Christian Case for Engaging North Korea

The Trump Administration’s strategy to isolate North Korea includes a ban on Americans traveling there. The 2017 ban especially impacts nearly seventy, Christian, faith-based organizations (FBOs), which in the past two decades legally channeled 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 acted as “norm entrepreneurs” shaping an alternative, cognitive frame for engagement. This frame includes three claims: 1) foreign Christian workers and tourists have been tolerated by the regime, so long as they obey existing laws and regulations; 2) these workers and tourists have meaningfully contributed 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 do safely and meaningfully. The faith-based frame for peaceful engagement resonated among mainstream and evangelical Christian media, the latter a critical constituency of the Trump Administration. The engagement frame linked with America’s individualist and evangelical normative traditions of social change through grassroots, personal relationships. We narrate and assess this frame through our communications and interviews with over twenty workers and tourists (mostly US citizens) linked with FBOs.

视角

与朝鲜交往的基督教案例

关键词： 朝鲜； 旅行禁令；规范企业家；建构认知框架；宗教组织

美国川普政府孤立朝鲜的战略包括禁止美国公民前往朝鲜旅行。这个于2017年发布的禁令特别影响到近70多个基督教宗教性组织；在过去二十多年中，这些组织合法地组织了成百上千的工人（以志愿者为主）和数千的游客前往朝鲜。自从旅行限令实施之后，这些信仰团体的义工和游客公开加入了美国对朝鲜政策的争论中。他们充当了 “规范企业家“的角色，为跟朝鲜交往塑造了一个替代性的认知框架。这个框架包括三个说法： 1）国外的基督教义工和游客只要遵守朝鲜的法律法规，一直以来为朝鲜政府所容忍； 2）这些义工和游客对朝鲜的社会经济发展和宗教自由做出了有意义的贡献；3）只要美国公民的做法是安全而有意义的，美国政府就不应该侵犯美国人旅行和从事宗教信仰活动的权利。 这个以宗教为基础的与朝鲜和平交往的认知框架与主流及基督教福音教派的媒体相呼应，而后者正是川普政府的一个关键的选民基础。这个主张与朝鲜交往的框架与美国的个人主义以及福音教派的通过草根性的个人间关系实现社会变革的规范传统密切关联。我们通过与二十多个义工和游客（绝大多数是美国公民）的沟通和访谈对这个框架进行了讲述及评价。

Translated from English by Li Guo