Preliminary Material /Victor L. Oliver -- Préface /Victor L. Oliver -- Acknowledgments /Victor L. Oliver -- Introduction /Victor L. Oliver -- The Historical Roots of Caodaism /Victor L. Oliver -- The Establishment of Caodaism /Victor L. Oliver -- Tay Ninh and The Chieu Minh Tam Thanh /Victor L. Oliver -- The Development of Caodai Sectarianism /Victor L. Oliver -- Attempts at Reunification /Victor L. Oliver -- Conclusion /Victor L. Oliver -- Appendix I /Victor L. Oliver -- Bibliography /Victor L. Oliver.

What is the relationship between syncretism and diaspora? Caodaism is a large but almost unknown new religion that provides answers to this question. Born in Vietnam during the struggles of decolonization, shattered and spatially dispersed by cold war conflicts, it is now reshaping the goals of its four million followers. Colorful and strikingly eclectic, its “outrageous syncretism” incorporates Chinese, Buddhist, and Western religions as well as world figures like Victor Hugo, Jeanne d’Arc, Vladimir Lenin, and (in the USA) Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. The book looks at the connections between “the age of revelations” (1925-1934) in French Indochina and the “age of diaspora” (1975-present) when many Caodai leaders and followers went into exile. Structured in paired biographies to trace relations between masters and disciples, now separated by oceans, it focuses on five members of the founding generation and their followers or descendants in California, showing the continuing obligation to honor those who forged the initial vision to “bring the gods of the East and West together.” Diasporic congregations in California have interacted with New Age ideas and stereotypes of a “Walt Disney fantasia of the East,” at the same time that temples in Vietnam have re-opened their doors after decades of severe restrictions. Caodaism forces us to reconsider how anthropologists study religious mixtures in postcolonial settings. Its dynamics challenge the unconscious Eurocentrism of our notions of how religions are bounded and conceptualized.

Called a "Technicolor Disney Fantasia" by journalist and author Graham Greene, Caodaism combines elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Taoism, with traditional native beliefs. Created in 1926 in Vietnam, Caodaism grew to become the third largest religion in Vietnam in only a few decades. This book explores Caodaism from its emergence in colonial Vietnam, to its establishment in the United States after the Vietnam War as a result of the Vietnamese diaspora; exploring the history, beliefs, rituals and customs of this little-known religion.

"With the first book in this new series from Paulist Press, Fr. Peter C. Phan presents the history of Christianity in Vietnam, the conditions of Vietnamese Catholics in America, the challenges facing Vietnamese-American Catholics today, and suggestions on how to meet them."--BOOK JACKET.

Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions is an edited volume (Philip Clart, David Ownby, and Wang Chien-ch’uan) offering essays on the modern history of redemptive societies in China and Vietnam, with a particular focus on their textual production.

* This Handbook has won the ICAS Edited Volume Accolade 2019. Brill warmly congratulates editors Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter and their authors with this award. * A vibrant cauldron of new religious developments, East Asia (China/Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam) presents a fascinating arena of related research for scholars across disciplines. Edited by Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter, the Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements provides the first comprehensive and reliable guide to explore the vast East Asian new religious panorama. Penned by leading scholars in the field, the assembled contributions render the Handbook an invaluable resource for those interested in the crucial new religious actors and trajectories of the region.