Written by Caodai Overseas Missionary   

 

Interview with Dr Janet Hoskins

Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California

 

June 8, 2008

Note – The interviewer is Mr. David Tung Che of the Song Dao TV program

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: I became interested in Caodaism by reading about it and seeing that there was a temple in Pomona, about 5 minutes from where I grew up. I had been studying religions in Southeast Asia for many years, mainly in Indonesia, and had read some reports about Caodaism published in English. Most of them (like a famous article by journalist Bernard Fall) said that it had been a very important movement during the French colonial period but was “destined to disappear” after the dissolution of the Caodai army in 1955. So I was surprised and impressed to find out that this had not happened, and not only had Caodaism not disappeared in Vietnam, but it was in fact now assuming a global presence and had established a congregation in my own home town. I think that many early accounts looked at Caodaism only as a political force, and did not take it seriously as a religion of unity.

 

I was very fortunate to meet people like Dr. Bui at the Pomona temple, who have been active in translating Caodai scriptures and in making the teachings accessible to English speakers. I think that many people might be interested once they understand that Caodaism is primarily a religion and not a political or military group.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: I was drawn to Caodaism because of the way in which it establishes a dialog between eastern philosophies and religions and western ones. In California we are familiar with many westerners who have traveled to the east to seek a religious teacher, sometimes an Indian guru, sometimes a Tibetan Buddhist monk, sometimes a Taoist sage. But there are not many accounts of how colonized intellectuals in Eastern and Southeast Asia themselves went on a spiritual quest to discover the unity of all religious teachings, and did so by using spiritism, a technique that has been used in western countries mainly to contact the spirits of dead relatives, but rarely as a way to get religious or spiritual guidance.

 

I was also particularly interested in how Caodaism has had to change because of Vietnam’s painful history of anti-colonial struggle, Cold War divisions and massive out migration in the last quarter of the 20th century. So I wanted to trace how this religion of unity born in the colonial context has adapted to a postcolonial world of globalization and increasing contact between Vietnam and the United States.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: There certainly is a need to solve religious conflict, and this need has become particularly acute in the last decade because of the ways in which Euro-America has felt threatened by political unrest in the Islamic world. But since Caodaism was born in Vietnam, it would be hard for Caodaists to have much leverage in resolving this particular tension. Contradictions between the humanitarian values of freedom of expression and freedom of movement and the more authoritarian administration of economic development and trade are relevant to the balance between the sacred and the secular, and these questions are ones that Caodaism can address, especially for a century in which the relationship between the emerging powers of Asia (including China and India) will come to have much greater significance for setting the direction of world affairs. Vietnam’s history of absorbing elements of European culture but remaining distinctively “Asian” in its moral orientation is significant here, and for this reason as well as because of all the suffering that it has endured, a new religion emerging from Vietnam can have much to teach to the world.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: Caodaism as a "religion of unity" has been divided by factionalism, and I know that many Caodaists are unhappy that it has not been possible to unify all the different groups. From my own perspective, from growing up in the environment of American Christianity, where there are a great many different Protestant groups, is that diversity can be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. When many new churches are founded, some of them Pentecostal, some of them Evangelical, some of them Congregational, then this is usually seen as a sign of vitality. Many new groups are formed and many new leaders emerge, who share more or less the same general religious outlook, but who have their own leadership styles. These groups are often sources of innovation, of creative infusions of new ideas and new forms of acting, and it would seem to me that this is exactly what is needed in the light of all the changes necessary to adapt to changing historical contexts.

 

Caodaists have long collaborated with other groups in the “three religion community”, such as the Minh Ly Dao or the esoteric Chieu Minh branch. I think these collaborations within the framework of a shared religious vision have worked well, in contrast to the very hierarchical and more centralized organization of Tay Ninh Caodaism. As a scholar, I am interested in religious diversity and in a number of different perspectives, so I like to see how each group approaches questions of belief and practice within a shared vision of unity.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: For the reasons mentioned above, I think that working out ways of collaborating is perhaps more important than insisting on one single organization and one single way of doing things. To resolve religious conflict in the world, you need to be tolerant of different cultural practices and not expect everyone to worship in exactly the same way. I think people in California and people in Vietnam can share a religious vision without doing everything in exactly the same way. I hope that the global expansion of Caodaism will help people to see how they can work together, even while respecting minor differences in ways of worshipping.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: Other religions that have tried to preach global unity have emerged in particular historical circumstances which has sometimes limited their impact. So Baha’i emerged in Persia, in an area divided by conflicts between Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and it is primarily focused on resolving conflicts between the religions found in the Middle East. Theosophy was born in Europe among people who had been studying Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. Caodaism was born in French Indochina, at the meeting between East Asian traditions of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism and European forms of Christianity, Free Masonry and secular humanism. Since its first leaders were colonized intellectuals, the specific reconciliations that Caodaism was formed to address were a healing from the wounds of colonialism, the scars left by Cold War divisions, and the trauma of the loss of country, exile and immigrant identity.

 

In the aim of unifying religions, it is necessary to find common points and a philosophical consensus to rise above petty ambitions for rank or control over a particular group. These have been the challenges facing those who want to work for a tolerance of religious diversity in the world, and these have also been the challenges of those who want to work for the tolerance of organizational diversity within Caodaism.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: Caodaism does not simply call for unity and tolerance, but also prescribes a particular model of religious practice, which involves many different levels of meditation, prayer and vegetarianism, and tries to place salvation within the reach of a wider range of humanity. This is new and very useful, but it has to remain flexible in order to reach people in different countries who have different habits and goals.

 

I remember something that Lam Ly Hung told me, when I asked him why Minh Ly did not merge with Caodaism in the early years, as many other Minh religious groups did. He said his grandfather received a message telling him that his group still had a distinctive role to play, which would be important in maintaining the structure of the three religions community. Perhaps he meant the fact that smaller, less visible communities have sometimes been freer to practice their own forms of worship over the past few decades than the larger, more visible ones. It seems to me that the history of these groups in the period since 1975 has shown that there may have been an advantage to being separated into smaller congregations.

 

Some people say “the more branches a tree has, the stronger it is”. All of the branches still come from the same trunk, but each can grow in a distinctive way, which may be most appropriate for its own location, and for finding its way to the sunshine that is needed to sustain life. Religious tolerance means respecting the fact that some people prefer certain kinds of organization and worship while others prefer different practices.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: Changing human nature is even more difficult than changing or reconciling organizations! But I think that the practice of introspective meditation, focusing on going deep into the self in order to dissolve the boundaries between the self and the universe, is a particular practice which can help individuals to place their own experiences in a wider perspective.

 

I think Caodaism can teach people new forms of meditation, new ways of reconciling eastern religions and western ones, and new ways of thinking about religious diversity in the world.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: There is a resurgence of interest in religion in Vietnam, and this has made it possible for Caodaism to emerge from the shadows of over three decades and play a more important role in public life. In the rest of the world, there is a strong interest in eastern spirituality, and some Vietnamese religious figures, like the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, have become very well known. For these reasons, I think there is great potential for Caodaism to gather new followers both in Vietnam and in the rest of the world.

 

 

Dr. Hoskins: I think Caodaists are already doing many things that they need to do in order to reach these goals: They are translating and publishing materials in English, they are traveling to academic and religious conferences to get Caodaism put on the map of world religions and included in inter-faith dialogues, and they are active on the internet and in media (like television) so that their message will become more widely heard.