Tonglu Li, Associate Professor of Chinese in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, recently published a book chapter entitled “The May Fourth Intellectuals and Religion” in the peer-reviewed collection New Vocabularies of May Fourth Studies, Brill, 2025 (copyright year). 147–171.
A century ago, the May Fourth intellectuals, such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shih, Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren, witnessed the rise of secular modernity in China. Based on their faith in the modern sciences and under the influence of the traditional secular education they received, these intellectuals had an overall distrust of religion. They denied it as the ultimate source of truth, although different religions were assessed differently. Their discussions on religion observed no boundaries in terms of disciplinary knowledge. Some focused on religion’s political aspects, some started to study various religion-related issues as a field of modern knowledge, and others highlighted its aesthetic and philosophical inspirations. Their attitude toward religion formed a spectrum from the conservative to the radical. While some acknowledged its significance in people’s spiritual lives and its value as an inspiration for cultural creativity, others proposed replacing religion with alternative modern institutions, such as science, aesthetic education, morality, or philosophy. These ideas indicated their overall secular orientation and ambition to meet people’s religious needs in an alternative fashion. The May Fourth attitude toward religion has shaped modern China’s perception of religion in the decades that followed, and its “specter” is still “haunting” us today.