videos
북토크 및 팟캐스트
Kim Il Sung, Jonathan Cheng shows in his fluidly written and richly researched book Korean Messiah, grew up in an environment suffused in Christian teachings and actively involved himself in church life, facts which raise questions about his later career as a guerrilla fighter and national leader. Cheng traces the long arc of Christian associations in Kim’s biography, from the arrival of Presbyterianism in Korea through to the leader’s battles with the church as North Korean leader, his softening towards the faith in later life, and of course his erection of a personality cult around himself that had no few similarities with the practices and aesthetics of Christianity. Understanding North Korea from its founding until the present day thus, Cheng shows, demands an awareness of an at-times-astonishing collision of religion, nationalism and authoritarianism which are narrated expertly in this thought-provoking book. (August 4, 2026)
Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor chat with journalist Jonathan Cheng, China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, about his new book Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult. Together, they trace Kim Il-sung’s upbringing in Pyongyang—once known as the “Jerusalem of the East”— and how a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher and church organist drifted from Wilsonian Christian nationalism toward Leninism, then built a cult of personality that borrowed the forms of the faith he left behind: hymnals, weekly public confession, sacralized scripture, and Ten Principles his own people came to call the Ten Commandments. (June 16, 2026)
우리는 보통 북한을 공산주의 독재국가로 생각한다. 그러나 조나단 쳉은 그것이 실제 이야기를 놓치고 있다고 말한다. 그는 북한이 실제로는 종교와 유사하게 작동한다고 주장한다. 즉 의례, 숭배, 그리고 통치 가문이 불멸의 존재처럼 여겨지는 구조를 갖고 있다는 것이다. (2026년 5월 26일)
우리는 북한을 공산주의 독재국가로 생각하지만, 조나단 쳉(월스트리트 저널 중국 지국장이자 전 한국 지국장)은 그것이 실제 이야기를 놓치고 있다고 말한다. 그는 북한이 실제로는 종교처럼 기능한다고 주장한다. 즉 의례, 숭배, 그리고 통치 가문이 불멸의 존재처럼 여겨지는 체계라는 것이다. 한 번 그렇게 보기 시작하면, 그 관점은 쉽게 사라지지 않는다. 그의 신간은 『조선 메시아』이다. (2026년 5월 26일)
Canadian journalist Jonathan Cheng has spent 15 years piecing together how Christianity played a key role in the family history of North Korea’s Kim dynasty. His book is called Korean Messiah. Cheng is the China bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal based in Beijing. He was previously the Korea bureau chief, running coverage of the Korean peninsula. Cheng spoke to Nahlah Ayed about his research and visiting North Korea in 2013 and 2017. (May 20, 2026)
Jonathan Cheng The Wall Street Journal’s China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, as he discusses his latest book, KOREAN MESSIAH, a landmark history of North Korea, told through the rise of the Kim dynasty and its surprising ties to American Christianity. Drawing on letters, diaries, and never-before-unearthed archival material that temper and often contradict the glorious historical record promoted by Kim Il Sung’s legions of hagiographers, KOREAN MESSIAH tells the true story of a country shrouded in fictions. (May 1, 2026)
What if the key to understanding North Korea lies not in its missiles or diplomacy but in its unlikely historical connections to faith? Wall Street Journal China Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng argues that the Kim regime is best understood as a quasi-religious movement, whose origins intersect with the legacy of American missionaries in early 20th-century Korea. (April 30, 2026)
Moderated by Dr. Victor Cha, Jonathan Cheng discusses how the surprising ties between the Kim dynasty and American Christianity shaped North Korea’s leadership and how power, belief, and narrative intersect in the hermit kingdom, influencing dynamics in Northeast Asia and the broader international landscape. (April 29, 2026)
In his new book “Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult,” Jonathan Cheng tells the history of North Korea through the Kim Dynasty and how it has so successfully intertwined politics and faith. It also looks at how Christianity was so dominant in Pyongyang that the city was known as the “Jerusalem of the East.” Here & Now’s Scott Tong speaks with Cheng, who is Beijing bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. (April 29, 2026)
The Center for Asia Policy Studies at Brookings hosted a public event to examine the Kim dynasty’s evolving ideology and worldview across three generations of leadership. Drawing on deep expertise in North Korea’s history, leadership, and politics, the panelists explored the implications for domestic and foreign policy and what they may mean for regional and international order. (April 27, 2026)
The late Kim Il Sung — the founding leader of North Korea’s communist regime — is forever enshrined as the country’s “Eternal President.” It’s a powerful cult of personality from which the regime still draws much of its authority. Kim himself was deeply religious — he was raised as a devout Christian. The modern North Korean state tries to keep the religious upbringing of its founder hidden, but it’s really what enabled the regime’s rise in the first place. That’s the subject of Jonathan Cheng’s new book, “Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult.” He joins Host Marco Werman to talk about it. (April 24, 2026)
North Korea isn’t just a dictatorship — it’s a belief system. Jonathan Cheng explains how a cult of personality, rooted in Christianity, keeps the Kim dynasty in power. (April 23, 2026)
Kim Jong Un is preparing his daughter Kim Ju Ae, reportedly around 12 years old, as a potential successor, something that would break every precedent in the Kim dynasty’s 80-year history… Wall Street Journal Beijing bureau chief Jonathan Cheng says it may rank alongside the repudiation of unification as Kim’s most significant deviation from his predecessors. (April 22, 2026)
Today on the Gist, exploring the consequences of relocating Afghan allies to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Then, Wall Street Journal China Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng is back to discuss the complexities of reporting on a closed society like North Korea, the strategic thinking behind the Kim dynasty’s ruthless tactics, and what it’s actually like to attend church in Pyongyang. He is the author of Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult. Finally, in the spiel, we dive into the fascinating, brutal, and ultimately ineffective history of expert Korean stone throwers. (April 21, 2026)
Today on the Gist, looking at the dropping price of eggs and the DOJ’s antitrust investigation into major producers for market manipulation. Then, Wall Street Journal China Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng joins the show to discuss his new book, Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult. He explains how Pyongyang was once known as the Jerusalem of the East and how the Kim dynasty co-opted Christian rituals for their own worship. (April 20, 2026)
North Korea has nuclear weapons, a succession plan hiding in plain sight, and a personality cult that has outlasted Stalin’s and Mao’s combined. Wall Street Journal’s Beijing bureau chief Jonathan Cheng argues the world keeps misreading Pyongyang because it insists on reducing it to an authoritarian state. (April 18, 2026)
Veteran East Asia journalist Jonathan Cheng takes his audience deep inside Pyongyang, a city once so dominated by Christianity that it was known as the “Jerusalem of the East.” Hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and co-sponsored by the Columbia University student group Korea Focus. (April 16, 2026)
월스트리트저널 중국 지국장 조나단 쳉은 도널드 트럼프의 대중국 전략 평가, 조선민주주의인민공화국과의 외교 재개 가능성, 그리고 고조되는 긴장 속에서 역내 주요 행위자들이 전략을 재조정하는 방식 등을 포함해 동북아시아의 변화하는 전략 지형을 분석한다. 컬럼비아대학교 미·중 관계센터 선임연구원이자 바이든 행정부 출신인 줄리언 게워츠가 이번 대담의 사회를 맡는다. (2026년 4월 14일)
조나단 쳉은 현재 북한의 수도 평양에서 기독교가 얼마나 광범위하게 존재했으며 또 어떤 지속적인 영향을 남겼는지를 기록하며, 이 도시가 한때 ‘동방의 예루살렘’으로 불렸던 배경을 설명한다. 『세상에 부럼 없어라』의 저자 바버라 데믹이 토론자로 참여했으며, 그녀는 이 책을 “도발적이고 흥미롭다”고 평가했다. 이어 “조나단 쳉은 세계 어느 나라보다 종교에 적대적인 이 국가가, 사실은 창건자 김일성의 가문이 지녔던 복음주의 기독교의 토대 위에서 형성되었으며, 김일성은 가족의 복음주의 신앙을 버리는 동시에 그 힘을 활용해 오늘날까지 이어지는 개인숭배 체제를 구축했다”고 설명했다. (2026년 4월 13일)
Welcome to this episode of Pacific Polarity. Today, we’re speaking with Jonathan Cheng, the China bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, overseeing the journal’s coverage of the world’s second largest economy across a range of areas, including politics, economics, business, technology and society. (April 12, 2026)
훗날 김일성이 되는 김성주는 독실한 장로교 가정에서 태어났다. 복음전도자 빌리 그레이엄의 아내 루스 그레이엄은 중국 선교사의 딸로 태어나 평양에서 학창 시절을 보냈다. 한때 미국 개신교 선교사들은 한국 서북부 지역에서 활발히 복음을 전파하며 큰 영향력을 발휘했다. 김성주도 그들의 설교와 가르침을 접했고, 이를 배우며 성장했다. 그리고 훗날 그는 그 가르침의 일부를 북한의 독특한 지도자 숭배 체제를 구축하는 데 활용하게 된다. (2026년 4월 10일)
NK뉴스 창립자 채드 오캐럴(Chad O’Carroll)은 이번 주 팟캐스트에서 먼저 북한의 오랜 국제올림픽위원회(IOC) 위원이었던 대표의 사망, 산불 진화 임무 수행 중 발생한 한국 헬기의 비무장지대(DMZ) 월경 사고, 그리고 민간 드론의 북한 영공 침범과 관련해 한국 정부가 유감을 표명한 소식을 다룬다. 이어지는 후반부에서는 《월스트리트저널》 중국지국장인 조나단 쳉(Jonathan Cheng)이 출연해 자신의 신간을 소개한다. 그는 김일성이 평양에서 어린 시절 기독교를 접한 경험이 북한의 지도자 우상화 체제 형성에 어떠한 영향을 미쳤는지, 특히 기독교의 의례와 상징이 북한의 지도자 숭배 문화 발전에 어떻게 반영되었을 수 있는지를 설명한다. (2026년 4월 7일)
월스트리트저널 중국 지국장이자 전 한국 지국장인 조나단 쳉이 북한 개인숭배의 종교적 기원, 이념의 역할, 그리고 이 고립된 국가의 미래에 대해 논의합니다 (2026년 3월 24일)
공식적으로 무신론을 강요하는 국가인 북한이 어떻게 기독교적 열정을 토대로 건설되었을까요? 이번 에피소드에서 데이비드 티자드가 조나단 쳉과 함께 그의 신작 『조선 메시아: 김일성과 북한 개인숭배의 기독교적 뿌리』에 대해 이야기를 나눕니다. (2026년 3월 22일)
마이크가 월스트리트저널 중국 지국장 조나단 쳉과 함께 북한 건국 지도자 김일성의 기독교 복음주의적 뿌리에 대해 이야기를 나눕니다. (2026년 3월 17일)
조나단 쳉의 『조선 메시아』에 대한 짧은 서평. 이 책은 한국에서 기독교가 어떻게 성장했는지, 그것이 북한 지도자 김일성에게 어떤 영향을 미쳤는지, 그리고 결국 기독교가 북한을 지배하는 새로운 정치종교인 ‘김일성주의’로 어떻게 대체되었는지를 탁월하게 조명한 역작이다. 저자는 오늘날 전체주의 국가인 조선민주주의인민공화국을 지배하는 ‘김일성주의’의 형성과 발전 과정을 깊이 있는 역사적 통찰로 설득력 있게 풀어낸다.
출연
Articles
기타
Excerpt
월스트리트저널 (WSJ): “One of the world’s most isolated, misunderstood countries was built on the cult of personality of its Eternal Leader. American Christianity helped shape that cult.”
기타
리뷰
“Highly original, deeply researched and cogently observed…Truly informative, wholly serious and sometimes humorous, all at the same time…This is a brilliant history of North Korea.”—Bruce Cumings, 뉴욕 타임스
“Cheng’s tome is an extraordinary work of research that weaves together three narratives: the history of Christianity in North Korea; the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948; and the enduring influence of Christianity on Kim Il Sung, the regime’s founder, and on the system he ruled for more than four decades… Ultimately, Cheng demonstrates that Kim appropriated, transformed, and embedded Christianity in the structure of North Korea’s ostensibly secular state.”—Elizabeth Economy, 포린 어페어스 잡지
북한 공산 독재의 붕괴는 1948년 김일성이 이오시프 스탈린의 지원을 받아 권력을 장악한 이후로 줄곧 예견되어 왔다. 그러나 거의 80년이 지난 지금도 체제는 유지되고 있으며, 김씨 일가는 여전히 권력을 쥐고 있다. 이들은 한국전쟁, 소련의 붕괴, 수십 년에 걸친 국가적 고립, 그리고 두 차례의 세습 권력 승계를 모두 견뎌냈다. 전체주의적 억압과 더불어 중국과 러시아와 같은 강대국의 지원은 이러한 체제의 지속성을 설명하는 요인으로 꼽힌다. 그러나 월스트리트저널 기자 조너선 쳉의 『조선 메시아』는 보다 덜 주목받아온 또 하나의 요인에 주목한다: 믿음.”—The Economist
“한국어 사료를 엄밀하게 활용한 역사 연구와 뛰어난 서사력이 결합된 역작이다. 혁신적이고 설득력 있는 이 책은 21세기 아시아의 세력 균형을 계속해서 좌우하고 있는 북한 체제를 더욱 깊고 온전하게 이해하는 데 중요한 기여를 한다.”—Rana Mitter, 파이낸셜 타임스
“Cheng traces how, with the help of Kim’s son Jong Il and a distant uncle who was once a pastor, Kim borrowed the tactics of religion to solidify extraordinary psychological control over an entire population.”—『뉴요커』
"이 책의 페이지들이 보여주듯, 현대 김씨 개인숭배 체제를 떠받치는 종교적 광신은 그 지속성과 강력함의 상당 부분을 미국 중서부 출신의 신념 강한 장로교 집단에 빚지고 있다. … 쳉은 19세기와 20세기에 걸친 북한과 미국의 세계와의 관계를 이해하는 데 있어 핵심적이고 독창적인 분석을 제공하는, 상당한 가치를 지닌 저작을 완성했다.”—Washington Examiner
"김씨 일가가 3대에 걸쳐 정권을 유지해 온 것은 단순한 물리적 강압만으로 설명될 수 없다. 쳉의 책은 한때 세계에서 가장 빠르게 기독교화되었던 지역 중 하나였던 곳의 주민들 일부를 북한 정권이 어떻게 ‘마음과 생각’ 차원에서 포섭했는지를 이해하는 데 필수적인 안내서다."—Korean Quarterly
"쳉은 김일성 개인숭배 체제의 다채로우면서도 충격적인 모습을 생생하게 그려낸다. 그러나 이 책은 동시에 미국 개신교가 전통 한국 사회에 평등주의, 여성 해방, 근면성, 애국심과 같은 가치들을 확산시키며 가져온 혁명적 변화에 관한 이야기이기도 하다. 그 결과, 독자는 선한 형태와 악한 형태를 모두 아우르며 종교와 정치가 얼마나 깊이 얽혀 있는지를 보여주는 매혹적인 역사적 서사를 접하게 된다.".”—Publishers Weekly (별점 리뷰)
“Ambitious history…Cheng traces how…Kim borrowed the tactics of religion to solidify extraordinary psychological control over an entire population.”—NK News
“Cheng’s meticulously researched, extensively noted, and fascinating account is a masterpiece.”—National Review
“Cheng’s book is heavily researched and highly readable. He perused thousands of multi-lingual archival documents and primary source materials for this book. His account also offers new lenses for viewing North Korean internal behavior. That is no small feat when studying this highly secretive country.”—Compact Magazine
"북한의 종말론적이고 메시아적이며 기이하고—기독교에 기반한—개인숭배를 적나라하게 보여주며, 전체주의적 신정국가에 도덕적으로 상응하는 체제의 탄생에 대한 흥미로운 통찰을 제공한다."—Kirkus 리뷰 (별점 리뷰)
“이 철저하고 매혹적인 저작은 북한 역사에 관심 있는 사람이라면 반드시 읽어야 할 필수 자료입니다.”—Library 스트리트저널 (별점 리뷰)
“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.”—Religion Unplugged
“Scholar and China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal Cheng, previously the Korea bureau chief, undertook the massive task of tracing the beginnings of Christianity in Korea from the nineteenth century to today. Dense yet accessible in presentation, the result features images and many subheadings within each chapter with the frequent and helpful repetition of key ideas and themes… With North Korea doing all that it can to conceal the facts presented here, fervently denying any connection whatsoever to Christianity in its official revisionist history, learning the facts Cheng presents serves as an act of defiance against the country’s totalitarianism. Readers interested in Christian missionary history and North Korea, especially those wanting to peer beyond the headlines featuring Kim Jong Un, will enjoy Chen’s carefully constructed, in-depth chronicle of an essential if hidden aspect of this closed-off nation.”—Booklist
“[A] remarkable historical biography… Cheng’s exceptionally well sourced and exhaustive study (drawing from Korean and English language scholarship and a wealth of archival documentation) is both an invaluable re-telling of the complex narrative of Korea in the 19th and 20th centuries (outlining the contours of the development of the North Korean and South Korean states during the Cold War) and also an ideological history that offers a valuable and timely insight into the psychological foundations of totalitarian political control.”—Global Asia
“This book endures in the memory long after reading. After finishing it, I came away with a sense that this was not a work that sought merely to uncover a hidden history, or to pass judgement on Kim Il-Sung or North Korea, a “regime” that has surprised naysayers with its durability, and with China – North Korea relations once again in the global spotlight, may well have been underestimated on the world stage. Instead, this work, originally conceived as a magazine article that expanded into a decade-plus-long project, reveals the very nature of collective nation-building and individual sense-making… Cheng’s book lingers as a meditation on Korean history, on national and personal trauma, and as Cheng reveals, as a tribute to the spirit and resilience of the North Korean people, the faces of which I recall more vividly than the state propaganda… Jonathan Cheng has written a remarkable, timely and breathtaking masterwork that demands to be read..”—Calvin Quek, Sinica
기타
Poems
Ruthless
Kevin Spenst
Jobless, Johnless, Lukeless, Leviticusless,
Kingless, Genesisless, Jacobless, Song of
Solomonless, Revelationless. Speaking with-
out a Bible is fine and dandy for some, hella
hard for others. My ancestors fled the Soviet
Union heading West but their distant relations
hoofed it to China, crossing the frozen Amur
River (does every exodus require a river if
only for the shock and awe of it?) Winter in
Harbin was harsh and they were resettled in
Canada and Paraguay. While they swore no
allegiance to country as part of their pacifism,
at least one group imploded into self-inflicted
violence. Despite the dead ends out of Beth-
lehem, the world’s been swarming with all man-
ner and sects of “this is my body broken for
you. Eat this” for two thousand years.
My ears perked
up when I heard of missionaries long ago in
Pyongyang. Of the two Protestant churches
that still exist, one is where North Korea’s
Greatest leader’s mother served as a deacon-
ess in last century’s naughts. Her father was
a Protestant minister. If you’re of the lucky few
to visit North Korea (and lucky to get out),
you might visit the nativity-like birthplace of
Kim Il Sung, a sacred site of a thatched roof
and so often churches are built on the demo-
lished temples of others beliefs; here’s a holy
dictatorship atop the faith of those who crossed
a river (only in this case an ever flowing border
of battles and bloodshed) and now they’re stuck
with Kim Il Sung and his progeny the Greatest
Leaders, the Greatest Workers, the Greatest Johns,
the Greatest Fathers, the Greatest Grandfathers,
the Greatest Revelations to the World. Ruthless
once again.
Miscelanous
Shout Outs
- 민진 리, 『파친코』 (2017)와 『백만장자를 위한 공짜 음식』 (2007)의 저자, 한국계 미국인 작가
2. 마이클 뤄, 수석 편집자 『뉴요커』. 저자 『낯선 땅의 이방인들』 이전에는 뉴욕타임스 탐사보도팀에서 근무했다.
3. Victor Cha, President of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Author of the The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (2012), Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (2016), Korea: A New History of South and North (2023)
4. Collin Hansen, Vice President for Content and Editor in Chief of The Gospel Coalition
5. Philip Leung, Writer, Producer and Director. Works include The Suitcase (2016), My Heritage (2013) and Hum (2015).
6. JF Books DC
7. St. Andrew’s College
8. Daniel Jenkins, Assistant Professor in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University
9. Lauren Jackson, Deputy Editorial Director for Newsletters and the Host of Believing at 뉴욕 타임스
Reading: “Korean Messiah,” by Jonathan Cheng. It argues that North Korea’s cult of personality around the Kim dynasty is rooted in an influx of Christian missionaries in the late 19th century. Read our review.
10. Murtaza Hussain, National security and Foreign Affairs, Drop Site News
11. Maurício Santoro, Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, State University of Rio de Janeiro