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Vietnam Mennonite Church Experiences Dissension

The Vietnam Mennonite Church leaders are divided on how to respond to possible government registration.

In an executive order February 4, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai declared that Protestant denominations active in Vietnam prior to 1975 will be considered for legal registration. Local government bodies would then help them solve their need to build places for worship and religious education, according to the Prime Minister's directive.

Mennonite, Baptist and Adventist churches were active before 1975, and might be eligible for registration. The Mennonite Church does not now have legal recognition and is frequently subject to harassment.

Last August representatives of the government's Committee of Religious Affairs contacted Pastor Nguyen Quang Trung, president of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, to discuss procedures for registration.

This was a development that Trung had waited on for many years. Others on the VMC administrative committee, while affirming the value of eventual registration, requested that Trung suspend the conversations until the government showed good faith by releasing from prison the church's general secretary, Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, and the other church leaders arrested in a March incident.

When Trung insisted on continuing these discussions while Quang remained in prison, some members of the executive committee called a special meeting of the church administrative committee which considered a proposal of no confidence in Trung's leadership. Trung and several other leaders declined the invitation to attend that meeting. Convinced that he was pursuing the correct course, Trung made no overtures to them. When this group met again in late November, they declared no confidence in what they perceived as Trung's authoritarian leadership and voted to remove him from the VMC presidency; they hoped to keep him on the administrative committee in an advisory role.

Trung considered their meetings and their action invalid. He led the regularly scheduled administrative committee meetings December 10 and 11, primarily with leaders who had not attended the special meetings, and they affirmed new persons to the leadership roles of those who had voted no confidence in Trung.

The younger leaders, associates of the imprisoned Pastor Quang, said they had no intention of dividing the church. They explained that they took their action because several district leaders indicated they would leave the VMC if the church registered with the government at this time. These leaders viewed recognition as facilitating government control and suppression.

Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, leader of the highland district, said he and others were "truly heart-broken" that Trung led a reorganization of the administrative committee and some district leaders, and asked everyone to pray for building up and developing the church to follow more fully the guidelines of the Mennonite Confession of Faith.

Trung said he stands ready to work with all the church. Some within each group are trying to reconcile the two positions.

Mennonite World Conference and other Mennonite bodies with ties to the Mennonites in Vietnam will continue to relate to the whole church. They call on churches worldwide to join in prayer for the unity and the witness of the Vietnam Mennonite Church.