The United Gospel Outreach Church’s building, which is open to all Christian groups in the city, is one of the few church buildings built since 1975 with the government’s tacit approval. For such a place to exist was unthinkable 15 years ago and is a sign of expanding religious freedom in the country’s big cities.
HO CHI MINH CITY and HANOI, Vietnam—Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, is a mix of the past and present. Motorbikes whizz past a French-colonial-style post office; a red banner with a yellow hammer and sickle hangs from a lamppost next to a sleek skyscraper; slender women in flowing ao dai (a traditional silk tunic) snap selfies in front of a bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh.
Because of Roman Catholicism’s long history in Vietnam, cathedrals like the historic red-brick Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica make striking statements throughout the city. Protestant churches are harder to find: American missionaries arrived in Vietnam three centuries after the Catholics and only had 64 years to take root before the Communist government took over South Vietnam in 1975.
Since then, the government has shuttered hundreds of churches and banned the construction of new ones, so many Christians meet in homes. Yet tucked in an alleyway off a main road is a white building with the sign “United Gospel Outreach Church.” Inside, the 200-seat sanctuary bustles with activity every day: various church services, interchurch gatherings, and outreach events.
The United Gospel Outreach Church’s building, which is open to all Christian groups in the city, is one of the few church buildings built since 1975 with the government’s tacit approval. For such a place to exist was unthinkable 15 years ago and is a sign of expanding religious freedom in the country’s big cities. Yet for believers belonging to ethnic minorities (who make up 75 percent of Vietnam’s evangelicals) or who live in the remote provinces, persecution remains a daily fact of life, even as Vietnam puts on a tolerant front for the international community.
Overall, since 1975, the evangelical population in Vietnam has multiplied nearly tenfold from 160,000 to 1.57 million, according to Operation World.
PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY FIRST CAME to Danang, Vietnam, in 1911 through missionaries from the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) denomination. France ruled Vietnam at the time, and the missionaries were free to work throughout the country. By 1929, the Vietnamese churches established the independent Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) only to have it split in 1954, when the Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into the Communist North and the nominally democratic South. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics and Protestants moved south to avoid persecution.
With the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the new Communist government kicked out foreign missionaries, commandeered Christian schools and hospitals, and closed churches. Some Vietnamese pastors fearfully fled the country on U.S. military planes, leaving their flocks without shepherds. Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Tran Thanh Truyen recalled every pastor in his denomination fled the country, forcing “laypeople to become pastors themselves.”
Pastor Huy Le of Grace Baptist Church, who was 7 years old at the time, recalls the hunger and suffering his family faced those first few years. The North plundered the resource-rich South and implemented collectivist rice farming, which led to extreme food shortages. Local officials often called in Le’s father, then the pastor at Grace Baptist Church, for interrogations. Authorities closed all the Baptist churches except for Grace Baptist (which only experienced a temporary closure). Le believes it was spared because of its location in Ho Chi Minh City and because his father decided to stay.
With the world around them in disarray, many in the South felt hopeless. “At the time, a lot of people just came to church with a pure heart to seek peace and hope,” Le said, “and they found love and salvation in God.” In those days, only a few dozen people filled the pews, yet the number grew steadily.
Restrictions for churches in the city eased in the late ’80s as Vietnam pursued market reforms and began to open up to the West. In 2001, the government officially recognized the ECVN (South) and then the Vietnam Baptist Convention in 2008. Today Grace Baptist Church has 500 members, and there are 70 Baptist churches in the country. The renovated church is located on a busy road with a cylindrical glass exterior and steps winding up to the front door.
In Le’s office, his young son runs in and out, insistently offering visitors water, cookies, and chocolate. On the wall is a photo of Le with five other human rights activists meeting with former President Barack Obama during his visit to Hanoi in 2016. Police initially barred Le from attending the meeting, yet lobbying from the U.S. Consulate pressured the government to relent.
Vietnamese government officials now invite Le and other church leaders to attend roundtable discussions when they are considering new religious decrees, including the new Law on Belief and Religion that went into effect this year. While the government only incorporated some of their suggestions into the final draft of the law, Le notes the government is making an effort to understand the church.
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