Dynamics of religion and spirituality in atransforming society

The socialist reform policy called dổi mới (renovation), which started in1986, has changed Vietnam profoundly. The economicand political reforms triggered processes oftransformation that deeply affected all parts ofsocial, political, economic and religious life inVietnam. Although the Communist Party still claimssocial and political control and leadership inalliance with a normative modernity, many of theconsequences of the reform policy do not fitsmoothly into the modernist programme of thesocialist state under the Party's leadership.Particularly in regard to the spheres of religionand spirituality, the Party's attitude is oftenambivalent and ambiguous. For a long time thecommunist regime was suspicious of spiritual andreligious beliefs, practices and communities andtried to control, regulate and controvert them.However, in the wake of the reform policy, peoplehave started to use the new freedoms to developtheir spirituality and religiosity in anextraordinarily dynamic and vital way. This dynamicincludes the whole range of spirituality andreligiosity in Vietnam: the great organizedreligions like Buddhism and Christianity, rites inrelation to the life-cycle, such as weddings,funerals or ancestor worship, rites in relation tocommunal houses (đình)and local tutelary deities, devotion to legendaryheroes and spirits, Daoism, and the Religion of theMother Goddesses, also called the Religion of theFour Palaces. Elaborate and expensive rituals andpilgrimages, various forms of possession and spiritmediums, rites for the souls on their way to theotherworld, searching for souls, astrology, geomancy– all these beliefs and practices, heavilycriticized earlier as superstitious, feudalistic andbackward, are now increasingly practiced vividly andmultifariously in public. Although control andleadership in the social, political and ideologicalspheres are still asserted, and although stateauthorities still react contradictorily andambiguously, the latter are trying to harness andcontrol the presumed potential of spirituality andreligion for social and moral integration. Ritualsites and practices are included in the officialdiscourses on morality, identity and thelegitimation of the one-party state, and officialsof both state and party are increasingly beingallowed to live their spirituality andreligiosity.