Religion in the communist state of Vietnam is legal – temples, mosques, churches, pagodas, shrines, are all allowed to exist, to function in accordance with state guidelines, once they have registered and received papers from government officials. The shape these religious spaces and communities of worship take in Ho Chi Minh is a complex thought – one I hesitate to comment on because, as we are learning in all our travels, and have been reminded here in Vietnam, one can get a lot of information in a short time, but it takes ages full of experience to begin to understand even fragments – fragments of Southeast Asia, of Vietnam, or even of this careening city of Ho Chi Minh, as it hurdles around us. But I’m going to comment anyway, knowing all my thoughts and observations are bare, preliminary, incomplete – but also hoping that they at least point me – us – towards more questions, which in turn point us towards more learning.

Vietnam’s religious makeup is diverse: about 40% Buddhist, 10% Catholic, 1% Protestant, a small percentage of “other,” with the rest (and many overlapping into these other categories) practicing ancestor worship. Minority groups in the Highlands, who are not ethnically Vietnamese, are animists.

We’ve also heard that religious syncretism is widespread and accepted here – that piecing together various religious traditions is commonplace. This grafting and interweaving of faith narratives and practices manifests itself in a variety of faces. It can be seen in the Caodaism, started by a man who had many visions, of Jesus, the Buddha, Joan of Arc and others, and incorporated them all into a new religion. We’ve heard this religion being used as a metaphor to describe Vietnamese culture more broadly, in the way that nothing that comes to this country stays the same – no idea, theory, style, product will arrive and maintain its original shape. The Vietnamese might adopt it, but they will make it their own – in, as we’ve been told in conversations here, the process dubbed “Vietnamisation.”

This is visible in religions we might find more familiar as well. This morning I wondered the city – at 6am it was already bustling, with outdoor fish markets, countless street vendors selling pho (traditional noodle soup), hoards of uniformed children off to school, all amidst the endless stream of motos. I found my way to a quiet temple, a large and brightly painted pagoda, somehow tucked away in a corner of muted silence, even in this persistently chattering, urban center. Here I was greeted by an infusion of dieties – a stark example of the deep presence of syncretism. At first I took this to be a Buddhist pagoda, adorned as it was with innumerable statues and paintings of the Buddha, and perhaps flowing out of assumptions developed during my time in Cambodia – where Buddhism holds (officially) an overwhelming majority.

As I wandered further into the court yard, and deeper into the temple, through breezes laced with incense, I began to encounter new sets of faces. Along with the Buddha images I’d grown accustomed to in Cambodia, there were statues of a jollier, portlier Buddha, reminiscent of a Chinese Buddha. In the next alcoves sat Hindu statues, other unfamiliar dieties, a 3 meter statue of the Virgin Mary in standard blue and white, cloaked and holding her alabaster jar. Worshippers wound their way through the temple, visiting the various and contrasting shrines, bowing prostrate, offering incense…

And then this same syncretism surfaces in the Christian church here. Amidst Vietnam’s many religions exists this strong presence of ancestor worship – offerings are given (by burning paper money, or paper images of what is being “transmitted” through smoke) to the spirits of the ancestors, in hopes of honouring and appeasing them. Winning favour is important because ancestors have the power to both bless and curse. Apparently, it is common for Christians to continue these practices once they join the church, practicing their traditional ways hand-in-hand with new stories about Jesus that are beginning to shape their lives. For other Christians, however, this worship of ancestors has felt too much like worshipping other gods, so they have found ways of maintaining a deep respect for elders and ancestors, ways of honouring these traditions, without feeling as though they are compromising their new convictions…

So we encounter a church that is shaped by a particular culture, a particular historical situation, a church that can perhaps help us reflect on the ways in which our own culture has shaped our faith, and for better or for worse, a church, as it is enriched in this context of “Vietnamisation,” which might possibly teach us new ways of understanding our lives as followers of Jesus, a church which challenges us to think about religious syncretism, to think about the cultural boundedness of religion, to dive into some pretty tough questions…