The communist government in Vietnam is changing the way it regulates churches. According to Vietnamnet Global, the country’s 16th National Assembly passed an updated version of their Law on Belief and Religion on April 26, and it won’t be implemented until the beginning of next year.
Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) says government officials in Hanoi want to look to Western countries like the U.S., that they have religious freedom, so they are changing the way the government controls churches.
“They are pushing enforcement down to the village level as much as they can,” Nettleton states.
That's means different villages, he says, enforce control over local churches differently.
“If the village leader in your village is opposed to the gospel, there will be persecution, and maybe the church will be torn down, maybe the church will be kicked out, maybe Christians will be kicked out of the village,” Nettleton says.
However, there's an upside in some cases.
“If the village leader is open to Christianity — maybe somebody in his family is a Christian, maybe his wife has become a Christian — the church might operate without any interference at all,” Nettleton states.
While the persecution has become a little more subdued in some cases, Nettleton reports that the unity in the body of Christ has fractured.
“Some churches are more in cooperation or more open to cooperating with the government, and they look down on those that aren't cooperating,” says Nettleton. “And those that aren't cooperating kind of look down on those that are.”
Nettleton is asking the American church to pray for the strength and unity of the Vietnamese church.
According to VOM’s Global Prayer Guide, Vietnam is labeled as a restricted nation, meaning it’s a country where “government-sanctioned circumstances or anti-Christian laws lead to Christians being harassed, imprisoned, killed or deprived of possessions or liberties because of their witness.” About 10% of their population is made up of Christians.
