June 17, 2008

    Dear Mr. Lee:

            My name is Linda Pang, working for Kingdom Resources for Christ (KRC, e-krc.org) magazine.  Our magazine has a
    readership of 5,000 Chinese Christians, mainly in Taiwan and North America.

            In the next issue, we will focus on different aspects of Korea.  Currently I am writing an article on Korean Church History.  
    In my article, I will present some unique characteristics of the Korean Church History.  Like Mugunghwa blooms one after
    another though each blossom for only a short period of time, Korean Church keeps passing on her faith and spreads the
    fragrance of Christ throughout difficult times.  Koreans brought the Good News to their own kinsmen even before foreign
    missionaries reached the Choson Peninsula.  Like the white undergarment of Hanbok symbolizing the purity and faithfulness,
    Korean Christians’ determination of seeking the truth and the unyielding faith during Japanese rule are extraordinary.  Since the
    Korean War, active ministries like YWCA and spirit-filled worship services show a very vibrant side of the faith like the outer
    robe of Hanbok with many vivid colors.
      
            While doing the research, I came across the website about your father, Rev. In Jae Lee （李仁宰牧師）.  It is my sincere
    hope that your father’s legacy will help the readers understand the Korean Christianity with a brand new insight.

            I have prepared some questions.  We can discuss them over the phone or you may reply in writing.

    1.        How did your father see Japanese after the war?  How do Korean Christians see Japanese now?

    My father had no animosity towards Japanese before and after the war.  The following story will illustrates this fact.  
    He was released from the prison a day or two after the day of Independence, August 15, 1945.  At the end of that
    month, according to his account as recorded in his biography, he decided to visit the Japanese Judge, Kamada, who
    interrogated him and other fellow Christians at the preliminary hearing about Christianity and anti-Shinto worship
    campaign.  There was one answer my father gave to the judge that bothered him even after the day of liberation.  
    The judge’s question was: “Do you believe the sun god to be the Japan’s ancestor?”  My father answered “Yes”
    without much thought.  Upon reflection, he regretted this answer because it acknowledged the existence of a deity
    other than God, the Jehovah.  So, he wanted to visit the judge, who was by then waiting to return to Japan after the
    defeat of the war, to tell him about the regrettable answer he gave to the judge and to perhaps evangelize him.  
    When my father knocked at the judge’s house, he was lead in through the back door—the judge was afraid of
    Korean citizens whom he formerly ruled with an iron fist.  

    According to my father, the judge received him cordially in the living room and apologized for causing hardship on
    him in the prison, saying that he (the judge) was only following the order.  Moreover, according to my father’s
    account, the judge admitted that God, the Jehovah, was the true and living God.  The judge came to this conclusion,
    according to my father, based on the unyielding faith of Korean Christians he prosecuted as the judge.  I am sure the
    judge was trying to save his neck after the world had changed upside down.  But my father took the judge’s
    admission to heart.  They bid a cordial farewell, as my father encouraged the judge to believe in God once returning
    to Japan and the judge agreed to do so.  This short account shows that my father must have felt quite victorious over
    Japanese people.  But it also shows no animosity or vendetta towards them.

    I believe that even now most Korean Christians, like my father, have no animosity toward Japanese people.  It is true
    that we want the accurate account of history and want the Japanese government and their text books to acknowledge
    the war atrocities committed by Japanese military, which were horrendous and should not be forgotten.  However, we
    do not harbor any animosity toward the people of Japan.  The machinery and the administration of war invariably
    cause one group of humans to inflict tremendous harm to another.  As Christians, however, we know that we can and
    should overcome the hatred of war between the two peoples, the war whose vivid memory is now slowly fading.  

    Notwithstanding what I just said, however, I want to also say that during the war, that is, during the Japanese
    occupation, my father’s fellow Christian friends prayed fervently for the destruction of Japanese empire.  This was not
    based on hatred, although the hatred could have been sublimated to become an apocalyptic conviction.  Many
    Korean Christians at the time saw the Japan Empire as the symbol of Anti-Christ; and their suffering at the hands of
    Imperial Japan as the trial and tribulations of the Last Days.  To them Japan’s defeat and surrender in 1945 was a
    spiritual event and the triumph of God in answer to their prayers.  During the war and the years that followed in its
    aftermath, the Book of Revelation was the most frequently studied and preached book from the Bible in Korea.  

    2.        How did your father’s legacy affect you and your family?

    When my father died in 2000 at age 94 in Philadelphia, he left me and my brother his three suits.  He was poor.  He
    never fully recovered financially from his decision in 1938 to quit his job as a township secretary at age 32.  He could
    have stayed on the job and supported his family with financial security.  But, being a public employee, he could not
    do that without participating in the Shinto worship.  He refused to bow down his head toward Shinto gate, citing the
    first three Commandments.  And this refusal cost him the job and later in 1940 the imprisonment which lasted 5 years
    and 4 months.  During the imprisonment, his family’s financial situation, like most other Korean families at the time,
    was abysmal.  His subsequent life as a pastor and preacher did not earn him a wealthy income either.  Years of
    Japanese occupation and the Korean War of 1950-53 left the country barren and poor.  Moreover, any extra money
    he received from speaking engagements at various revival meetings all over the country, he would offer to the
    burgeoning Korea Seminary in Pusan.  However, I never blamed him for my family’s economic poverty.  I did not feel
    poor.  I never went to bed hungry.  

    On the contrary, despite the economic poverty of my family, I feel rich in my father’s legacy spiritually and morally.  
    My father left behind the indomitable spirit of honesty and truth, the unyielding conviction, the steadfastness of his
    faith, and the moral purity of his life.  He risked his own life to be faithful to God’s Commandments.  

    He was gentle and was timid at times with people.  He did not like disputes and did not engage in church politics
    (within his church or synod).  But when it came to moral issues and spiritual truths, he was unyielding and
    uncompromising.  “Blessed are the meek” holds a special meaning to me when I remember him.

    3.        What was the most memorable moment that you shared with your father?  What were the most memorable words that he
    ever said to you?

    My father was 53 when I was born.  Due to the age difference, I did not have much physical interaction with him.  
    Most of time I saw him, he was writing his sermons or his diary; or reading the bible, other pastor’s sermons, or
    newspapers at his desk.  I remember the silent afternoon walks I had with him in Denver (when I visited him during
    one of my college breaks when he was ill with shingles in his left arm and hand) and in Chicago (when he visited me
    at Loyola University and saw my name tag as one of the adjunct faculty members posted next to in the office door—I
    was a Ph. D. student then.)  He was a quiet man.  I remember him telling me one day in Philadelphia what he had told
    a young seminarian (I once was a seminarian, too): that the secret to being a successful pastor is not to seek to
    please oneself but to serve others (Rom. 15:3)—a rather obvious truth, more difficult to practice than to preach.  
    Also, I remember him repeating this verse to himself as if in an incantation: “You in me, I in you” (John 14:20).  He
    had just finished his daily morning bible study that day when I came across him.  

    He constantly sought to delve deeper into Christian truth and spiritual reality even after his retirement from ministry,
    as long as his frail body permitted him.  One of his 1992 diary entries says that he was taking a mid-day walk one fine
    autumn day when three young Korean men came out of the car and paid respect to him briefly and departed.  His
    pure life and gentle character earned him respect from all who knew him.  He commanded the same respect from all
    of his family members as well, including from me.  He was an indomitable spiritual and moral force in my entire life.
Chungsoo's Interview with KRC about Rev. Lee's legacy

Resources for Christ Magazine
article on Rev. Lee