Kenneth Bae begins sentence in North Korean prison, video reveals sermon on walls coming down, calling for prayer
As American citizen Kenneth Bae begins serving 15 years of hard labor at a “special prison” in North Korea for alleged hostile acts against the state, videos of Bae preaching and calling for evangelism to the communist country have surfaced on the Internet, see below.
Kenneth Bae (right)
The May 24 Christian Post article details the plight of Bae and his sentence. The videos show Bae preaching, calling for the ‘walls’ to collapse.
“We have a new project called ‘Operation Jericho.'” Bae said, according to a NK News translation accessed by The Washington Post.
“We are going to send 300 people to pray in [the North Korean city of] Rason. … I’m now touring churches in the U.S., asking them to send 10 people per church to worship for one week.”
Bae also spoke of using prayer to “collapse” the walls of the notoriously reclusive nation.
“Just as God made people enter Jericho and collapse it without force, I hope the wall between [North Korea and the world] will collapse soon, through just our praying and worship in Rason,” Bae preached, according to the NK News translation.
The sermon also reveals that Bae worked with a missionary team in North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and had hoped to find among U.S. churches 300 volunteers to go to the country’s Rason city to pray and worship.
Bae’s sermon appears to be related to the charges brought against him by North Korean officials, as noted by the WP.
The publication’s Max Fisher summarizes the charges made by North Korean officials in a separate report:
- They say that Bae gave lectures and/or Christian sermons (he’s reportedly quite devout and, North Korea says, was preaching in China as a missionary) denigrating the North Korean regime. Though he’s accused of calling for the government’s downfall, notoriously sensitive Pyongyang officials might have mistaken criticism for subversion.
- North Korea also charges that Bae “infiltrated” 250 students into Rason and tried to establish a base of anti-regime activity in his hotel there. It’s not clear what any of this means but don’t be surprised, again, if North Korea is exaggerating.
- Finally, he’s accused of smuggling inflammatory, anti-Pyongyang literature into the country. That appears to include a 2007 National Geographic documentary about sneaking one of the magazine’s reporters into North Korea. It’s called “Don’t Tell My Mother That I Am in North Korea.”
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