Rethinking North Korea: The Christian Roots Of A Political Cult
(REVIEW) Can a communist regime have its foundation built by Christians?
Jonathan Cheng’s “Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult” tries to answer that very question, offering up a striking reinterpretation of one of the world’s most secretive regimes. Rather than treating North Korea purely as a political anomaly or a relic of Cold War communism, Cheng reframes it as something far more unusual: A state shaped as much by religious logic as by ideology.
The book’s central argument challenges conventional wisdom. While most analyses have focused on Marxism-Leninism or geopolitical isolation, Cheng, who serves as the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, argues that to truly understand North Korea requires looking at its spiritual architecture.
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In this massive 745-page book (also featuring helpful maps and rare photos), Cheng writes that the regime built by Kim Il Sung resembles a national religion — complete with myths, rituals and a central, quasi-divine figure — rather than a typical authoritarian state. By Cheng’s own admission, the book took him “more than a decade to complete,” and the original manuscript exceeded 1,000 pages.
Cheng grounds this argument in a detailed historical account of Korea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Christianity, particularly American Protestantism, spread rapidly during this period and became deeply intertwined with Korean culture. Pyongyang itself was once known as the “Jerusalem of the East,” a hub of religious fervor and political awakening.
By emphasizing how Christian institutions helped shape early nationalist movements — especially during key moments like the March 1, 1919, uprising against colonial Japan — the book shows that religion was not peripheral, but foundational, to modern Korean identity.
“It was the most heavily Christianized city in all of Asia. And the Japanese were actually quite hesitant about cracking down on the church, because they were trying to establish to the West that they were a responsible colonial power,” Cheng said in a recent interview. “And so, Kim Il-sung’s own family, his father was a Korean nationalist … but in a Christian sort of a mold. He saw the church as a vehicle to win independence from the Japanese, and so he raised his son that way.”
Interestingly, Kim Il Sung’s parents were Christian converts enrolled in school by Presbyterian missionaries. His father, Kim Hyong-jik, was a Christian nationalist who helped push for independence. Kim Il Sung served as the country’s premier from its establishment in 1948 until 1972, and then as president until his death.
Cheng writes that Kim Il Sung grew up in a “Christian bubble” and got a “front-row seat to the power of faith.” He rose to prominence as a guerrilla fighter resisting Japanese occupation of Korea, and later gained Soviet backing after World War II. He led North Korea during the Korean War, which solidified the division of the Korean Peninsula. His rule created a strong personality cult, and power later passed to his son, Kim Jong-il, beginning a dynastic succession that continues to shape North Korea today.
The book is an historical deep dive into the politics and culture in China, Russia, Japan and Korea at the start of the 20th century. Much of this history – either forgotten or never known by most Americans – helps frame the circumstances that led to the communist regime’s ultimate takeover.
What makes Cheng’s work especially compelling is how he traces the transformation of these religious influences into something entirely different. As nationalist hopes tied to Christianity faltered, figures like Kim Il Sung turned toward socialism, inspired in part by revolutionary currents such as those unleashed by Vladimir Lenin in Russia.
However, Cheng argues that rather than abandoning the structures of belief North Korea had inherited, Kim repurposed them. Cheng argues that the emotional and symbolic frameworks of Christianity — with things such as faith, salvation and devotion to a central figure — were recast into the ideology now known as Kimilsungism.
This interpretation sheds some light on the durability of North Korea’s system. Unlike other communist regimes shaped by leaders such as Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong, North Korea did not collapse or fundamentally reform itself after its founding leader’s death. That’s because Cheng attributes this resilience in part to the regime’s success in functioning just like a religion. It essentially created not just political loyalty, but a deeply embedded belief system capable of surviving generations.
At times, the book edges toward bold, even provocative claims — particularly in its suggestion that North Korean ideology and Christianity share structural similarities so close that defectors sometimes perceive them as nearly interchangeable. While this argument is intriguing, it may invite skepticism from readers. What about Korea’s past (including a monarchy, Buddhism and Neo-Confucian thought) that may have influenced the current regime?
Still, the book’s strength lies in its fresh perspective. By connecting such seemingly unconnected threads — missionary history, nationalist movements and authoritarian governance — Cheng opens a new view through which to view the hermit kingdom, which the West has often reduced to caricature. Cheng’s background familiarity with Christian traditions adds nuance to his thesis, allowing him to identify patterns others have overlooked.
Overall, “Korean Messiah” is less about revising a few details of North Korean history and more about rethinking its entire conceptual framework. Cheng makes a persuasive case that the regime’s endurance cannot be explained by politics alone. Whether readers fully accept his argument or not, they will come away with a deeper and more complex understanding of why North Korea remains a communist nation.
Clemente Lisi serves as executive editor at Religion Unplugged.