On religion and faith

An excerpt, plus a bit of history about Vietnamese Catholicism

Hi friends,

Since I emerged exhausted from spending the past three months writing a novel, and since Easter came and went, I thought I’d bring up the idea of faith.

To me, faith is different than religion. Faith is a belief in a higher being, that it exists. It’s knowing that sometimes you have to believe in something even when you can’t see it. It’s giving in but not necessarily giving up. It’s an internal mindset brought on by a variety of factors—mainly people and place. I think that without one, you can’t have the other. On the other hand, a religion is a synchronized system of beliefs that is propagated and maintained by a group of people. Without everyone in that group being on the same page, the religion will die out, and as a result, beliefs can subside and ultimately die.