“Secular matters have long been knocking on the church’s door. We’re focused on decorating the church colorfully, rather than devoting ourselves to God, body and soul.”
In this era the church is not worried about the world; rather, the world is worried about the church. In the 1920s, also, there was a voice that worried deeply about the church. The resonant voice of independence activist and Methodist pastor Lee Yong-do (1901∼1933) has come alive again. The writer of his bibliography, a young theologian, has tracked the life of Rev. Lee, who lived a life like Jesus, together with low-ranking persons, during the dark days of the Japanese occupation. Rev. Lee harshly criticized “servants of the Lord” for turning their calling into a mere job, and emphasized the urgency of a new beginning for Korean Christianity.
Rev. Lee was a pioneer who woke up the Korean church with his prayers and love. Graduated from Song-do High School and Hyeop-seong Theological Seminary (currently Methodist Theological University), he was arrested four times and imprisoned for three years for his activities in the anti-Japanese independence movement. In February 1933, though very ill with third-stage tuberculosis to the point that he was coughing up blood, he was leading a revival in Haeju, Hwanghaedo, when Japanese soldiers grabbed him by the collar, beat him up and threw him on the ground. Following this incident, which seriously worsened his illness, the Methodist Church suspended him from him from his pastoral post, and the Presbyterian Church expelled its believers who supported Rev. Lee.
Rev. Lee passed away on October 2 that year, at the age of 33, from tuberculosis. Later, Rev. Lee Ho-bin, who had been like a sworn brother of Rev. Lee, led Jesus Church.
In 1995, Rev. Lee Young-do was officially recognized as an independence patriot, and his Methodist pastorship was reinstated in 1999. On the campus of Methodist Theological University there stands a stone monument inscribed with a poem in tribute to Rev. Lee.
Reporter Yoon Jung Sik (yunjs@kmib.co.kr), with Yeara Ahn-Park (yap@kmib.co.kr)
Click here for the original article in Korean
Bibliography of Rev. Lee Yong-do: New Look at Pioneer Who Awakened the Korean Church
2014-09-03 17:43
