Reports have surfaced that Ri Hyon-ok was recently executed in North Korea. Her crime: distributing bibles. Neither the charge nor the punishment is an aberration in North Korea, the world’s leader in Christian repression.
One cannot doubt that ideological fanaticism and paranoia contribute to this repression. Yet beyond these motives is the concrete reality that authentic Christianity poses a serious threat to totalitarianism. If Kim Jong-il wants to prolong his rule and continue his family’s dynasty, then brutally repressing Christianity is the only rational, desirable course of action.
North Korea has once again topped the Open Doors Watch List, which measures and ranks Christian persecution, for the seventh straight year. Some of the descriptions by refugees who claim to have personally witnessed various persecutions are so atrocious that one might be tempted to dismiss them as too cruel to be true. Sensible, humane people have long struggled to wrap their heads around the capacity of their fellow man to commit horrific, evil acts of violence.
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