Lu Xun (1881‐1936), one of the foremost thinkers and writers in modern China, has been described by the official ideology as “materialist” and “Marxist” since the year of 1949; however, Lu Xun’s thoughts are actually much more complex than these depictions. Thinking critically on religious issues, Lu Xun put forward many unique perspectives. During the earlier stage, Lu Xun valued the religious function of salvation in the aspect of “saving morals and human minds of the time”, and applied it in his practice to cultivate humanity of the people and to reconstruct belief systems of the nation; in the later stage, he focused on certain elements of religious superstitions and the negative impact of religion on the lower classes, while his later views on religion also constituted an important part of his overall criticism on Chinese traditional belief systems. It is Lu Xun’s unswerving thoughts and practices to transform national characters that hold together his early‐stage ideas on religious culture and his thoughts in the late phase.