Evangelicals in Korea poised to move north

"If evangelicals are lining up on the border with Bibles, they are about the only group in Korea that is ready to help inside the North," says a US diplomat. "I don't see a lot of other groups doing very much."

Hang Soon Po, who heads the North ministry project at Full Gospel, says it is difficult to conduct outreach to the North. Unofficially, Full Gospel tries to support North Koreans ready to take the risky step of reentering their country, and ministering inside the North. But so far only a handful have tried. "It is difficult to do missionary work in the North, but some do," Hang says. "We have lost about four that way," meaning they disappeared.

Hang's group shares a simple logic: Kim Jong Il must open his country, because he can't keep it shut forever in today's interdependent world. "We feel strongly that the North will fall. It is evil, and the evil will go."

The subject is extremely sensitive. South Korea has officially de-emphasized conditions in the North, concerned that too much finger pointing could endanger a fragile rapprochement between the Koreas. The national human rights commissioner, in testimony before the South Korean parliament in April, stated he had "no details" about rights violations in the Kim Jong Il regime. Also, many South Koreans who support unification prefer that it not take place any time soon - since the cost of rebuilding the North could set the South back several years economically.

"The churches here constitute the cutting edge of those facing the realities of unification," says Tim Peters, a Christian aid organizer. "They help refugees, raise money, send aid; they are way ahead of the government."

To the degree that Mr. Kim may ever worry about his people worshiping something other than himself, some Western diplomats feel he might someday worry about groups like the Full Gospel Church.

For reasons of temperament and history, local pastors say, Koreans seem especially attracted to expressive group- oriented Christianity. Sociologists say as many as 40 percent of Koreans may have some connections to the faith.

At night, visitors to Seoul can walk through any neighborhood and see dozens of red neon crosses dotting the skyline.

"Koreans love to join groups, and Korean men love to lead groups," says an American lawyer here. "Every Korean guy wants to be a leader, so you get a lot of small churches."

This is not a new phenomenon. At the turn of the century, Korea was considered such a fertile ground for missionaries that Pyongyang itself was widely known as "Asia's little Jerusalem."

Leaders here say that while their message is tailored for a Korean audience, they sometimes borrow from American evangelical techniques of organizing. Though officially apolitical, evangelicals do represent a strong "pro-America" faction in the South. Last January, as the streets of Seoul began to fill with younger Koreans protesting American troops here, Cho took the unusual step of filling the Seoul City Hall square with 30,000 evangelicals who supported US troops, and prayed for the denuclearization of the peninsula.

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