornerstone Ministries International. “The best way to change North Korea from the bottom is to spread the Gospel.”

Cornerstone supports underground churches in North Korea by way of ethnic Korean-Chinese traders, who supply Christians there with “mini-Bibles” translated into a North Korean dialect, as well as financial assistance and other goods. The group says that it supports more than 1,000 underground cells in North Korea, and that the number is “growing fast,” Yu said.

Cornerstone also releases plastic bags filled with Christian messages and sweets at sea, with the intent that they wash ashore in the North.

The evangelists’ tactics are aimed at undermining two pillars of North Korea’s Communist government: the isolation of its people and the near-deification of Kim and his late father, Kim Il Sung.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/01/asia/korea.php

sweet!! it gives me hope that the ceaucescu moment can still happen.

probably not with KJI as he’s gonna kick the bucket soon.