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From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Date: Jun 29, 2006 4:31 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Would anyone care to comment on these statistics? It is from a book posted
at the website of the Vietnam Communist Party I found a few years ago
(since taken down). I wonder in particular if they might be
underestimating the number of Buddhists in Vietnam.
- Steve Denney
===============
General overview of religions in Vietnam
(According to the summary report and statistics of 1997)
I. Followers:
1. Buddhism 7,620,803
2. Catholicism 5,028,480
3. Evangelism 412,344
4. Cao Dai 1,147,527
5. Hoa Hao 1,306,969
6. Islam 93,294
Total 15,609,417
II. Religious dignitaries and clergy:
1. Buddhism
27,884
Most Venerables (Upadhyaya) 241
Chief nuns 32
Venerables 452
Nuns 331
Bhiksu, Bhiksuni, Novices 26,828
2. Catholicism
14,942
Bishops 33
Priests 2,200
Monks 1.514
(legitimate 1,137;
illegitimate 317)
Nuns 10,647
(legitimate 9,901;
illegitimate 1,556)
Seminarians 548
3. Evangelism
661
Ministers 161
Missionaries 450
4. Different sects of Cao Dai
5,608
5. Islam
734
Total 50,000
III. Places of worship:
1. Buddhism 14,017
2. Catholicism 5,456
3. Evangelism 499
4. Cao Dai 1,037
5. Hoa Hao 196
6. Islam 89
Total 21,294
Source: Government Committee for Religious Affairs
From: Peter Hansen <phansen@ourladys.org.au>
Date: Jun 29, 2006 5:15 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Steve, to the best of my memory, those for the Catholic Church
correspond with those published by the Bishops Conference. I'll try to
check this and confirm.
From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu>
Date: Jun 29, 2006 7:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Steve,
The question would be whether these numbers reflect those who on their civil
identification cards declare themselves to be adherents of a given religion,
or those who so identify to decennial census enumerators, or some other
number. I daresay if one were to examine the ID cards of worshippers at any
religious event, a large proportion would show "khong ton giao" as their
official status. In view of the lack of incentives (and until recently,
several disincentives) for declaring oneself an adherent of any religion,
many devout people have ID cards declaring themselves religion-less. Perhaps
this is less common in rural Catholic villages, for example, where local
authorities know who worships at the church and thus when infants are born
the parents have little fudge factor, but in an urban area people's beliefs
are perhap less well-known to neighbors and authorities. For the decennial
census, the question would be whether there is sufficient public confidence
in the anonymity and integrity of the process that people would declare
themselves to be something other than their identity card shows.
Best,
Frank Proschan
From: Janet Hoskins <jhoskins@usc.edu>
Date: Jun 29, 2006 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
On the subject of religion statistics:
As someone who is in contact with leaders of a number of “Vietnamese” religions, I should note that these numbers seem
low, and are considerably lower than other recent estimates. The US State Department report on religion for 2005, for
instance, notes the following (see it yourself at state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51535.htm:
On Buddhism: “Some estimates suggest that more than half of the population is at least nominally Buddhist. The Office of
Religious Affairs uses a much lower estimate of 12 percent (10 million) practicing Buddhists. Buddhists typically visit
pagodas on festival days and have a worldview that is shaped in part by Buddhism, but in reality these beliefs often rely
on a very expansive definition of the faith. Many individuals, especially among the ethnic majority Kinh who may not
consider themselves Buddhist, nonetheless follow traditional Confucian and Taoist practices and often visit Buddhist
temples. One prominent Buddhist official has estimated that approximately 30 percent of Buddhists are devout and
practice their faith regularly.”
On other “Vietnamese religions”:
“Official government statistics put the number of Cao Dai at 2.4 million, although Cao Dai officials routinely claim as
many as 4 million adherents” and “According to the Government, there are 1.6 million Hoa Hao followers; affiliated
expatriate groups estimate that there may be up to 3 million followers”.
I might add that statistics from Aherents.com (which polls religious leaders) put the number of Caodaists at 4-6 million,
and the Vietnamese Embassy web site has also recently listed the number of Cao Dai temples as 1300 (which is a
number that Cao Dai leaders also agree is correct: It is easier to count temples than worshippers).
These numbers, collected in 1997, were collected in the first year that the government granted recognition to Cao Dai
religion (as practiced at Tay Ninh), and before hundreds of temples were re-opened.
Three months ago, the Vietnamese tourism website said that 70% of all Vietnamese people were “influenced by Buddhist
beliefs”. The category of “Buddhists” is a sloppy one, and does not necessarily count primarily Taoist practices of
esoterism (Vo Vi), the Minh religions of southern Vietnam (Minh Ly, Minh Su, etc.), ancestor worship (sometimes called
“Confucianism”), and many other forms of religion which are not generally noted on census cards.
Janet Hoskins
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Date: Jun 30, 2006 8:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Dear all:
My reaction to these statistics is: what a headache. "Sect" leaders like
to give them, as it can reflect well on their strength. Governments like
to have them, because governments like to count, enumerate, make legible
their subjects. (What I am saying, obviously, is completely derivative
of what others have pointed out.) Such statistics are not useless -- but
it is not clear what they are useful for. The core problem is that
"religions" and "sects" are not understood popularly in Vietnam in the
same way that either the Vietnamese state wants them to be understood or
the way that many Western scholars of religion understand the term.
"Sect" and "religion" imply a bounded, institutionalized entity. Much
Vietnamese religious practice cannot be easily understood in these
terms. (But some can).
The only essay I have seen that starts to address some of these problems
with numbers of believers in Vietnam is that on the Hoa Hao by Pascal
Bourdeaux in Christopher Goscha and Benoit de Treglode, NAISSANCE D'UN
ETAT-PARTI. BIRTH OF A PARTY-STATE. . .
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Date: Jun 30, 2006 9:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Thanks to Frank and others for the informative responses. A question: is
listing one's religious affiliation on civil identification cards a cause
for discrimination in Vietnam?
- Steve Denney
From: Jean Michaud <michaudjean@yahoo.com>
Date: Jun 30, 2006 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Dear all,
How could be fruitfully factored in this discussion the fact that those
people in VN who do not belong to one of these listed religions, and
yet are not devoid of religious beliefs and practices -- I'm referring
here to the broad category of 'animists' -- still amount to roughly 10
million people but never appear in statistics or official discourse in
VN (in this case a political choice), and barely in academic
discussions such as this one?
Jean Michaud
Laval University
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Date: Jul 2, 2006 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Statistics on religions in Vietnam
Could the veneration of Ho Chi Minh be considered a religion to some
extent?
- Steve Denney
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