Abstract: As far as Western Christianity is concerned， “religion” in English refers to the institutional religion， whereas in Chinese “religion” does not necessarily mean religion at its institutional level. Confucianism of China is certainly not equivalent to the institutional religion in the English semantics； nevertheless， it is a faith system characteristic of religion. The socalled “diffused religion” concept from C. K. Yang is very similar to the faith model of the Chinese discussed here in this paper， and also similar to the private and diffused identity belief model outside the power order and institutional religion. So， the Confucian identity model in this paper is regarded as a result of the interaction between the individual’s private faith and other people’s faith， and between followers of Confucianism and other social members. Meanwhile， belief identity is regarded not only as the action unit of Confucianism， but also as a tool for analysis. To discuss Confucianism and its faith followers’ construing logic through an examination of the regularities in the Confucian belief identity， we will be able to analyse the patterns and developmental course of Confucian beliefs that have governed Chinese society.

Key words: Confucian phenomena, faith identity, the holistic identity model, the individual identity model