Religion is flourishing in Vietnam. A representative of the government's Bureau of Religious Affairs has said they will eventually grant legal status to Mennonite, Baptist, Adventist, and other house churches. Mennonite Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang is one who believes recognition will come.
     While Mennonite house fellowships are relatively new, there was a thriving Mennonite congregation in the Saigon area when the socialist government gained control of South Vietnam in 1975. Within a year, the local government assumed control of all church properties. A leadership crisis dispersed the Mennonite congregation among Baptist and Evangelical churches.
     Restrictions on religious freedom for all groups imposed by the Communist government in post-war Vietnam were eased in the late 1980s. In 1999, the Prime Minister proclaimed that freedom of belief and religion was ensured — as well as freedom for non-belief and non-religion. Formal church activities were to be carried out within church buildings.
     Pastor Quang, who received a translated copy of A Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective from overseas Vietnamese pastors in 1997, has decided to identify with the Mennonite church. He has handed out several hundred copies of the confession to both Christians and government authorities at all levels.
     Local authorities frequently harassed the 43-year-old pastor. In May 2000, while on a visit to Hanoi, he wrote to the prime minister and other top officials quoting Ho Chi Minh's support for the practice of religion. Quang, who is trained in law, called on the government to implement laws providing penalties for those who prevent the exercise of religious faith according to the constitution.
     In early 2001, Quang was optimistic that local authorities had accepted a fellowship group meeting in his home. However, on Good Friday, April 13, security police burst in on the more than 100 people meeting there and wrote up charges against some of them. Two months later, when 70 children were meeting at the same place, the district's security police stopped the meeting, threatened the children, and charged the teachers.
     Then, in an August 17 incident, local police seized house fellowship teachers who went to a slum area of 400 families to hold classes for children not in school. The police took the teachers to the police station. When Quang went there to intervene on their behalf, he was handcuffed, kicked, and beaten. The authorities insisted that the teachers sign pledges to stop teaching the children, but they refused. Later that day, all were released, and an officer apologized for the beating.
     Some international news agencies reported on August 17 that Pastor Quang had been arrested. But much of the press failed to report his release later on.
     In a September 9 letter, Quang reported further harassment of their house fellowship network. He called on people in Vietnam and abroad to appeal to the government to stop these actions.
     Despite difficulties, Quang and his associates find ways to study and worship together and to serve the community. Adults and youth continue to ask to become members of the church, and dozens have been baptized in the past few years. The pastor of another church, Nguyen Quang Trung, has organized several flood relief operations, coordinated with local governmental authorities and the assistance of Mennonite Central Committee.
     The Evangelical (Tin Lanh) Church of Vietnam was given legal status in early 2001. House fellowships, which are rigorously proscribed in some areas, are tacitly accepted in others — provided they do not disturb the status quo.
     Three years ago, Quang asked the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee and officials of the Religious Affairs Bureau for legal status as a Mennonite Church. Officials identified four requirements for getting legal status: a statement of beliefs; a procedure for recognizing leadership; documented members; and an active group that has been meeting for a significant duration. Quang believes they can meet these requirements.
     Quang is committed to developing the church within the Mennonite understanding of biblical faith. The group values ties to the international Mennonite movement to counter criticism that it is a cultic or an independent group.

Pastor continues to face difficulties
     Nguyen Quang Trung served as an associate in the Mennonite church before the government closed churches in 1975. In the mid-1980s, he led in reorganizing the church council and petitioned the government for permission to meet at the former church property or elsewhere. Local authorities, however, did not grant permission.
     They told Trung that his house would be confiscated if the church met there, and he and others were fined for holding unauthorized meetings. Trung, who first met Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang only three years ago, works independently, but he is also committed to a Mennonite understanding of biblical faith.