‘American missionaries who once presented themselves as ‘apostles of God’ in Korea are now . . . running over children with tanks,” thundered Kim Il-sung, the “Great Leader” of North Korea, shortly after the Korean War.
Unsurprisingly, some of the most popular books and movies in the Hermit Kingdom depict American missionaries as trying to corrupt Koreans. Even today, North Korea rates as one of the most dangerous countries for Christians. There are reports of Christians who have been executed by steamroller. And yet both of Kim’s parents had been converted to Presbyterianism by American missionaries. This has received only passing acknowledgment. The late Suh Dae-sook, one of Kim’s earliest and most influential biographers, told Jonathan Cheng, former Korea bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, that Kim’s connection to Christianity would probably warrant no more than a magazine article. Korean Messiah disproves Suh and reveals the centrality of American Christianity for the North Korean dictator as well as the nation.
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