North Korea's Messiah

**Jordan Schneider** (0:00)
Why did North Korea get so weird?

**Alex Boyd** (0:02)
Can we blame Stalinism, Maoism, Japan-style emperor worship? How about ancient North Korean hermit energy?

**Jordan Schneider** (0:10)
No, argues Jonathan Cheng, Beijing Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal and author of the new book Korean Messiah.

**Alex Boyd** (0:16)
You have all been sleeping on the influence of 19th century American revival Protestantism. To discuss why Kim Il-sung thought he was Jesus, or at least wanted to convince everyone else he was, we have the honor of Jonathan joining ChinaTalk today with Alex Boyd co-hosting. Welcome to the show.

**Jonathan Cheng** (0:40)
Hey, thanks, Jordan. Thanks, Alex. Great to be here. It's been a long time.
First time caller, long time listener.

**Jordan Schneider** (0:48)
You were like one of the first people who started retweeting me back when China Twitter was like a place that existed. So I want to, anything I can do to repay the favor.
Let's start with Billy Graham. Let's start where you started, Billy Graham's visit to North Korea.

**Jonathan Cheng** (1:07)
Yeah. Billy Graham, he's the world's most famous preacher, one could say. Certainly, in America, he is kind of the embodiment of Christianity in the 20th century. He's hanging out at the Oval Office. He's there with Harry Truman. He's there with Barack Obama. In fact, I believe he also meets Donald Trump, although not when Donald Trump is president.
But he's there for basically every president, Democrat or Republican. He's America's pastor, they call him.
And of course, he's famous because he's filling stadiums all around the world with his evangelistic crusades. He's also trying to take his message across the Iron Curtain. So that's part of the reason why he ends up in North Korea. He reaches out to the USSR, he reaches out to Poland, he reaches out to Czechoslovakia, and he does all sorts of these crusades there at a time when that was not so easy. But North Korea is a bit of a tougher nut for him to crack. It's a tougher nut for everyone to crack. And also it's a place where he has like a surprising amount of familial connection, you could say, or personal connection. Because his wife went to school in Pyeongyang in the 1930s, when she was a high school student. Because Kim Il-sung's first ever trip, evangelistic trip outside of the US was to the Korean Peninsula during the Korean War in the early 1950s. And one of his biggest audiences ever, 1973, he's in Seoul, South Korea, and he preaches to something like 1.1 million people in the center of Seoul.
You know, he's got this deep connection to Korea. But until he gets his invitation from North Korea to come visit in 1991, he makes the visit actually in early 1992, but he gets the invite in 1991 He's never actually been to North Korea. So that's where the book starts.

**Jordan Schneider** (2:59)
And, you know, just give us a bit of his impressions of the country he visited.

**Jonathan Cheng** (3:07)
Yeah, sure. So like I mentioned, he has been on the other side of the Iron Curtain before, but he knows that North Korea is something special. It's something different. Again, partly because of this personal connection. It's not just some random socialist country to him. He knows it's different and he knows that Kim Il-sung was raised in the Christian church.
He gets his invitation. He flies there in, I think, March or April of 1992 I think his visit technically straddles both months. But he's there. He is taken immediately to the birthplace of Kim Il-sung on the outskirts of Pyongyang.
And this is like this humble, thatched hut sort of a setting where North Korea says, you know, it's Korean Messiah. It's sort of God King figure was born under these humble circumstances. And of course, Billy Graham gets there. And one of the first things he says is he says, guys, this is kind of eerily similar to another humble, thatched hut messianic birth that kind of rings a little bit familiar. And he makes this remark that I have in the book. He says, all they're missing here are the three wise men in the manger.
Obviously, a reference there to the birth of Christ. And so that's sort of how he kicks it off. But he basically spends a couple of days in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. He's taken around. He gives sermons, like just proper Billy Graham style sermons, in Kim Il-sung University, the most prestigious university in North Korea. And he is also allowed to speak in the two churches that Kim Il-sung builds in Pyongyang towards the end of his life. And there he's preaching the same thing he preaches everywhere else. John 3.16, the one verse that's so famous. You'll see it held up at NFL football games. You'll see it held up all over the place.