Contact: Melissia Dillmuth, Seoul USA, 719-481-4408

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 25, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ -- This week significant media attention is being given to the report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But a leader of one North Korean ministry notes that while the document is filled with important testimony, it does not have the power to change the human heart.

The Rev. Eric Foley, CEO of Seoul USA says, "The power to change the human heart -- and thus the country of North Korea and the lives of its citizens -- resides in only one document: the Bible."

Foley shares a story from an informant in the South Korean intelligence community. "The informant shared with us that the Kim family in North Korea has a saying that originated with Kim Il Sung himself: 'Only Christianity can cut the root of communism.'"

Adds Foley, "In the Kim family there is no saying that a UN report, or humanitarian aid, or military power will cut the root of communism. But in the Kim family there is a saying that what will cut the root of communism is Christians acting like Christians."

Foley explains that Christianity took root on the Korean continent in the early 1900s as a partnership between the people of the northern part of Korea and Christian missionaries from the West. Says Foley, "At that time it would have been possible to write a scathing report on human rights violations in Korea. Children were starving. Women were enslaved. Opposing political views were unmercifully silenced. The persecution of Christians was equally a fact of life then as now."

"But when the Christians of northern Korea and the West partnered together they did not change the situation through a human rights campaign. They transformed Korea by distributing the Bible."

Foley notes that in 1894 Western missionaries reported less than 500 Korean Christians, but by 1905 the number had increased to nearly 40,000. Says Foley, "God did not clear up human rights violations, open up Korea, and then send in the Bible and missionaries once the beachheads had been secured. God sent in Bibles and missionaries to secure the beachheads; and through the advance of the gospel, Korea was transformed."

For more information, visit www.seoulusa.org. For an interview with Rev. Foley, contact Melissia Dillmuth at 719-481-4408.