Jonathan Cheng

We know Kim Jong-un is the third generation leader of North Korea.

But if you go back to his father and ultimately to his grandfather, the founder of the state, Kim Il-sung, that's really what this state is built around.

It's built around what I might even go so far as to call worship of Kim Il-sung.

That's really what lies at the center of this state.

Many people would be surprised to know that many of the ideological roots of this state religion, if you want to call it that, can be traced in a meandering way, but through American postbellum Presbyterianism.

And

you had many young men and women ivy league or college university educated who would sail to the ends of the earth to spread the christian message among them was a young man from indiana he arrives in korea in 1890 he's one of the very first the first handful of foreign missionaries to ever arrive in korea

He goes up to Pyongyang, today the capital of the Kim dynasty, and he does what missionaries do.

He tells them about the Christian message.

And it took hold there in Pyongyang in a way that it never really took hold almost anywhere else in all of Asia.

It became a city that was so Christianized that it was known as the Jerusalem of the East.

And out of that comes the family of Kim Il-sung, or if you want to put it another way, the family of Kim Jong-un.

They were among the very, very first families to convert to Christianity in Korea, and they were among the most fervent believers, such that when Kim Il-sung was born in 1912,

He was born into a rich Christian environment.

He grew up not only going to church on Sundays with his mother and his father, he grew up learning to play the organ in church.

He grew up performing in church plays.

He taught Sunday school.

He spoke at the YMCA.

He was a leader of a church youth group.

He lived in the home of a pastor for several years.