Christian Case for Engaging North Korea

Abstract

The Trump Administration's strategy to isolate North Korea includes a ban on Americans travelling there. The 2017 ban especially impacts nearly seventy Christian faith-based organizations (FBOs), which in the past two decades legally channelled hundreds of (mostly volunteer) workers and thousands of tourists to North Korea. Since the travel restriction, these faith-based workers and tourists have publicly joined the debate over the United States' North Korea policy. They have acted as "norm entrepreneurs," shaping an alternative, cognitive frame for engagement. This frame includes three claims: 1) foreign Christian workers and tourists are generally tolerated by the regime, so long as they obey existing laws and regulations; 2) these workers and tourists meaningfully contribute to socioeconomic development and religious freedom in North Korea; and, 3) the US government should not violate the rights of Americans to travel and practice their faith, as long as they engage in these activities in a safe and meaningful way. The faith-based frame for peaceful engagement resonates among American mainstream and evangelical Christian media; it links with America's individualist and evangelical normative traditions of social change through grassroots, personal relationships. We narrate and assess this frame through interviews and other communications with over twenty workers and tourists (mostly US citizens) linked with FBOs.