A Vigil Against Faith in N. Korea

If you slipped over and looked for a house with a cross, the people inside would give you a lecture on Christianity and a bowl of rice.

Choi Hwa knew this was dangerous stuff. Back when she was an impressionable 12-year-old, she and her classmates had been called out to watch the execution of a young woman and her father who were caught with a Bible. But Choi knew as well that the pangs in her stomach meant she might soon succumb to the starvation that had killed dozens of neighbors.

The girl followed her stomach. Through it, she found her way to faith.

It would be an overstatement to say there is a sizable religious revival in North Korea. With the possible exception of communist-era Albania, no communist country had managed to so thoroughly eradicate organized religion. But there is little doubt that it is seeping back in through porous borders and challenging the idiosyncratic doctrine of juche that reveres founder Kim Il Sung and his son, current leader Kim Jong Il, as gods.

"Once you read the Bible, you stop believing in Kim Il Sung," said Choi, who is now 19 and living in Seoul, the South Korean capital. (Like many defectors, she is living under an assumed name to protect relatives in North Korea.)

Choi recalled the daily recitations of "Thank you, Father Kim Il Sung" required of children. But after studying with missionaries, she realized the extent to which "Kim Il Sung just replaced God's name with his own," she said.

"Juche as a worldview has lost much of its heavenly mandate because of the famine and the collapse of the economy," said David Hawk, a leading human rights investigator who recently completed an extensive study of North Korea for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent agency funded by Congress.

In the study, to be released today, the commission found that the practice of religion is increasing inside North Korea, prompting a reaction from the regime.

"Some North Koreans are testing prohibitions against religious activity," Michael Cromartie, chairman of the commission, said in a statement. At the same time, "there is renewed government interest in ensuring that North Koreans coming back from China are not 'infected'