Churches Prosper as Restrictions Are Lifted

“Please help us rebuild the houses of worship,” came the recent plea to a North American Christian agency in Hanoi. “All the people are eager to rebuild.”

An appeal from underground Vietnamese Christians? No, it came from enthusiastic villagers with the full support of local government officials.

Most churches today in Vietnam are full and alive. To sit in worship with 150 devout farmers and guitar-strumming youth in a small, evangelical church outside of Tam Ky in central Vietnam is to catch the vibrancy of God’s Spirit. The aging pastor, Nguyen Xuan Vong, knows the hardship, war, and re-education camps many of his members have experienced.

The concept of “enemy,” for these people, is not academic. Vong asks his people what is the Christian response to the enemy. Appealing to the example of Jesus on the cross, he exhorts, “You say to your enemies, ‘Father, forgive them.’ ”

Religious communities in Vietnam today are enjoying unprecedented tolerance and even encouragement from the Communist government, providing that activity is not critical of the government. After half a century of Hanoi’s chilly suspicion of religious groups, even the Communist party general secretary, Do Muoi, paid public visits to a prominent pagoda and a Catholic cathedral near Hanoi this year. On the other hand, the government still screens pastors, priests, or monks for ordination, and arrests religious leaders who preach unacceptable sermons or lead unauthorized worship services.

In September, according to News Network International, three Christian Americans each paid $200 fines for conducting a religious meeting without a permit in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. Police officers raided the home where the Americans were teaching theology to three-dozen Vietnamese students. The students had their Bibles confiscated and also were fined.

Economic pragmatism prevails

The government’s shifting stance appears to stem from a desire to win greater domestic and international support for its economic goals and a concern about growing corruption and public moral decay. “We used to cite Marx’s dictum about religion being the opiate of the masses, but now we see it’s not that simple,” a government anthropologist reflected recently in Hanoi. “We’ve observed that some of the most virtuous villages are those with religious roots.”

Today, economic pragmatism prevails. The Vietnamese people, while highly resourceful and literate, remain materially poor with yearly per capita incomes estimated at US$200. In 1986, Hanoi instituted broad reforms—called doi moi or “renovation”—toward a market economy. With the substantial Russian aid drying up by 1991, Vietnam instituted arguably the most generous foreign investment policy in Asia and actively sought improved ties with capitalist countries, including the United States.

Americans are welcomed in Vietnamese cities and villages today. “Isn’t it wonderful that, despite our history of war, today you and I can meet as friends,” a cafe owner marvels to his American visitor. To foster closer relations, the government also has made a “huge improvement” in cooperating on the cases of American servicemen missing in action, according to Lt. Col. Jack Donovan, who, until recently, was in charge of the MIA office in Hanoi.

Meanwhile, the United States has refused to normalize diplomatic relations with Vietnam. In gradual steps during the past year, Presidents Bush and Clinton have pulled most of the punitive teeth from the 18-year trade embargo, allowing Vietnam now to receive major development loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Numerous Vietnamese express the hope that normalized relations with the United States might reduce remaining suspicions and lead to more government openness on political and religious activities

The small, growing church

The principal Protestant body, the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN), has grown in number and commitment since the war’s end in 1975, according to church leaders. The ECVN is largely an outgrowth of American Christian and Missionary Alliance efforts, and Vietnamese officials still tend to view the church warily. In fact, Protestants generally have eschewed social or political activism and have emphasized worship, spiritual encouragement, and friend-to-friend evangelism.

“It’s been a time of purification for the church,” observed one evangelical leader in Ho Chi Minh City. “During the last years, people who held just nominal commitment to the church fell away. New members joined out of conviction.”

Protestant leaders report tens of thousands of tribal minority peoples have embraced the Christian message in recent years through outside radio broadcasts, although 13 highland pastors are reportedly now in detention. Numerous house churches in the cities also have flourished since 1975. With the Vietnamese population at 71 million, Protestants are estimated to number 350,000.

Government controls

Not surprisingly, Hanoi desires religious groups that are unified under leaders sympathetic to government goals. Since the Unified Buddhist Church has sometimes been a thorn in the side of the government, Hanoi has detained some of their monks and supported the formation of a new Vietnam Buddhist Church. After a self-immolation at a pagoda in the old imperial town of Hue in May, a large public protest ensued, and three monks were arrested.

The Catholic church, representing four million members, has walked a careful road in relation to the government. Tensions remain with the government, especially over choosing new bishops, but Hanoi’s relations with the Vatican—never broken, as in China—continue in fits and starts.

Training new leaders is a major problem for all religious groups. Catholics have received permission to open six seminaries. Last June, Protestants graduated 15 youth who had studied in a Hanoi seminary for five years, but the government permitted the ordination of only two. The northern and southern conferences of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam, while on speaking terms, have not yet united because of historical and political differences.

More than 50 international relief-and-development agencies are active in educational, medical, and rural development work in Vietnam, including World Vision, World Relief, and the Mennonite Central Committee. Today these agencies are permitted to work at the grassroots with much less government interference.

Some foreign Christians, including overseas Vietnamese, have prompted government reactions, however, if they are suspected of direct evangelism. A few individuals are reportedly encouraging the growth of small Protestant denominations, sometimes by drawing members from ECVN. Protestant leaders express concern that such actions may jeopardize the witness and integrity of the church.

Vietnamese Christian leaders suggest they are served best when international groups provide faith-inspired humanitarian service, not direct evangelism and church development. “Continue your work of aid and assistance,” suggests a veteran pastor. “The government will see your motives and sacrifice. That is a witness.”

By Earl Martin in Vietnam.

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