North Korea (MNN) ― The Bush Administration's decision to reward North Korea for its nuclear program declaration met with mixed reaction.
Once branded a part of the"axis of evil," concessions were traded for a long-awaited accounting of North Korea's nuclear bomb-making abilities. President Bush will lift some U.S. sanctions and remove the country from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism if it can be proven that North Korea keeps its part of the bargain.
President and CEO of Open Doors USA Carl Moeller was aghast at the decision. He wondered aloud what changed so drastically in 18 months.
Worse yet, what message does this send to the persecuted church?
The annual
Open Doors World Watch List has ranked North Korea as the worse violator of
religious rights for six years in a row. According to them, more Christians were
arrested in North Korea in 2007 than in 2006. Many have been beaten, tortured
or killed because of their religious beliefs.
Open Doors' local source estimates the number of underground Christians to be at least 200,000, and it's likely that there are as many as 400,000 to 500,000 believers. At least a quarter of the Christians are imprisoned for their faith in political prison camps, from which people rarely get out alive.
It's a devastating turn of events, Moeller says. "The [administration has] completely turned a deaf ear to the cries of millions of North Koreans who are starving today, who are oppressed, and the hundreds of thousands--by our estimate maybe 200,000-400,000 believers in North Korea--who are particularly persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ."
Moeller says
political concessions by North Korea won't affect the believers in this hermit
country. "Their steadfast hope is that the West will remember their
suffering, remember their chains."
The Open Doors North Korea team is taking the lead in evangelizing North Korea. Opens Doors can't reveal the nature of several projects, but they are actively working.
They also serve many North Korean women in the country and plan to extend the ministry more concretely in the long term. Please pray that this project can also become revitalized and expanded.
