Religion

What most distinguishes North Korean socialism is its leadership, which is based on Kim Il Sung's personality cult. Kim and his family are introduced as role models for men and women, young and old, through the state-engineered education system. Children can recite stories from Kim's childhood by the time they reach kindergarten. North Korean moral ideological education is allegorically organized, with Kim Il Sung and his pedigree as protagonists.

North Korea theoretically allows religion, and visitors may encounter a Buddhist monk or nun. However, religious freedom is extremely limited in North Korea. Tourists may encounter monks and nuns who have no public followers; in fact, they may be loyal followers of the leader. Northern Korea has traditionally had strong Christian centers, and Christianity played an important role in organizing anti-Japanese resistance during the colonial period. Similarly, anti-Japanese resistance strengthened the Ch'ondo religion, which emerged in the nineteenth century as an indigenous Korean religion. In fact, many Ch'ondo leaders were included in the initial state-building of North Korea. Decades of Kim Il Sung worship transformed the religious plurality, though; with the leader's ascendancy, non- Juche ideas came to be regarded as heterodox and dangerous, or as bourgeois and capitalist.