Missionary Ethics

This morning I opened the San Francisco Chronicle and found a story called "An 'underground railway' rolling to freedom or death" in the Insight section. It was written by Josh Chin who is a student at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. He was given the rare opportunity to enter a safe house in China and meet a dozen North Korean refugees who sought protection there. The safe house is part of a loose network of Christian missionaries who do what they can to help North Korean refugees escape to South Korea. The Chinese government does not recognize North Koreans as refugees and will forcibly repatriate them back to North Korea where they are often tortured and sometimes killed. As Josh says in his article "the missionaries are virtually their only protectors."

As an opinion piece this article was much more personal than a typical news story. Josh shares his own struggle to define whether the missionaries are bringing life or death to these refugees. Josh is quick to point out the courage of the missionaries who face imprisonment or worse if caught aiding the North Koreans. He also points out that they seek no recognition and earn no payoff for their work other than remaining true to their beliefs. Many North Korean refugees do make it to freedom because of the work of these missionary networks.

So why the struggle? Two of the North Korean women that Josh meets at the safe house, 16-year old Esther and 17-year old Grace, declare that they plan to return to North Korea "to spread the Gospel". Josh notices that Grace seems hesitant. Proselytizing in North Korea is a crime punishable by death. Why would the women choose this fate? Josh wonders if the women, taught from birth in North Korea to worship Kim Sung Il, Kim Jong Il and juche (the national philosophy of Korean self-reliance) have merely substituted the object of their faith with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of Christianity. Are North Korea refugees easy targets for missionaries? Is this ethical? Are the young women better off? These are the questions I struggled with as I drove to church this morning after reading the paper.

I have more questions than answers and Josh's article does not attempt to give any answers. He shares his struggle and asks his readers to draw their own conclusions. Here are a few of my thoughts.

In the final class on his book, The Dangerous Act of Worship, Living God's Call to Justice, Pastor Mark Labberton engaged in an extended discussion with a woman in the class who wanted to make sure that in our discussions of justice we did not forget that our main calling as Christians is to spread the gospel. Pastor Mark, while agreeing that sharing the good news of Jesus Christ is important, argued that loving our neighbors and working for justice are inherently valuable to God - because of the nature and character of God - and that value is not dependent on our sharing the Gospel.

I asked myself why proselytizing is punishable by death in North Korea? (Josh writes that these days North Koreans caught illegally crossing the border are no longer put to death unless they return to proselytize) Another way to ask the question is: what does Kim Jong Il have to fear from the spread of the gospel in North Korea? In 2001 Edward Kim, editor of Chosun Journal, wrote Kim Jung Il "knows that once the missionaries and refugees were to bear witness to the world of their unbreakable courage and undying love strong enough to move the whole world's conscience, that his freedom to abuse would be lost forever." There lies hope - and yet that quote comes from a conversation that Edward had with one of these missionaries and it leaves me with much concern.

Learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Isaiah 1:17

Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
Isaiah 58: 6