考察当代中国人的信仰源流，需要回溯到20世纪初的五四时期。信仰问题在这一时期凸显出来，展现了中国人在信仰上的危机、求索、冲突和选择。传统信仰的崩塌，孔教是否宗教和能否确定为国家宗教的争论，宗教信仰特别是外来宗教能否拯救中国人心灵的争论，科学主义派对新的科学信仰的朦胧感知，马克思主义科学信仰从争论中脱颖而出，这是那个时期的先进中国人求索信仰的基本图景。

It is necessary for us to look back into the May 4th period at the beginning of the 20th century if we need to seek the source of the faith of contemporary Chinese people. The issue of faith crisis gains prominence in this period, which shows the combination of crisis, search, conflicts and choices in faith. The basic visionary landscape of Chinese people at that time involves such issues as the collapse of traditional crisis, whether Confucianism is a religion or even identified as a state religion, how faith and religion—especially extraneous religion—can save the psyche of Chinese people, the vague perception of scientism towards new scientific faith, and the emergence of Marxism.