Certain Buddhist leaders in South Korea are uncomfortable with Protestants. It’s not a religious argument it’s just competition for the hearts of North Koreans. Several Protestant sects have been developing links between North and South, discreetly of course, as secretly as they can so that one day when the two countries are united, they can have a strong foothold in the North. Religions are banned in North Korea and people can be prosecuted—or is it persecuted—for practicing. Still, it appears that some find secret ways of connecting to a higher reality, or as some anthropologists have said after talking to North Korean defectors, people are disillusioned with the personality cult of the leader Kim Il-sung and are yearning to fill the void. In that view Jesus is beating Buddha. Hence the interest of the Venerable Bop Ta, one of South Korea’s leading Abbots. He is trying to make sure Buddha has a chance and Buddhism which has a 1500-year history in Korea can eventually overtake Christianity. Although the interplay between these two religions is in itself noteworthy, what is even more so is that they both predicate their actions on the fact that one day Korea will be reunited, and as they do they almost create a self-fulfilling prophecy by the links they ever so secretly establish.