1870 — 1944
Wu Leichuan
Leading Chinese theologian in the early 20th century and Chancellor of Yenching University.
At age 23, Wu passed the provincial examination of the civil service exams, and in 1898 he became a metropolitan graduate. Soon afterward, he was appointed to the Hanlin Academy. He acted as supervisor of Zhi-jiang Provincial College between 1906 and 1909, becoming director of Hanlin Academy in 1910. After the Xin-Hai Revolution, he became chief secretary in the education department of the Bei-Yang government in Beijing between 1912 and 1925 and acted as the department’s chief spokesperson from 1925 to 1926.
From 1924, he taught courses on Christianity and Confucianism at Yenching University. In 1926 he resigned his post at the education department to become a professor at Yenching and was made its vice chancellor shortly afterward. From 1920 to 1929, he acted as deputy director of the education department in the Republican Government. From Aug 1929, he was registrar at Yenching University. He wrote Christianity and Chinese Culture.
Attribution
This article is reproduced, with permission, from A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, copyright © 2001 by Scott W. Sunquist, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved.
Sources
- Ng Lee-ming, Christianity and Social Change in China (1981).
- Cha Shih-chieh, Concise Biographies of Important Chinese Christians (1983).
- West, Philip, "Chrisianity and Nationalism: The Career of Wu Leichuan at Yenching University," in The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, ed. John K. Fairbank (1974).
About the Author
A Collaboration of China Scholars
