Religious Useful Idiots
October 30th, 2009 Posted in Religious Persecution, Korea, Religion and PoliticsMark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy writes about the World Council of Churches, which sent a delegation to North Korea. Alas, the churchmen lived up to the old standard of being useful idiots, apparently being taken in by what is probably the worst, most brutal regime on earty.
In a rare moment of curiosity, a recent World Council of Churches (WCC) visitor at a North Korean Potemkin-style government-run church in Pyongyang apparently asked why no children were present. Perhaps this WCC official felt like the Dick Van Dyke character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang who, upon arriving in sinister Vulgaria, wonders where all the children were, not yet realizing that Baron Bomburst, at the behest of the child-despising Baroness, imprisons all of them, with help from the royal Childcatcher.
In the spirit of Vulgaria, the WCC delegation was assured that the children “are involved in a broad range of other activities and some will at a later age come to church.” Evidently the WCC forgot that communist North Korea prohibits any religious education for children, though the Potemkin churches would have been a little more persuasive with some child props.
By most accounts, North Korea’s Stalinist paradise is the worst place to be a Christian or any kind of religious believer. So naturally the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) recently visited North Korea and has joined with the Christian Conference of Asia to demand the lifting of international sanctions against the dictatorship’s nuclear weapons program.
I’ve written about the North Korean prison state. Religious leaders should be most outspoken in supporting the victims of tyranny. Including in the misnamed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.