Join us for a book talk with Jonathan Cheng, author of the new history book Korean Messiah, which explores “the rise of the Kim dynasty and its surprising ties to American Christianity.” The Wall Street Journal’s current China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, Cheng's book documents the profusion and lasting impact of Christianity in North Korea’s current capital of Pyongyang, which was once described as the “Jerusalem of the East.” Based on letters, diaries, and archival materials, his book reveals how the Kim regime’s personality cult “traces its roots back to the Christian fervor of post–Civil War America.”
Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, joins the conversation as a discussant. She described the book as “provocative and fascinating… Jonathan Cheng shows how this country, more hostile to religion than any in the world, was built on a bedrock of Christianity by its founder Kim Il Sung, who discarded the evangelical faith of his family and harnessed its power to create a cult of personality that has endured into the third generation.”
The discussion is moderated by policy director Jonathan Corrado, and jointly produced by the Policy and the Arts and Culture teams.
This program is made possible by the generous support of the Korea Foundation and our individual and corporate members.
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Korean Messiah with Jonathan Cheng
Monday, April 13, 2026 | 6:30 PM (EDT)
The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017
About the Speakers:
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| Photo credit: Gilles Sabrie | |
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Jonathan Cheng is the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, and was previously the Korea bureau chief, running coverage of the Korean peninsula, including politics and society in both North and South Korea. A native of Toronto, he lives in Beijing. He has traveled to North Korea twice. |
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Barbara Demick is author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood and the recently released Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town, published by Random House in July 2020. She was bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times in Beijing and Seoul, and previously reported from the Middle East and Balkans for the Philadelphia Inquirer. |
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