FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — A Baptist World Alliance-led delegation recently returned from Vietnam, where they pressed government officials to ensure greater religious freedom in the rapidly Westernizing nation.
Though conditions for religious groups — especially Protestant groups — have improved in recent years in Vietnam, it remains designated by the State Department as a “Country of Particular Concern,” or CPC, under the terms of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.
Vietnam passed a 2004 law granting greater autonomy to religious groups and reached a 2005 agreement with United States officials on further improving religious conditions in the communist nation. But the chairman of a federal panel that monitors the status of religious freedom worldwide said in March that the agreement had not been fully implemented, particularly by provincial government officials in rural areas.
“Vietnam has not sufficiently addressed the issues that originally lead to their CPC designation,” Michael Cromartie, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told a congressional committee.
Hue Nguyen, president of the National Vietnamese Baptist Fellowship USA and pastor of Vietnamese Faith Baptist Church in Dallas, described the situation for Christians in Vietnam as a “bird in a cage” — though believers have some freedom, they ultimately are limited in the exercise of their faith.
“God loves Vietnam,” he said. “And he opened the door a little bit to Vietnam. We had to enter.”
Nguyen's group originally petitioned the BWA to arrange such a meeting, which was also facilitated by a letter to Vietnamese officials from former President Jimmy Carter.
Nguyen joined other Vietnamese-American Baptists and top officials from BWA, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Baptist Union of Great Britain in a weeklong trip to Vietnam in May. They met with high-level government officials, including Vice Chairman Nguyen Thanh Xuan of Vietnam's Government Committee for Religious Affairs, in separate meetings in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
In meetings with Vietnamese leaders, the Baptist delegation called for religious freedom, not simply recognition of the five Baptist groups in the Asian country.
“We recognize in the recent laws on religious liberty that there is greater respect for Protestant groups like Baptists,” said David Coffey, BWA president. “What we asked for was that they would go beyond respect to granting freedom of worship without any restrictions. The delegation particularly pressed for a normalization of religious freedom which would include the right to open church buildings, Bible schools and compassionate ministries.”
The trip included a BWA-sponsored dinner that gathered more than 500 Baptist leaders, the largest public gathering of Vietnamese Baptists since the fall of Saigon in 1975. Baptist World Aid, the humanitarian arm of the BWA, also presented checks to build homes for the poor as a goodwill gesture to the Vietnamese government.
According to BWA, the dinner was the first time many Baptist leaders in Vietnam were aware of the existence of the other Baptist groups in the nation.
Charles Wade, Baptist General Convention of Texas executive director, said he was impressed by the fervor of the faith of Vietnamese Baptists.
“Vietnam is the 13th most populated country in the world,” Wade said. “They have a young and fiercely independent culture. There are not many Baptists yet, but those that are there are courageous and committed followers of Christ.”
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