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There are over six million Roman Catholics in Vietnam, according to one Roman Catholic priest. While facing government restrictions, the priest says that they don't get jailed.
By contrast, there are much fewer evangelical Christians, yet they undergo heavy government restriction.
Rev. Dinh Thien Tu is one of Vietnam's most influential Christian leaders. Now in his 50s, Tu pastored a struggling church of 40 members in Saigon in 1972. When Saigon fell, he stayed on, and in 1988 his church of 5,000 was one of the largest in the country. Up until that point, the government had hoped that Marxist-Leninist ideologies would prevail over any other religious interest.
The government soon forced senior church officials to require Tu's resignation. Tu says the government used a tension within the denomination where the older leadership was against anyone who had a healing ministry. But the main reason, he says, was that the church just grew too fast for the government's comfort.
However, Tu had been building a cell model church since 1984 when his members outgrew their church building. "We tried to get permission to extend it," he says, "but we weren't allowed. So you could say the government started the house church movement."
Tu's movement now numbers over 40,000, the largest single group in the Vietnamese house church phenomenon which is believed to number 80,000 believers.
Second only to pastor Tu as a house church leader, pastor Ai has built a movement of 16,000 members throughout the country since 1988. Unlike Tu, he has sought (and received) international recognition. The Assemblies of God worldwide have welcomed him into their fold, though the Vietnamese government has pointedly refused to register him.
His training strategy for leaders is demanding. "We start our leaders at Caleb level. One month of training to win souls, then one month to go and win five souls, after that they are ready for the next level." Joshua level has three months of training, then three months to win 15 souls, plus reading through the Bible five times.
After his release, he challenged his movement to take seriously the needs of the 64 tribal minorities scattered throughout Vietnam. Some caught the vision, and made for the central highlands where most of these tribes live. Now 33,000 of his members are from the tribes. Though only eight percent of Vietnam's population of 74 million, tribal people constitute more than 50 percent of Protestant believers in Vietnam.
The Koho tribe, for example, is traditionally pantheist, believing that everything is god. When they discovered that Christianity offered a simpler religion where animal and food sacrifices weren't necessary to achieve favour, they were hesitant. But when some converted, and ruin didn't follow, others followed suit and usually prospered. However, because they directly associate their recent crop successes with God's blessing and good nature, it is not known how they will respond to a poor crop year.
"Only in prison could I have gained a vision for these tribal peoples, otherwise I would have stayed in Ho Chi Minh City and never met them", says Tu. Government pressure continues, six of his pastors are currently in jail for their faith. Four were given three-year sentences last September. There have been no jailings this year, but there have been more beatings.
Despite many harrowing stories of persecution of his church members, the church continues to grow. "It's a simple equation (persecution equals growth), but I have found it to be unpreachable to those with no experience of persecution," says Tu.
Church membership has tripled since 1975, now estimated at 500,000-600,000. A recent government concession has allowed the churches to print Vietnamese Bibles. About 15,000 have been printed so far.
Other government regulations are still in force. There are restrictions against the churches doing youth work; the churches call it "choir time" and proceed with ministry. They are forbidden to open new churches; extensions are built on existing churches.
Kien explains that while fighting as a soldier from 1965 to 1980, he raped, pillaged and shot, suspending any moral values because he believed that each day may be his last. The prospect of peace, he says, "was more terrifying than before. I had to make decisions. I had to get an education. I had to do something. And even more, I could fall in love, marry and have children."
Kien's two main questions remain, "Why was I spared?", when many friends had died; and "Where am I to get the value for living?"
Though Kien agrees that religion should provide these answers, he sees the Tin Lanh church as disinterested in society. He observed that the pastor of the church he visited, "expounded the text of the Bible as if we were all perfect Christians." But none of the pastors had read Bao Ninh's novel, The Sorrow of War, which Kien believes captures where Vietnam is at.
Vietnam is now the third-largest rice exporter in the world. A half-million retailers clog Saigon, and foreign trade in 1995 totalled $12 billion US.
However, corruption also clogs the distribution. Policemen routinely fine motorcyclists at holiday periods to give themselves a bonus. The welfare system has all but disappeared. Families must pay the equivalent of three US dollars per child for schooling. As the average family has six children and a combined income of 20 dollars, usually only one child of the six gets an education. Free health care is a thing of the past.
"In the cities, our big growth period was 1985-1990, but now growth has slowed as everybody concentrates on getting an education, re-training for jobs, and they are less committed to church," says one pastor.
In responding to the question of what will be the greatest danger to the church in the future, Tu responds this way: "Materialism. It makes the heart hard . . . stony soil for the gospel. People's hearts are already getting harder."
KH, from Compass Direct reports
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