분단 70년, 북한 기독교의 이해

Abstract

Korea Christian Federation, house churches, Bongsu church, and underground churches are forms of the reorganization and transformation of the North Korean Christianity during the past seventy years. While the Korea Christian Federation and official churches belong to the reorganized Christianity made of religious intervention and religious utilization of North Korean government, house churches and underground churches are transformation of the Christianity formed in the environment of religious repression. This essay explores that on what environment and for what motive the North Korean Christianity has been reorganized and transformed. Our concern about the motives of the organization and establishment of the Korean Christian Federation and the churches grew out of the negative understanding of them by South Korean Churches. South Korean church leaders and experts of North Korean religions have denied the religious identity of the Korean Christian Federation and its churches, and have argued that they were the camouflage religious organizations and fake. Historians of Korean Christianity also have understood the history of North Korean Christianity as “history of suffering, history of persecution, history of disapperance” and made the Korea Christian Federation and Bongsu Church, which have come into being in after the 1970’s, have been distrustful. This shows that the division of the Korean peninsular has influenced upon the understanding and research into the history of North Korean Christianity. Do the Korean Christian Federation and Bongsu Church not have Christianity identity? Are all the members of the Bongsu Church and Chigol Church false believers? Keeping these questions in mind, this paper, first of all, investigated the motive and articles of the Korean Christian Federation organized in November 1946. Though a strong political motive is found in the organization of the Korean Christian Federation, it is true that we could find religious concern over the development of Christianity and Christian philanthropic sprit from the organizers of the Federation. The problem of Christian philanthropy mentioned in the Federation’s articles should be investigated more deeply to understand the church leaders who organized the Korea Christian Federation. This essay analyzed also the problem of the continuance of Christianity under the religious suppression through the house churches, Bongsu Church, and underground churches, and argues that church establishment of the 1980’s can be understood as an religious experiment of Christianity under the surroundings of Juche thought and Koryo Confederal System. We do not know what the underground churches really are, but the substance of the underground churches will be uncovered through the collection and analysis of testimonies on the North Korean Christianity.