Revival in Indochina: Action in the Far East

NEWS

Amid the war and tensions of the Far East, especially in Indochina, a significant spiritual movement is apparently under way, with thousands of persons turning to Christ. The following account was gleaned from a number of sources, including an interview with missions executive Grady Mangham of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Major contributions came from correspondents Bill Bray, reporting a spiritual population explosion in Cambodia, and Samuel H. Moffett, who wrote from Korea telling of one of the largest mass baptisms in history.

A revival that began a few months ago in scattered areas of South Viet Nam and showed signs of becoming a national outpouring may be one of the major casualties of the escalated war caused by invading armies of North Viet Nam. A leading Christian evangelist was reported to be seriously wounded and perhaps dead in devastated An Loc; many villages with strong Christian churches were evacuated or destroyed; and tribespeople among whom revival was spreading were uprooted and relocated by the thousands.

The evangelist is Dieu Huynh, a Stieng tribesman who has pastored a church in An Loc since his graduation three years ago from the Theological Institute, a Bible school in Nha Trang related to the Christian and Missionary Alliance. (Approximately 95 per cent of the Protestants in South Viet Nam belong to the 370 congregations of the Evangelical Church of Viet Nam, affiliated with the CMA.) In Dieu’s first six months at An Loc, more than 1,500 were converted.

In December a student at the Bible school was giving a report on the Indonesian revival during a morning class when he dropped to his knees in prayer. Classmates joined him, and soon all 120 of the school’s students were involved, praying and sharing testimonies until well past midnight. During the Christmas break they fanned out to their home churches and towns, sparking similar revival happenings there.

In An Loc, pastor Dieu and others reported the conversions of hundreds of Stieng tribespeople. A pair of students initiated revival among the Bru tribes in Quang Tri province. Workers told of miraculous healings and many conversions. In all, nearly 100 churches reported they were affected by the revival.

Then came the North Vietnamese artillery barrages, tanks, and troops, and the counterattacks and American bombs. An Loc lies in ruin. Stieng villages have been overrun. Thousands of Brus were evacuated south to Ban Me Thout. The fate of thousands of Christian Montagnards in villages around Kontum is unknown, but it is known that Hanoi radio has condemned them. (The United World Mission, an evangelical agency based in Florida, sponsors the second-largest Protestant work in South Viet Nam; its churches are located mostly among the Montagnards in the Kontum region.)

What will emerge from the rubble and crowded refugee camps remains to be seen. The refugees pose perhaps the biggest immediate challenge to the churches; their needs are both physical and spiritual. The government is able to feed them for now and provide shelter and medical care in most cases. But how does one bind up the deep wounds of the spirit? Christians may be the only ones who know the answer.

This month street fighting erupted in the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, and when it was over scores of Communist sappers lay dead. Only weeks before another kind of action had occurred in the city, and when it was over the Protestant community had doubled and perhaps even tripled in size. The action: the first public evangelistic meetings ever held in Cambodia (population: seven million).

Government officials estimate that attended the three services conducted by World Vision president W. Stanley Mooneyham. Nearly 2,000 responded to the altar calls; the majority of decisions were professions of faith.

Cambodia has long been known as one of the most barren fields of missionary endeavor. Although Roman Catholic missionaries have been working there since the sixteenth century, missionaries today claim only 20,000 converts—a figure believed to be exaggerated—and a handful of priests.

Until recently, Protestants fared no better. The Christian and Missionary Alliance first penetrated the Buddhist kingdom in 1923, but its Khmer Evangelical Church entered this year with only 600 members on the rolls—the total Protestant population in the entire nation.

But both missionaries and national church leaders say the scene is rapidly changing, with young people especially receptive to the Gospel. About 90 per cent of those who responded in the World Vision crusade were young men between 18 and 25. Counseling went on for hours as they pummeled church members with questions about the Christian faith.

Although Cambodians are normally subdued and introspective, Christians were seen excitedly greeting one another, eager to share experiences in witnessing to neighbors. During witness encounters in the barbwired streets around the crusade auditorium, numbers of persons bowed their heads and publicly prayed to receive Christ. Some crusade officials said they nearly missed some meetings because of the great demand for spiritual counsel outside. (The auditorium seated only 1,200; overflow throngs of up to 4,000 jammed together outside windows and doors to listen as Khmer Bible Society head Son Sonne interpreted Mooneyham’s sermons.)

Several high government officials and military leaders were reportedly among the converts. Bible-school students led eight young Buddhists to Christ in a pre-crusade meeting, creating a joyous revival spirit among the believers even before the crusade began. New converts walked forward laughing rather than weeping—a cultural distinctive that left World Vision’s Americans somewhat nonplused at first.

Another historic event in connection with the crusade was the first appearance of Cambodian Christians on national television. The forty-five-minute special also featured gospel singing by the Danniebelles, four black women from the San Francisco area on tour with Mooneyham. Now that mass media have been opened to the Gospel, church leaders are pondering their next move.

Local observers have been predicting the new mood for two years. Several of the four new churches that have appeared during that time are still without professional ministers but are thriving under the dynamic young leadership of boards of elders, notes CMA missionary Merle Graven.

The new mood can be traced in part to the greater freedom allowed by the government following the ouster of former head of state Norodom Sihanouk. Christians have become more visible and active in society. Traditional religion—a combination of Buddhism, animism, and Brahmanism—has meanwhile been losing ground. Perhaps even local legend has contributed to the spiritual climate. Christ is seen by some as the fulfillment of prophecies in a famous epic poem in Khmer literature. The poem predicts the coming of a national messiah.

In the week preceding the crusade, about 200 gathered at the Takhmau Bible Institute for the annual convention of the Khmer church, and interest ran high there. Peter Yuen of the Disciples Training Centre in Singapore was the featured speaker.

The steady appearance of new churches and the sudden spiritual explosion have caused concern as well as joy. Mooneyham himself, citing examples of what has happened on the heels of revival elsewhere, warned against the proliferation of Western mission agencies and opportunistic organizations interested in exploiting the fertile times. This, he said, could destroy the balanced relation between the missionaries and national believers, a balance struck after Sihanouk ordered foreign missionaries out five years ago.

Mooneyham acknowledges that help is always needed in a harvest, but he fears what could happen if Westerners rush in to exploit the opportunity. An alternative, he suggests, might be the formation of a united missionary organization similar to ones functioning in Nepal and Afghanistan.

A more imminent danger than religious exploitation by the West may be posed by Communist invaders, who already control about half of Cambodia and have its capital virtually under siege. A Communist takeover would bring an end to the new freedom of outreach say mission officials, thus perhaps nipping the revival in its bud stage. Meanwhile, churches are involved in followup work with the brand new Christians.

Artillery practice shells thumped in the background and choppers whirled overhead on surveillance along the DMZ. but in a small valley between the mountains that divide North and South Korea, 3,478 men—including officers—of the Republic of Korea’s twentieth army division stood singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” then knelt quietly to confess their new faith in Christ in one of the largest mass baptisms in modern times. It happened last month almost within sight of Communist lines, on a parade ground north of the thirty-eighth parallel.

This was only the most recent public evidence of a remarkable evangelistic movement in the ROK armed forces, spearheaded by the 322 Protestant and forty-four Roman Catholic chaplains.

As a result of their witness on at least four recent occasions involving other divisions, 1,000 or more soldiers have been baptized in one day. Last year 900 marines were baptized together. Total baptisms since January, 1971: 20,000 Protestants and 2,000 Catholics.

Protestants are said to make up 25 per cent of the armed forces, compared to a national proportion of less than 10 per cent. Catholics and Buddhists number less than 5 per cent each among the military population.

On hand for the baptism of the 3,478 were two choirs (one from a 9,000-member Seoul church, the other from a little Bible club), nearly 150 chaplains and ministers from Korea’s major denominations (more than 90 per cent of the Protestants are Presbyterians), American evangelist Jack Wyrtzen, and prominent churchman Kyung-Jik Han, who preached to the troops from the Book of Acts. One young wife broke from among the onlookers to stand beside her husband, a captain, and together they professed their faith through baptism.

Questions inevitably arise about these mass religious demonstrations. Will mass-produced converts stand the test of time? Does a taint of military coercion cloud the miracle of faith? Korean Christian leaders point out in reply that neither the commanding general of the First Army nor the commanding officer of its Twentieth Division is a Christian. Rather than directing the event, they seem almost startled by it, say informed sources.

But will the converts persevere? Dr. Otto DeCamp, one of two American Presbyterian missionaries who participated in the baptisms, asked the question on the way to the service. His answer came from a fellow passenger, a well-known Presbyterian elder and staff member in the office of the stated clerk. “Only God knows, of course,” he said. “But I was converted in the army as a sergeant back in 1957, and I am still a Christian.”

Elsewhere, there were these developments:

• Last month 200 persons from more than a dozen countries attended the annual International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) East Asian regional conference in the Cameron highlands of Malaysia. (The first IFES Asian conference was held in 1957 in Hong Kong with only a handful present.) The group listened to reports of Bible-study groups among students in Indonesia and Thailand, amazing growth of the University Bible Fellowship in Korea, Campus Evangelical Fellowship summer camps attended by 1,000 students in Taiwan, and hundreds of conversions among university students in India, where an evangelical student group has work on 300 campuses. An offering was taken for Bangladesh relief.

• Publisher Duane Pederson of the Hollywood Free Paper, a Jesus-movement newspaper, arrived home from a tour of the Far East and announced plans to recruit 500 young people for street evangelism there. The recruits will receive two months of training in Los Angeles and one month in Manila, he says. “Many of the kids in those Asian cities are on drugs and they’re hung up on sex and revolution. Most of them speak English, so our kids will be able to reach them,” he explained.

• Thai workers with Campus Crusade for Christ say 110 Buddhists in Thailand, including monks and nuns, recently became Christians. Eleven former Buddhist monks have been ordained to the Lutheran ministry in Hong Kong, reports the Christian mission to Buddhists. Evangelist Morris Cerullo says 70,000 persons—80 per cent of them Buddhists—attended each of two closing night sessions at a “charismatic happening” in Ceylon.

1,500 Miles To Explo

Swift Dennis Swift, record-holding long distance runner from Pasadena (Nazarene) College, is running to Campus Crusade’s Explo 72 in Dallas, 1,500, miles from his starting point in Southern California. Aiming to average 200 miles a week over back roads through the hot Southwest, he began the marathon on April 19 and hopes to arrive ahead of the traffic crush next month. Crusade expects to host 100,000 in Dallas June 12–17 for an evangelism training conference. (Advance registrations are approaching the 50,000 mark, say officials.)

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