One of the first stories in the book, The Meeting of the Waters, is about my trip into North Korea. My host sternly told me to disable my cell phone, battery and all, so that the government couldn’t hack into it to listen to our conversations. A recent New York Times article describes another example of cellphones in North Korea, and how they are being used to transmit information and messages to the outside world. Cell phones in North Korea are a perfect example of the Global Current of Machines: a fast-moving, unstoppable trend penetrating even North Korea, a place called “The Hermit Kingdom” because of its secrecy and paranoia.
An expert told me that only .003 percent of North Korea’s 23 million citizens are Christians. Possession of Bibles or any Christian literature is punished harshly…as is any communication with the outside world. Further, change in North Korea is rare and precarious. The information transmitted by cell phone informants in North Korea is not sensitive, but there is every reason to believe that the government will soon clamp down on this activity. From the sound of this article, though, tiny cracks are appearing in the country’s previously impenetrable society. The very fact that information is flowing out of the country is astonishing.
(T)he fact that such news is leaking out at all is something of a revolution for a brutally efficient gulag state that has forcibly cloistered its people for decades even as other closed societies have reluctantly accepted at least some of the intrusions of a more wired world.
Very bright, innovative, and courageous Christians are undoubtedly monitoring this situation and considering possibilities for evangelism and aid. Machines, in the form of cell phones, are constantly ushering in new opportunities for the global church, and it is important for the rest of us to watch and pray about these developments.
Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/asia/29news.html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1
