Yi Se-jong

Life

Yi Se-jong is believed to have been born in, and to have lived and worked around, Doam-myeon, Hwasun County, South Jeolla Province. Sources differ on his year of birth, placing it anywhere from the late 1870s to around 1880, and he is said to have died in 1942.

According to traditional accounts, he was born into a poor family and built up his wealth by working as a hired laborer for others. Troubled by his childlessness, he came across the Bible, and this is said to have led him to the Christian faith. He then gave the property he had amassed to his neighbors and the poor and lived simply in the mountains, devoting himself to prayer and Bible reading. He is said to have been called "Yi Gong" (李空), the character gong (空, "empty") signifying the emptying of oneself.

Ministry and Contributions

Yi Se-jong was not a theologically trained or ordained minister but a layperson. His work centered less on building organizations than on expressing his faith through his personal life.

• A Bible-centered life: He is known to have studied the Bible deeply and to have sought to practice its teachings literally, especially those of the Sermon on the Mount.
• Voluntary poverty and sharing: He devoted his property to relief of the poor while living in poverty himself.
• Asceticism: He fasted frequently and reduced his food, clothing, and shelter to a bare minimum. Accounts also hold that he practiced what was called haehon (解婚, "dissolution of marriage"), abstaining from marital relations with his wife.
• Training disciples: A number of people sought him out for instruction, the most prominent of whom was Yi Hyeon-pil.

Influence on the Korean Church

Yi Se-jong's influence was carried on chiefly through his disciple Yi Hyeon-pil, who inherited his teacher's spirit of poverty, asceticism, and sharing and led a community that cared for orphans and the sick in the Honam region. For this reason, Yi Se-jong is often presented as the starting point of what is called "Honam spirituality." His life is said to have become widely known through the writings of the Rev. Eom Du-seop and others. Today he is cited as an example of indigenous Korean Christian spirituality in discussions of spiritual formation and the history of Christian spirituality.

Assessment

Those who regard him highly see his life of renouncing property and serving his neighbors as an example of living out the Bible in practice. They also note that he followed an independent path of faith through Bible reading alone, without relying on the theological systems of Western missionaries.

Others are critical or cautious. Some argue that extreme asceticism, including haehon, is at odds with the biblical teaching that honors marriage and family. Concerns have also been raised that individual spiritual discipline detached from the church community and its institutions risks drifting into mysticism.

Most of what is known of his life has been handed down through the testimony of his disciples and later writers. It is therefore also noted that many details are difficult to verify.