Evangelicals in Korea poised to move north

The clergy at Yoido Full Gospel Church are pretty sure that North Korea's Kim Jong Il doesn't want a host of earnest Christian missionaries coming to his country - holding prayer meetings or Bible study, singing subversive hymns like "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "Joy to the World."

But at this expansive four-building beehive of evangelicalism in downtown Seoul - the largest Christian church in Asia, if not the world - they are ready to cross into the North, if the spirit should so move.

Indeed, Korean evangelicals - a huge and influential subculture here - have already divvied up North Korea among themselves for future ministry. Like evangelicals anywhere, they are ready for the coming of the Lord. In the meantime, they are preparing for change in the North, even if the prospects seem bleak.

At Yoido's entrance, for example, one can view artists' renderings of 12 different contemporary churches and prayer-meeting complexes - all labeled with North Korean addresses. Above, a sign reads: "North Korean churches we must rebuild." Below each is the date they were first built - 1909, 1905, 1884 - and a description of where the original churches were established, usually by Methodist or Presbyterian missionaries. Worshipers are urged to donate to one of the North Korean projects.

"If the defense chairman [Kim Jong Il] will open the doors and allow freedom of religion, we are ready now to go in and construct churches," says assistant pastor Ho-Youn Jun. "We will start with a church site in south Pyongyang. We pray about this strongly. Sometimes we pray all night."

In every sermon preached by Yoido head pastor David Cho there are references to the people of the North, and reminders of their hardships. The Rev. Mr. Cho leads prayers for peace and reconciliation. But there is also a call for the liberation of God's children in the North, a Moses-echoing "Let my people go."

Considering that Full Gospel has a roll call of 750,000, with more than 200,000 members, and conducts several services a day - that's a lot of reminding. Such messages also ring loudly in a society that has officially remained very low-key about human rights conditions in the North.

To be sure, the Full Gospel Church - which has some 550 clergy - is mainly devoted to the business of gospel preaching in Seoul, and providing a religious and family church experience for Koreans. Walk off the elevator on Sunday in any of the two high-rise buildings adjoining the sanctuary, and one is greeted by a flurry of activity. Each floor has a warren of rooms devoted to activities ranging from Internet outreach to overseas work

Cho started in Seoul as a pentecostal preacher, though he has taken Full Gospel in a more mainstream evangelical direction in recent years.

What is striking, say experts, is that evangelical Christians are really the only broad-based group in Korea that maintains a focus on the problems of famine and ill treatment of North Koreans.

An exhibit in the foyer of Full Gospel has maps depicting where Kim Jong Il has located nuclear facilities, as well as the most infamous labor camps - Hoiryang and Yodok, among them, which are the size of large cities. The church maintains a North Korean relief committee that raises money for food aid, visits defectors in Seoul, and helps the networks of Christians who desire - somehow - to get the "good news," as they see it, into the North.

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