A major threat...

While I work away on the post I had said I might do earlier this week, been thinking on it lots but can't quite finish my thought yet... I found this article this morning that follows...

It's important to remember not to take the fact that I can write my blog (or procrastinate on it, anyway...) for granted, and that I can own a Bible (or several) without fear, and that so many have to believe in secret. That following Jesus has a cost... but one with such amazing rewards!

"Only the founder of the country, Kim Il-sung, and his son, Kim Jong-il, may be worshipped, in mass public displays of fervour." Yeah, I'd view Jesus as a major threat, too, if I were him, eh, Pharoah? Nebuchadnezzar? Saul? Haman? You get my drift....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8167644.stm
North Korea 'executes Christians'
By Andre Vornic BBC News

North Korea views religion as a threat to its state ideology
Human rights groups in South Korea say North Korea has stepped up executions of Christians, some of them in public.
The communist country, the world's most closed society, views religion as a major threat.
Only the founder of the country, Kim Il-sung, and his son, Kim Jong-il, may be worshipped, in mass public displays of fervour.
Despite the persecutions, it is thought up to 30,000 North Koreans may practise Christianity secretly in their homes.
A report by a number of South Korean groups highlights one particular case of a woman allegedly executed in public last month, in a northern town close to the Chinese border.
She was accused of distributing Bibles, spying for South Korea and the United States and helping to organise dissidents.
Her parents, husband, and children were sent to a prison camp.
Such reports are hard to verify, but North Korea is known to be intolerant of religion - it views any form of alternative social organisation as a competitor for its own, religion-like ideology.
The US government says just owning a Bible in North Korea may be a cause for torture and disappearance.
Pyongyang's position appears to have hardened on everything from human rights to defence policy and international relations in the last year or so.
It is thought this may be a way to shore up the government through Mr Kim's illness and the process of anointing his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as North Korea's next leader.

13O my God, make them like the whirling dust, Like chaff before the wind. 14Like fire that burns the forest And like a flame that sets the mountains on fire, 15So pursue them with Your tempest And terrify them with Your storm. 16Fill their faces with dishonor, That they may seek Your name, O LORD. 17Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever, And let them be humiliated and perish, 18That they may know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, Are the Most High over all the earth. Psalm 83:13-18 (emphasis mine)