A History of the North Korean Church Through Modern Times. Writing the History of the Underground Church After Liberation
suk jin kang
Synopsis "A History of the North Korean Church Through Modern Times. Writing the History of the Underground Church After Liberation"
The hymnal on this cover is real. It was secretly used by underground believers in North Korea - hidden from the regime, worn by decades of forbidden worship, and preserved as a witness that faith cannot be silenced.
For over seventy years, the church in North Korea has endured in silence - hidden, hunted, and yet unbroken.
A History of the North Korean Church Through Modern Times traces the remarkable and largely untold story of Christianity in the northern Korean peninsula - from its earliest roots in the 1866 martyrdom of missionary Robert Thomas on the Taedong River in Pyongyang, through the devastating persecutions of the Japanese colonial era, the communist takeover after 1945, and into the present day, where an invisible remnant of underground believers continues to survive.
Drawing on over three decades of firsthand ministry along the Chinese-North Korean border, the author - pastor, historian, and North Korea mission worker Kang Suk-jin - presents this history through five distinct "Periods of Darkness," offering both a rigorous historical account and a deeply biblical reflection on God's sovereign work through suffering.
What You Will Discover: How Pyongyang became the "Jerusalem of the East" - and how it was lost to communist persecution The tragic apostasy of the Korean Presbyterian Church under Japanese imperialism in 1938 The birth of North Korea's underground church following the communist takeover of 1948 Twelve real testimonies of underground believers who have maintained their faith through unimaginable persecution A biblical comparison of North Korea's church history to Israel's Babylonian captivity - and the hope of restoration How the Great Famine of the 1990s paradoxically became a catalyst for Gospel renewal inside North Korea A theological vision for Korean reunification and the future of the divided church
Since its original Korean-language publication in 2021, this work has been recognized by academic institutions, acquired by university libraries including the Library of Congress, and adopted as a reference text in theological seminaries. This English edition makes this essential historical and spiritual record accessible to the global church for the first time.
"Even in the deepest darkness, the underground church endured - a living testimony that faith cannot be extinguished."
For readers of Korean church history, missiology, North Korean studies, and anyone moved by stories of persecuted faith.
