Religion in Vietnam
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The majority of Vietnamese do not follow any
According to estimates by the
According to statistics from the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, as of 2018, Buddhists account for 14.9% of the total population, Christians 8.5% (Catholics 7.4% & Protestants 1.1%), Hoahao Buddhists 1.5%, and Caodaism followers 1.2%.[1] Other religions include Hinduism, Islam, and Baháʼí Faith, representing less than 0.2% of the population. Folk religions (worship of ancestors, gods and goddesses), not included in government statistics, have experienced revival since the 1980s.[6]
Overview
Although according to a 1999 census most Vietnamese list themselves as having no religious affiliation,
A 2002 Pew Research Center report claimed that 24% of the population of Vietnam view religion as "very important".[10]
Statistics
- Varied sources indicate very different statistics of religious groups in Vietnam
Religious group |
% Population 2009[11] |
% Population 2010[12] |
% Population 2014[13] |
% Population 2018[1] |
% Population 2019[14] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vietnamese folk religion, and non-religion/atheism |
81.6% | 45.3% 29.6% |
73.1% | 73.52% | 86.32% |
Buddhism | 7.9% | 16.4% | 12.2% | 14.91% | 4.79% |
Christianity | 7.5%
6.6% |
8.2%
n/a |
8.4%
6.9% |
8.44%
7.35% |
7.10%
6.10% |
Catholicism | |||||
Protestantism | |||||
Hoahaoism | 1.6% | n/a | 1.4% | 1.47% | 1.02% |
Caodaism | 1.0% | n/a | 4.8% | 1.16% | 0.58% |
Other religions | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.50% | 0.19% |
Statistics controversy
Government statistics of the religion in Vietnam are counts of members of religious organization recognized by the government.
History
The earliest forms of Vietnamese religious practice were
Folk religions
Scholars such as Toan Ánh (Tín ngưỡng Việt Nam 1991) have listed a resurgence in traditional belief in many local, village-level, spirits.[19]
Đạo Mẫu
Đạo Dừa
Ông Đạo Dừa (1909–1990) created the Coconut Religion (Vietnamese: Đạo Dừa or Hòa đồng Tôn giáo), a syncretic Buddhist, Christian and local Vietnamese religion which at its peak had 4,000 followers, before it was banned. Its adherents ate coconut and drank coconut milk. In 1975 the Reunited Vietnam authorities forced this religion to go underground.
Buddhism
Vietnam was conventionally considered to be a Buddhist country.
Today, more than half of the Vietnamese population, consider themselves as adherents of Mahayana Buddhism. Theravada and Hòa Hảo Buddhism are also present in significant numbers.[20] Buddhist practice in Vietnam differs from that of other Asian countries, and does not contain the same institutional structures, hierarchy, or sanghas that exist in other traditional Buddhist settings. It has instead grown from a symbiotic relationship with Taoism, Chinese spirituality, and the indigenous Vietnamese religion, with the majority of Buddhist practitioners focusing on devotional rituals rather than meditation.[25]
Thiền tông
Chan Buddhism arrived in Vietnam as early as the 6th century CE, with the works of Vinītaruci.[26] It flourished under the Lý and Trần dynasties. Trúc Lâm Zen is the only native school of Buddhism in Vietnam.
Pure Land
Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương
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Hòa Hảo
Today, as an officially recognized religion, it claims approximately two million followers throughout Vietnam; in certain parts of the Mekong Delta, as many as 90 percent of the population of this region practice this tradition. Since many of the teachings of Huỳnh Phú Sổ related in some way to Vietnamese nationalism, adherence to Hòa Hảo outside of Vietnam has been minimal, with a largely quiescent group of followers presumed to exist among the
Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa
Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa ("Four Debts of Gratitude"), a Buddhist sect based in
Christianity
Catholicism
By far the most widespread Christian denomination in Vietnam,
Seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries including Francisco de Pina, Gaspar do Amaral, Antonio Barbosa, and de Rhodes developed an alphabet for the Vietnamese language, using the Latin script with added diacritic marks.[34] This writing system continues to be used today, and is called chữ Quốc ngữ (literally "national language script"). Meanwhile, the traditional chữ Nôm, in which Girolamo Maiorica was an expert, was the main script conveying Catholic faith to Vietnamese until the late 19th century.[35]
Since the late 17th century, French missionaries of the Foreign Missions Society and Spanish missionaries of the Dominican Order were gradually taking the role of evangelisation in Vietnam. Other missionaries active in pre-modern Vietnam were Franciscans (in Cochinchina), Italian Dominicans and Discalced Augustinians (in Eastern Tonkin), and those sent by the Propaganda Fide. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Catholicism successfully integrated into Vietnamese society and culture.[36]
The French missionary priest
The Catholic Church in Vietnam today consists of 27 dioceses organized in three ecclesiastical provinces of Hanoi, Hue and Saigon. A government census of 2019 reported that Catholicism surpassed Buddhism to become the largest religious denomination in Vietnam, although these findings are based upon the membership of an organized religious institution rather than individual belief or practice of a religion and may reflect the lack of need or practice of membership to a religious institution, as often found in folk religion and Buddhism (see Overview, above).[15] Ecclesiastical sources report there are about 7 million Catholics, representing 7.0% of the total population.[41]
Protestantism
Protestantism was introduced to
Present estimates of the number of Protestants range from the official government figure of 500,000 to claims by churches of 1 million. Growth has been most pronounced among members of minority peoples (
The Assemblies of God were said to consist of around 40,000 followers in 2009,[45] the Baptist Church around 18,400 followers with 500 ministers in 2007,[44] and The Mennonite Church around 10,000 followers.
Eastern Orthodoxy
For Orthodox Christianity, the
Vietnam is also mentioned as territory under the jurisdiction of the
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses established their permanent presence in Saigon in 1957.[47] As of 2019, Jehovah's Witnesses are a target of government oppression in Vietnam.[48]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
On May 31, 2016, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) met with Vietnamese officials. The Government Committee for Religious Affairs officially recognized the church's representative committee.[49] Congregations currently meet in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Caodaism
Hinduism
Adherence to
Approximately 50,000 ethnic Cham in the south-central coastal area practice a devotional form of Hinduism. Most of the Cham Hindus belong to the
As per the census of 2009, there are a total of 56,427 Cham Hindus in Vietnam. In 2022, there were an estimated 70,000 ethnic Cham living along the south-central coast.[52]
Islam
Much like Hinduism, adherence to Islam in Vietnam is primarily associated with the
Vietnamese Muslims remained relatively isolated from the mainstream of world Islam, and their isolation, combined with the lack of religious schools, caused the practice of Islam in Vietnam to become syncretic. Although the Chams follow a localised adaptation of Islamic theology, they consider themselves Muslims. However, they pray only on Fridays and celebrate Ramadan for only three days. Circumcision is performed not physically but symbolically, with a religious leader making the gestures of circumcision with a wooden toy knife.[53]
Vietnam's largest mosque was opened in January 2006 in
A 2005 census counted over 66,000 Muslims in Vietnam, up from 63,000 in 1999.
The Cham in Vietnam are only recognized as a minority, and not as an indigenous people by the Vietnamese government despite being indigenous to the region. Both Hindu and Muslim Chams have experienced religious and ethnic persecution and restrictions on their faith under the current Vietnamese government, with the Vietnamese state confiscating Cham property and forbidding Cham from observing their religious beliefs. Hindu temples were turned into tourist sites against the wishes of the Cham Hindus. In 2010 and 2013, several incidents occurred in Thành Tín and Phươc Nhơn villages where Cham were murdered by Vietnamese. In 2012, Vietnamese police in Châu Giang village stormed into a Cham mosque, stole the electric generator and raped Cham girls.[57] Cham Muslims in the Mekong Delta have also been economically marginalized and pushed into poverty by Vietnamese policies, with ethnic Vietnamese Kinh settling on majority Cham land with state support, and religious practices of minorities have been targeted for elimination by the Vietnamese government.[58]
The evidence of Champa's influence over the disputed area in the South China Sea had brought attention to human rights violations and killings of ethnic minorities in Vietnam such as in the 2001 and 2004 uprisings, and lead to the issue of Cham autonomy being brought into the dispute, since the Vietnamese conquered the Hindu and Muslim Chams in an 1832 war and continuing to destroy evidence of Cham culture and artifacts left behind, plundering or building on top of Cham temples, building farms over them, banning Cham religious practices, and omitting references to the destroyed Cham capital of Song Luy in the 1832 invasion in history books and tourist guides. The situation of Chams compared to ethnic Vietnamese is substandard, lacking water and electricity and living in houses made out of mud.[59]
Judaism
The first
As late as 1939, the estimated combined population of the Jewish communities of
Prior to the French evacuation of Indochina in 1954, the Jewish population in Indochina (which encompassed Vietnam,
Baháʼí Faith
Established in the 1950s, the Vietnamese Baháʼí community once claimed upwards of 200,000 followers, mainly concentrated in the South.[64] The number of followers dwindled as a result of the banning of the practice of the Baháʼí Faith after the Vietnam War. After years of negotiation, the Baháʼí Faith was registered nationally in 2007, once again receiving full recognition as a religious community.[64] In 2009 it was reported that the Baháʼí community has about 7,000 followers and 73 assemblies;[65] by 2022, there were an estimated 3,000 followers in the country.[52]
Religious freedom
The
In fact, there are some limitations in religious practice in Vietnam. Foreign missionaries are not legally allowed to proselytize or perform religious activities. No other religions than the aforementioned eight are allowed. Preachers and religious associations are prohibited to use religion to propagate ideologies that are opposed to the government. Many Vietnamese preachers who fled for America and other countries say that they were suppressed by the Communist government for no, unreasonable or ethnic reasons; however, preachers and religious associations who abide by the law working in Vietnam today are aided and honored by the government.
The Vietnamese government has been criticized for its religious violations by the United States, the Vatican, and expatriate Vietnamese who oppose the Communist government. However, due to recent improvements in religious liberty, the United States no longer considers Vietnam a Country of Particular Concern. The Vatican has also considered negotiations with Vietnam about freedom for Vietnamese Catholics, and was able to reach a permanent agreement which would allow a permanent representative in the future to the country.
Despite some substantial attempts by the Vietnamese government to improve its international image and ease restrictions on religious freedom, the cases of dissident religious leaders' persecution has not stopped in the recent years. The general secretary of the
In 2023, the country was scored 1 out of 4 for religious freedom.[73] In the same year it was ranked as the 25th most difficult place in the world to be a Christian.[74]
See also
- Freedom of religion in Vietnam
- Vietnamese philosophy
- Taoism in Vietnam
- Vietnamese folk religion
- Baháʼí Faith in Vietnam
- Buddhism in Vietnam
- Hinduism in Vietnam
- Islam in Vietnam
- Judaism in Vietnam
- Caodaism
- Hòa Hảo
- Christianity in Vietnam
- Category:Vietnamese Confucianists
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ "If properly buried and worshipped, the dead would be happy to remain in their realm and act as benevolent spirits for their progeny. But those who died alone and neglected, and to whom no worship was given, disturbed the dead and preyed on the living." Hue-Tam Ho Tai (2008-08-20). "Religion in Vietnam: A World of Gods and Spirits". Asia Society. p. 1. Retrieved 2010-06-11.
- ^ "It is generally agreed that Dong Son drums were used for ceremonial purposes (e.g. Higham 1996: 133), and it could be argued that they were produced within a particular religious context, so we might talk about Dong Son religion, in the sense we talk about the Buddhist religion, as a cultural production but one which we know little about specifically." Bowdler, Sandra (2006). Bacus, Elisabeth A.; Glover, Ian; Pigott, Vincent C. (eds.). "The Hoabinhian: Early Evidence for SE Asian Trade Networks?". Uncovering Southeast Asia's Past: Selected Papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. National University of Singapore: 357.
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{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Vietnam News Agency (2009-05-04). "Baha'i Vietnam community to strengthen national unity". Thanh Nien. Thanh Nien Daily. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
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References
- Modernity and Re-Enchantment: Religion in Post-Revolutionary Vietnam, edited by Philip Taylor, ISEAS, Singapore, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7391-2739-1.
- Hoskins, Janet Alison. "What Are Vietnam's Indigenous Religions?". Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University.
- Kiernan, Ben (2019). Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Time to the Present. Oxford University Press.
- Tran, Anh Q. (2017). Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190677602.
- Dror, Olga, ed. (2002). Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses: A Small Treatise on the Sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780877277323.
- Journal articles
- Trần, Claire Thị Liên (2013). "Communist State and Religious Policy in Vietnam: A Historical Perspective". Hague Journal on the Rule of Law. 5 (2): 229–252. S2CID 154978637.
- Nguyen, Phi-Vân (2018). "A Secular State for a Religious Nation: The Republic of Vietnam and Religious Nationalism, 1946–1963". The Journal of Asian Studies. 77 (3): 741–771. hdl:1993/34017.
- Roszko, Edyta (2021). "Controlled Religious Plurality: Possibilities for Covenantal Pluralism in Vietnam". The Review of Faith & International Affairs. 19 (3): 89–103. .
- Mai, Cuong T. (2021). "The Karma of Love: Buddhist Karmic Discourses in Confucian and Daoist Voices in Vietnamese Tales of the Marvelous and Uncanny". Journal of Vietnamese Studies. 16 (3): 1–76. S2CID 239664431.
External links
Media related to Religion in Vietnam at Wikimedia Commons