(By Dr. William Devlin, Contributor , The American Dossier & CEO, REDEEM! an International Humanitarian Organization),
After two Trump-Kim Jung Un summits, can we trust the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? Absolutely not. As recently as today, the BBC reports that Kim has his finger on the trigger, this time, he says, for a satellite launch from Sohae. Sohae, one of DPRK’s main rocket launch sites, also happens to be a testing site for their previously launched ICBM’s. The “Hermit Kingdom” cannot be trusted and is now three generations deep into Juche (the ideology of Kim-ism and national self-reliance) where 25 million North Koreans live under the draconian iron boot of the state religion that requires every citizen to be unfailingly loyal and deifies the Kim family which they and the state have become a religion unto themselves.
NSA’s John Bolton recently stated that the only solution now after the summit held in Vietnam is to ramp up more sanctions against North Korea. But I would ask, “What are the remaining sanctions that the world has been holding over the head of Kim and why aren’t they in place already?” And what will be the response of North Korea?
Without question, DPRK has been a rogue nation since 1945, after being liberated from the oppressive rule of Japan. Since then, a grandson, father and grandfather have decimated the nation and its people.
It is interesting to note that, at one time, the Kim family did have a soul and a Christian influence. Current leader Kim Jung Un’s great-grandfather, Kim Hyong Jik, who only lived to age 31 and died in 1926, was a part-time Protestant missionary in what was then Korea. And history records that his son, Kim Il Sung, grandfather of Kim Jung Un, actively attended a Christian church in his youthful years but then ‘converted’ to atheism after the death of his Christian father.
Korea, when it comes to the Christian faith, has had a dark history killing the Catholic missionaries who landed in the 1700’s and outlawing the Christian faith during that time. However, most are unaware that Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries began flooding into Pyongyang in 1884-and that the current capital of DPRK was called “The Jerusalem of the East” due to the massive amount of Christian churches that were operating from 1895 to 1942. In 1907, Korean history records that there was “The Pyongyang Revival”; as one historian records it was “a national repentance movement that was birthed and galvanized the young Korean church to focus on spiritual matter in the midst of a political and national crisis-Korea had just become a protectorate of Japan” and would remain so until 1945.
After this 47 year period of the expansion of the Christian faith, the iron boot came down upon the church. Christians were murdered, starved, persecuted, imprisoned and frozen and nothing has changed in the last 74 years. Both the US State Department Office of International Religious Freedom and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF-the Congressional equivalent) has stated that DPRK is a Tier 1 country with the moniker of CPC or Country of Particular Concern. And this has been consistent since reporting began by State and USCIRF in 2001. USCIRF’s and State’s recent report both highlighted DPRK in this manner: “The North Korean government’s approach toward religion and belief is among the most hostile and repressive in the world.” North Korea cannot be trusted, as we say, as far as we can throw them.
And what should be our response if DPRK does launch a nuke directed toward a populated region? This would be a time when St. Augustine’s ‘Just War Theory’ could come into play.
While my pacifist friends, of which I once was until I volunteered to fight in Vietnam, cringe at the prospect of bombing North Korea, but what would St. Augustine do (WWSAD)? Think of this in light of the reports of the Middlebury Institute, in July 2018 through satellite imagery, located a uranium enrichment site in Kangson, North Korea. Augustine’s reasoning in The City of God where he explicates his Just War Theory applies to our response to North Korea should they launch a nuclear missile toward Japan or the United States or any other nation : Augustine claimed that while individuals should not immediately resort to violence, God has given the sword to government for good reason-protect the peace and punish evil…..peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could only be stopped by violence is a sin……defense of one’s self or others (a nation like Japan or the United States) could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority. I’m with St. Augustine.
Reverend William Devlin, is the CEO of REDEEM!, an organization involved in caring for girls and women who have been human trafficked. A life-long urban Democrat, Devlin is married to Nancy, and they have five children and seven grandchildren. Last grandchild born on New Years Day, 2019! Submitted by Reverend William Devlin, RN BSN MA, doctoral candidate octanefaith@yahoo.com January 9, 2019
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