Community and Individuality: A Confucian Ecclesiology of Wu Leichuan

Community and Individuality—A Confucian Ecclesiology of Wu Leichuan

Kwong-pui CHAN

This article examines the Ecclesiology of Wu Leichuan, a famous Confucian Christian in the 30's to 40's of the twentieth century. Wu's Ecclesiology was a response to the discussions on the relationship of community and individuality during his time. Wu, in seeking to establish a contextual Ecclesiology, tried to integrate the Confucian understanding of “gung” (public interest) and “sy” (private interest) into Christianity. Wu's Ecclesiology was not based on a perspective of nature but a perspective of praxis. In this perspective, the Church is not a “being” but a “becoming”. Wu suggested that the Christian community should open themselves to “gung” and participate in the political social movement. In this process, when the Church gives up her “sy” for the “gung” , she fulfills her mission and becomes herself. In Wu's Ecclesiology the danger of the “ecclesiocentralism” is prevented, and the value of the world is confirmed by its indivisible relationship with the Church.