Columnist Claims Religious Left Blasts Nukes, Ignores Communist Oppression

Columnist Claims Religious Left Blasts Nukes, Ignores Communist Oppression

(AgapePress) - A Christian columnist says liberal religious leaders found themselves in a dilemma following North Korea's claimed nuclear weapons test. That is because, he contends, while liberal mainline religious leaders do not like nuclear weapons, neither do they like criticizing communist regimes -- even "prison camps" like North Korea.

So Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) observed in a recent editorial on FrontPageMagazine.com. According to the conservative Christian columnist, after North Korea's nuclear test claim, the religious left was quick to condemn nuclear weapons as harmful to the environment and universally dangerous, whether in the hands of the North Koreans or a democratic nation such as the United States or Great Britain.

"Mainline church officials and others who are leaders in the religious left almost never, ever, ever have anything to say about the nature of the North Korean regime," Tooley says. Instead, he contends, they tend to "focus on the need for dialogue and diplomacy and greater recognition by the U.S. and by Western governments of the North Korean government."

At the same time, the IRD spokesman notes, mainline church officials work closely with the Christian Federation in North Korea. Although religious liberals tout their relationship with the federation, he contends it is nothing more than a puppet church organization, which the Stalinist Pyongyang government has set up as a propaganda liaison to international religious groups.

"And, of course, this masks the fact that there are underground Christians in North Korea who are struggling," Tooley points out. These persecuted believers live under the continual threat of persecution, he observes, while "those who have been identified are imprisoned and tortured and often killed, and their situation goes unremarked upon by almost all mainline church officials."

Perhaps the most bizarre response to North Korea's nuclear "testing," Tooley adds, was a liturgy of prayer developed by the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. The liturgy expressed special concern for "trees, plants, animals, earth, water, and air," he notes.