GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea represses religion and has an official ideology that is a form of secular humanism, a U.S. government agency said on Thursday.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said interviews with North Korean refugees showed a pattern of arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution for public expressions of religion.
“Any reappearance of Christianity, possibly permeating from northern China to where many thousands of North Koreans fled from famine in the 1990s, is rigorously repressed,” USCIRF North Korean researcher David Hawk told a news conference.
Only two active churches, with one more to be built, and one Buddhist temple were known to exist – all in the capital, Pyongyang, and apparently serving the foreign diplomatic and business community there.
USIRC vice-chair Felice D. Gaer said a full report on the findings from interviews with some 30 ordinary North Koreans among some 6,000 who have escaped to South Korea since 2000 would be published later this year.
Analysis:
With all the attacks that are made against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, it is interesting to note that the country which is considered the most antagonistic to human rights claims to be a humanistic in philosophy.
Secular Humanism is defined as: “the doctrine emphasizing a person’s capacity for self-realization through reason; rejects religion and the supernatural” (Wordnet).
We will not claim that everyone who is a secular humanist is one who will disregard human rights, and be guilty of the same types of atrocities as have been committed by the North Korean government. What we will claim is that all the good intentions and positive actions humanists lay claim to have their ultimate origin in God. The only direction a man left to his own devices will go is down into degradation and profligacy.
“But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” (James 3:14-17)
