المسيح الكوري | كيم إيل سونغ والجذور المسيحية لعبادة الشخصية في كوريا الشمالية

A remarkable history of North Korea, told through the rise of the Kim dynasty and its surprising ties to American Christianity - a fascinating and profound account of the reclusive kingdom • One of the most anticipated books of 2026 according to Foreign Policy. For nearly eight decades, North Korea has defiantly walked its own path, shedding its Soviet and Chinese patrons to emerge as the world's most enigmatic country — a nuclear state ruled by an authoritarian regime. This system is based on a cult of personality more deeply rooted in religiosity than that built by Stalin or Mao—a cult that has its roots in Christian fervor in post-Civil War America. Jonathan Cheng, the Wall Street Journal's China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, takes us deep inside Pyongyang, a city that was once so subjugated by Christianity that it was known as the "Jerusalem of the East." Cheng introduces us to Samuel Moffett, a Protestant missionary from Madison, Indiana, who ventured to Pyongyang at the end of the nineteenth century and built a broad following, including the Kim family, which today dominates one of the world's most pro-Christian countries. At the heart of this story stands North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, the son of devout Christians and founder of an ideology known as kimilsungim, a pagan practice that elevated him, his son and his grandson to Christ-like status, from the humble cradle in which he was born to the subway seat on which the revered leader once sat, fenced off as if it were a religious relic. Drawing on letters, memoirs, and never-before-revealed archival material that softens and often contradicts the glorious historical record promoted by Kim Il-sung's legions of historians, The Korean Messiah tells the true story of a country shrouded in illusions.