Wu Zongsu, the only son of Y. T. Wu, who was the founder of China’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement, died in California at the age of 90.
According to a pastor who lives in California, Wu Zongsu, who immigrated to America, passed away peacefully at 5:35 pm local time, November 17.
Born in 1930, Wu was 20 years old when his father and other Christian leaders drafted the "Christian Manifesto". Signed by 40,000 people, the document was traditionally regarded as the start of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), which oversees all Protestant churches in China. In 1954, his father was elected chairman of the TSPM. He was praised by the Chinese Communist Party as a “role model for patriotic religious people”, but he was also viewed by others as “a traitor to Christianity”.
In a conference held in 2010, Wu Zongsu gave an opening speech entitled “The Fallen Flower Has a Purpose; Flowing Water is Ruthless”. Saying that the flower referred to his father and the water the Communist Party, he tried to defend his father’s reputation. He added that his idealistic father thought Christianity and Marxism or Communism could complement each other, according to Radio Free Asia.
Born in Guangzhou in 1893, his father was sent to forced labor during the Cultural Revolution. Wu said he was a “tragic figure” who died in Beijing in 1979.
