They Chose God

IN 2001, defectors from North Korea continued to paint a grim picture of religious repression in that rigidly controlled nation. One woman described how her family would gather under a blanket at night to whisper hymns from memory and offer prayers that, if overheard, could get them killed. “We were so scared,” she said. “If you were caught, you would disappear. We didn’t know where you would go, but we knew it was prison or execution.” A couple who had escaped across the northern border explained that their son was caught in China and returned to North Korea. As the woman talked about her son, her grief was apparent. “He is in prison. I expect he will die in prison.” She explained her own religious upbringing: “My mother taught me the Ten Commandments, and we memorized hymns. Of course, we could never keep a Bible in the house. The Communist Party would regularly raid the house and go through all the belongings, looking for foreign books. If they found a Bible, you could be executed.”

Another defector named Soon Ok Lee had spent seven years in a North Korean prison. At the time she was not a Christian herself, but she witnessed how they were treated. “The torture, and the worst ways of execution were most harsh on the Christians. They didn’t give them clothes. They were considered animals. Believing in God instead of Kim Il Sung was the biggest sin in their eyes.” A South Korean minister expressed a sense of futility to Soon Ok Lee about sharing the gospel in North Korea where the most urgent need seemed to be food. She strongly disagreed, citing what she saw in prison: “I witnessed them being asked to choose God or Kim Il Sung, and they were told they would be released if they chose Kim Il Sung. I saw them choose God.”

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