Straight talk.
Tough love.
God matters.
The damage is done. Not to Robert Park, or to the zealous South Korean missionary enterprise, nor to the Christian Church – but to the Juche cult practiced as the state religion of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The DPRK spends nearly 40% of it’s annual budget on the maintenance of the cult which proclaims that Kim Il Sung is the eternal leader and savior of [all] Korea and that ‘arduous struggle’ to achieve reunification under the ‘great leader Kim Il Sung’ is the ‘sacred duty’ of all Koreans. The cult of personality that demands worship of Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il is all that is holding the regime together – and preservation of the cult is the top priority of the government. The state religion of Juche tolerates no dissent and its rigorous demand of adherence from all North Korean citizens has rendered the DPRK dead last among the world’s nations in political freedoms and the most dangerous nation on earth to be a Christian.
Regardless of what happened to Robert Park once inside North Korea, whether torture of himself or others, brainwashing, or other coercive measures taken to force the contrived repentance statement he made to the KCNA (the DPRK’s state run media), the fact is that he made them play defense.
No American has ever gone into the DPRK as Robert Park did on Christmas Day 2009 in the light of day, openly proclaiming Christ’s love for North Korea and calling attention to its abysmal human rights record. Park went in to offer himself as a martyr for the suffering people of North Korea and to share their misery. Some will say that his mission was a failure that resulted in recantation – and this appearance is indeed compelling until you peel back the layers of the DPRK’s response to Park’s brazen confrontation.
Largely ignored by the media is the fact that the operation was conceived by Park’s missionary organization Pax Koreana in December as a 2-pronged attack. Prong one of course, was Park’s defenseless incursion into North Korea proclaiming Jesus Christ’s love and demanding the opening of the DPRK’s borders for humanitarian assistance. The second prong involved the launching of 150,000 leaflets across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) by helium balloons on January 27th that explained the reason for Park’s incursion into North Korea and denounced Kim Jong Il’s excesses.
Lest one think that helium balloons and plastic leaflets are inconsequential instruments in getting the truth into the cult-controlled state, consider that the task force charged with policing up the leaflets is the Korean Peoples’ Army. The KPA was so concerned about religion making inroads to the soldiers that this 18 page field bulletin was issued to the military in 2007 warning against the ‘evils of religion’ which was “… not only taking over the regular citizens but is becoming an influence within the army of North Korea.”
The document states that, “The enemy is sending bibles, audio and video materials related to religion and superstition through various routes. They are placing spies within international delegations entering our borders to spread their religions and superstitious beliefs and win our citizens over to their side.”
Robert Park’s entry into North Korea created the KCNA news story that was released shortly after his surrender to the DPRK on Christmas Day. The KCNA did not explain Park’s confrontation of Kim Jong Il, Juche or the regime in its reporting. Then a month later come 150,000 leaflets across the DMZ, most descending to the ground shortly after crossing north where 70% of the KPA are currently deployed. Once the military of North Korea is successfully infiltrated by religious believers, the regime’s coercive power has been seriously degraded. Attempting to use the military to oppress the ordinary people already angered over the redenomination of currency and the severe malnutrition they face could backfire on the government.
Yes, on the surface it appears that Robert Park and Pax Koreana were outsmarted by the godmakers of Juche. But strategically speaking, the DPRK’s response is too little, too late – the seal has been punctured, the hole has been gouged, the light is leaking in. The contrived pro-Juche ‘repentance statement’ issued by the KCNA in Park’s name is a desperate response to a mortal wound inflicted by Pax Koreana which is buttressed by the actions of other balloon launchers, missionaries working the Sino-Korean border to assist defectors, and the prayers of the 500,000 member underground Church.
Robert Park may have buckled under torture of one kind or another – no surprise there. This is to be expected, not only by us on the outside, but more importantly by citizens of the DPRK. They know the game. The North Korean people are well acquainted with the Stalinist tactics of the Juche cult. Park’s contrived ‘confession’ may fool a few, but the majority of the people know better. And the word is no doubt spreading through the population and yes, the military, about what Park really came to do. The people of North Korea now know that Americans care about their suffering. They are beginning to understand that their plight is known outside the prison-cult that entraps them. This is a deadly blow to the cult, no matter what the KCNA’s propaganda machine promulgates to the contrary.
The reality is that Park came representing no government, no military, no large organization – he came in the name of Jesus Christ. There is no weapon, tool nor counter-attack that the Juche cult can implement to defeat the spread of Christianity. Blood of the martyrs has always been the seed of the Church. It may take a while to spread, but the word about who that American was that entered North Korea on December 25th will get around. No matter how humiliated he may look or feel, Robert Park was a missile of love that mortally wounded the Juche cult and the DPRK’s oppression of its people by doing what no one had ever done before. The DPRK is playing defense; and the actions of a weak, foolish and beaten down young man may have dealt the idolatrous cult of Juche its death blow.
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” 1st Corinthians Chapter 1:28-30
Its a Spartacus moment in the making.
The accompanying delivery of 150,000 leaflets into North Korea by Christian missionary Robert Park’s activist organization, Pax Koreana is the real story here. The leaflets explain Park’s mission and will most certainly be policed up by North Korean Army regulars - 70% of whom are deployed within a few miles of the DMZ.
Why is that important? Because when the military begins to sympathize with the dissidents, with Christians, or with ordinary North Koreans - the game is over, Juche has failed, and the Ceaucescu moment is imminent. I’m not saying that vast numbers of the Soldiers who read these leaflets will necessarily believe the messages printed on them - although some already do - but that the rumors will begin to spread into the population that a Korean-American Christian entered North Korea openly to call Kim Jong Il to repent and receive the Christian God. That will certainly cause a moral earthquake - and the 70,000+ cell phones currently in use in the DPRK may be a source to facilitate the spread of the rumors all over the country. The fact that the KCNA (North Korean state-run media) is reporting that 2 Americans have entered the DPRK is an inadvertant aid to the overall effort.
After all the years of confrontation between massive armies, navies, air forces, nuclear weapons, espionage and intrigue, it may be that a weak and frail missionary, some helium balloons and small waterproof leaflets will be the David’s stone that fells the Goliath of Juche.
God grant that Robert Park’s mission continue to grow in its effectiveness.
The Ceaucescu moment could be closer than it seems.
Angry citizens burned piles of old bills at two separate locations in the eastern coastal city of Hamhung on Monday, the Daily NK, a Seoul-based online news outlet that focuses on North Korean affairs, reported late Thursday, citing an unidentified North Korean resident.
It quoted the resident as saying he saw graffiti and leaflets criticizing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in and around a college in Hamhung - a rare move in a country where the totalitarian government keeps tight control over its 24 million people.
Dictatorships rarely end well. I was there when this one did.
The collapse of Pyongyang will feature similarities to both Romania and Iraq but will in its own way be worse than both - it will be seen as the failure not only of a state, but of a religion. Adherents.com ranks Juche, the state ideology of the DPRK as the 10th largest religion in the world. May the stench of Juche’s burning corpse forever remind us of the misery spread through idolatry, materialism, statism and personality cults.
| 26. To finish with this whole question of faith and its shoots, it remains to be seen, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have to say about their development. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of Evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself, and the penalty of disobedience is death. The enunciation of this principle will not astonish anybody who bears in mind what the Modernists have had to say about each of these subjects. Having laid down this law of evolution, the Modernists themselves teach us how it works out. And first with regard to faith. The primitive form of faith, they tell us, was rudimentary and common to all men alike, for it had its origin in human nature and human life. Vital evolution brought with it progress, not by the accretion of new and purely adventitious forms from without, but by an increasing penetration of the religious sentiment in the conscience. |
| “Christ’s human intellect is enriched with the fullness of infused knowledge. For, by reason of the hypostatic union, the human faculties of our Lord are as perfect as such faculties can possibly be; and to have infused knowledge is a perfection of the human mind. By divinely infused knowledge, Christ as a man knows all that any or all human minds can learn by the rational power (for instance, Christ perfectly knows all human sciences); he also knows all revealed truths, and all truths made known to the human mind by the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the gratuitous graces.” |

Dear Jared:
Hey there OB, yes I did read your article, and I agree with much of what you say.I believe the make-up of the people and country of Afghanistan (illiterate, fiercely independant, warlike, tribal, welded to their own religious and cultural traditions) will require a unique response from any invader. Because of who they are, anybody from outside will always be an invader.The unique responses that might succeed would require many years of work, a new paradigm for implementation and a tremendous amount of $$$. The US (highly literate but misguided by our academics and our media, softly dependent, warlike-only on the X-box level, democratic-we'll elect anybody so long as they have good hair and an engaging smile, and abandoning our traditions for tattoos and yoga) has not proven itself capable of supplying these things.Do you actually believe this gov't., which will not even secure it's own borders, can thoughtfully organize and carry out a multi-generational plan to bring peace and security to the Afghans? Do you think this Congress and this POTUS will ignore the groaning of so many out of work voters and continue to pour-in the resources for a conventional war?Your citation of our successes in Europe, Japan and Korea don't apply as easily to a fragmented Tribal society. For those models to work, you need a USA with the 'we can do this' attitude of the great generation that accomplished those feats of sacrifice and valor. The young people you are surrounded with may be willing, I wonder if the rest of the country is.I see an interesting parallel:When the Spanish drove north from what is now called Mexico, the Franciscans created a thriving economy involving the Indiginous tribes in agriculture, sheep-herding, and rudimentary manufacturing for trade. They built a mission society that largely survived after the Spanish had to recall their troops (for political and economic reasons).The Indians, Christianized and introduced to systems of organization and production previously unknown to them, didn't return (for the most part) to their old lifestyles. Whether by Spirit or by material gain they were converted.When the Europeans drove west from the Eastern Forests of the New World, they killed or transplanted any indigenous peoples who didn't 'get with the new program'. Those Tuscaroras and Chippewas who chose to fight chose death because a stronger culture was bringing it on, as sure as a tsunami.In both cases the tribal lands and practices were supplanted by something new and arguably better. The dead warriors and scalped homesteaders might have liked the chance to rethink the plan, but they're not here to complain, are they.I just don't think the US has the sense or the will to do what the Fransiscans did...and we certainly don't have the balls to do what Daniel Boone did. What you are proposing is, in some ways, akin to the Spanish Mission success, except you'll let the Indians keep their religion.I do agree with your position that we must engage Islam, but I think it is necessary for our survival, not theirs.I want to keep up this dialog if you have the time...you have a unique perspective and I think you should put it out there where more can see it.Right now I have to get to some less philosophical tasks...we'll chat again real soonI hope.Ever and Always,Jay
Jay,No! Pulling out is morally and strategically wrong. We need to engage Islam (Obama is correct on this point) but from a position of strength. We need to leverage Islamic leadership in its mainstream, orthodox form (what the media wrongly calls 'moderate' Islam - an insult to devout Muslims).We have NO CHOICE. We are already engageed with many Muslim nations as allies - to betray those alliances is diplomatic suicide.The brave fighers in Afghanistan deserve political leadership that recognizes the WINNABILITY of Afghanistan with the counterinsurgency strategy AND the long term commitment to economic partnership that we have succeeded with in Germany, Japan and Korea. Afghanistan is only a lost cause if we lose our political will to back American Exceptionalism; we CAN where GB and the USSR couldn't. But we MUST return to a Declaration/Consitutional view of humanity in order to see the Afghan people the same way we viewed the Korean people 60 years ago as worthy of long-term support.Did you read my article?
Good Morning Old Boot,I just finished my first reading of these documents: very engaging stuff. I have to read them over again to take-in more of the detail...the alphabet soup of military nomenclatures is a lot like Pashtun to me.If what I'm reading is true, then we really have no effective option other than to pull out. The US forces aren't going to be building any nation in Afghanistan...Afghanistan can't even build a nation there. I don't see any clear direction from this US administration in the increasingly dangerous global scene....and much of the global trouble is complicated by the Muslim ascendancy. Could it be that our 'boy-leader' is going to show himself as more inept in his international efforts than in his domestic?If we do pull out, however, we would finally make the media's wishes come true, and this war will finally look like like Viet Nam: more American lives pissed away by a Government that doesn't know what it wants to do.That's the only reason I'm glad Jackson isn't going the commisioning route at VMI. It's also one of the reasons I have so much respect for you-all who are in it all the time.Think how easy it would be to fight only one enemy, and with clear directives (ROI's) that free you up to do what you've been trained to do.I don't want to become an idolater...I don't want my sense of patriotism to blind me to God's plan for me as one of His children, or His call to bring the word of Salvation to all nations.Lots to pray about.Keep the Faith Old Boot, and pass the ammunition.Jay
Jay,First, he decries the past stategy as a misdiagnosis of the secular, Kabul government against the rural religion Pashtun insurgency. The fact is, leaders like Mr. Hoh have likewise attempted to fram Afhanistan as narco-terror, insurgency, failure of governance, civil war, etc... everything except what it is - a religious war between conflicting visions of Islam.Our own myopic and stridently antireligious government has studiously avoided defining the conflict as such. We appear no better than the godless USSR to most Afghans because of this ill-conceived posture that nearly all Afghans reject - remember, to achieve 'victory' in a counterinsurgency the supported host nation must 'win' by legitimizing the government on the people's terms.The real way to achieve stability in Afghanistan is to back the orthodox Islamic scholars who hold the real reins of power in Afghanistan. But our government cannot fathom supporting a religious establishment even though Muslims do not, will not, and can not separate the Mosque from the state. We try to force-feed our political philosophy to Afghans and the clerics denounce us on Fridays in the mosque sermon. The Friday sermon is the most powerful communications platform in Afghanistan.I have attached an article I submitted to a Military Journal last month on how we nearly lost in Iraq for the same reasons. I hope you get a chance to look it over. There can be no victory of any kind in a Muslim society, no matter how backward, provincial or hostile to what we deem progress without the support and endorsement of the Islamic scholars and rank and file Mosque preachers. We have failed utterly because of our own antreligious bias, and it is in some way the judgment of God that we are losing in Afghanistan - in the long term historical perspective, they may be more righteous than we are just as God delivered Judah over the Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC. A post-Christian society is far more susceptible to failure than a Muslim society at least commited to monotheism and a religious society.Old Boot

“Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11
The Kingdom of Judah was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, Emperor of Babylon in 586 B.C. because of the idolatry of the people and the refusal of the king to listen to the Word of God in the mouths of His prophets, chiefly Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Today, our own nation is rapidly descending into a godless socialism that will bring the judgment of God upon us swiftly and perhaps without remedy.
There are several comparisons with Judah and Israel that might arouse a spirit of repentance among Christians if heeded.
First, after a period of intense struggle and war, the 12 tribes of Israel were united and a period of great prosperity ensued under the reign of David and Solomon aound 1000-950 B.C. David, the warrior-king established a united kingdom under the provisions of the Mosaic Covenant. Solomon ruled by divinely inspired wisdom under conditions of unparalleled peace and prosperity. Solomon's son Reheboam refused the counsel of his father's advisors, raised taxes and alienated his subjects so greivously that they seceeded into a separate kingdom (Israel, also referred to as Joseph or Ephraim in scripture) which was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.
Solomon reigned as a king of kings although his marriages to foreign wives and his willingness to entertain their pagan shrines in Israel became a deadly stumbling block for the people.
After the chastening of two world wars and the great depression, our grandparents raised our parents with strong values of religion and patriotism. Church attendance in the U.S. hit its peak in the 1950s. Our parents indulged us in the materialism of their day, as American prosperity soared. We raise our own children in unprecedented wealth - a generation that has rarely wanted for any material satisfaction.
In the 1950s the Eisenhower administration enshrined "In God We Trust" on our currency and "One nation under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance. While these values remain strong among a majority of Americans, they are under attack from socialists everywhere.
Israel wanted a king in order to be like the nations, even though God had chosen them to be a 'holy nation, a kingdom of priests' with Him as their King. This craven bent towards mediocrity and idolatry is at work in America today. President Obama apologizes for American Exceptionalism everywhere he speaks abroad. His message to the UN included pledges to minimalize the role of the U.S. as a global leader and to operate as 'one of many equals.' This is part of his marxist agenda that if achieved, will hasten the wrath of God against us.
Israel wanted to be 'inclusivist, tolerant and multi-cultural' by synchretizing the Covenant worship prescribed by the LORD with the pagan practices of the gentile nations they envied. Synchretism brought down the Kingdom as the gentiles observed the weakness of the peoples' commitment to the God of their fathers and moved in for the kill. The same thing is happening in the U.S. today because of the weakness of orthodox Christian belief in our churches. One of the reasons godless liberalism is so rampant in the U.S. is that the Churches are so weak in their proclamation. Where can we go to hear any word today that renounces sin and warns us of the judgment of God?
Bizarre and perverse heresies have rotted our proclamation from within. Our churches have been deceived by mind science, psychology, health'n'wealth hucksters, homosexuality, no-fault divorce, environmentalism, and abortion 'choice.' The mother of all these heresies is so-called theistic evolutionism which destroys belief in God the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and replaces it with fantastic myths and man-made models that bleed the faith dry of its vitality. Theistic evolutionists are the enemies of the Sacred Scripture tearing its revealed truths in shreds and ridiculing the supernatural miracles and prophecies chronicled within.
The churches in Europe are nearly abandoned as they embraced theistic evolutionism a generation ago. Their birth rates have fallen well below the replacement rate - Europe is dying. Europe is socialist (albeit with some semblence of democratic underpinnings) and its economy is contracting. In order for socialism to succeed anywhere, it must be the law everywhere. Huge capitalist economies like ours attract investment and create wealth - and drain away assets from socialist states. Hence, socialist nations want America to join in the international socialist movement where a world government can control private industry (and eventually economies) and make the world 'fair and just for all.'
It is Almighty God who ordained divine laws protecting private property. The Catholic Church has unequivocally renounced all forms of socialism as inherently evil. The Church stands between free men and global socialism. That is why socialist dictators from Stalin to Mao to Kim Il Sung to Hugo Chavez ruthlessly persecute the Church. The National Socialist Party (Nazi) of Germany persecuted Jews for the same reasons - a diabolical adherence to evolutionary theory (Hitler's eugenics) and a utopian plan to rule the world through socialism required the People of the Bible to be eliminated.
Today, Barack Obama wants to lead the United States to become 'like the other nations' (sound familiar?). For his socialist policies to become law, he must eliminate the Catholic opposition to socialism. The apostasized Church did most of the heavy lifting for him when the University of Notre Dame bestowed an honorary law degree upon the man with the most radical abortion policy in our nation's history last May. Catholics, Jews and Protestant Christians are actually embracing socialized health care as a 'Judeo-Christian' position - even though it sets the stage for even greater government control of our once free people.
Theistic evolution provides the weakening of Christian belief that allows for wholesale co-option by secularists and statists. Through this pernicious synchretism between Christianity and paganism, standards for morality and decency have tragically plummeted and we now have slain 50 million innocent children in their own mothers' wombs legally.
We have also filled the world with the spirit of fornication through our mass media, most disgustingly through our movie industry. Our videos, movies, music and live entertainment wreaks of the fornication message and pollutes other nations. Because of this, the judgment of God is coming.
Because of the grave evil of slavery, this nation was judged with a brutal civil war that claimed nearly a million slain. That number is miniscule compared to the judgment coming for the guilt of slaying 50 million innocents through abortion.
Barack Obama spent 20 years learning 'Liberation Theology' at the Trinity Church of Christ under the leadership of Jeremiah Wright. There he learned that America's only hope is to 'fundamentally transform' into a socialist state and make economic reparations to those whom white capitalists had exploited for 400 years. If this were merely a political ideology it would be dangerous; seeing it is Obama's religious faith, it is potentially deadly to the long term prosperity of the U.S. Constitution and our Republic.
Barack Obama, whether by cunning or naivete is leading us down the road to international socialism. His radical abortion policies pose a grave danger not only to innocent children but to the nation at large which is under the judgment of God. His surrender of American sovereignty to globalist designs will cause our enemies to close in on us and seize what they can. The only question that remains is will we still possess the will to fight when all these things come to pass. A generation spoiled by materialism, with faith weakened by theistic evolutionism and families decimated by fornication, adultery and abortion may simply surrender to tyranny and turn on its own conscience: the religious believers in their midst.