Crisis and Irony

I did some thinking about North Korea yesterday. North Korea is one of the few Communist countries left on Earth and it is ran by a man named Kim Jong Il. He is a second generation dictator who rules with an iron fist and has been known to be hostile to Christians. Rick Warren, author of the wildly popular book, "The Purpose Driven Life" will be visiting North Korea to meet with officials of that country in hopes to be able to help spread The Message to North Koreans.

It is not widely know but North Koreans are routinely tortured if they profess to be followers of Christ. Now while it may be true that there are Christian churches who have members who are not persecuted, those are state-run (government) churches. Think of it this way. If you think the US government is too involved with religion, North Korea is far worse exponentially. The government there *controls* the church.

That is the crisis. The irony is that until 1950 or so, Pyongyang was known as, "The Jerusalem of Asia", meaning the holiest Christian city in that country. Now it is not so. It has become a deathtrap to any who practice outside the state run churches. There is no freedom of religion..at all.