Vietnam Protest
Is There Really Religious Liberty in Communist Vietnam?
by Mark Tooley
The Communist government of Vietnam continues to restrict religious activity. But a government-organized group of Vietnamese church leaders recently visited the United States to deny this reality, with help from US church groups.
“The government is not interfering into religious affairs,” insisted Le Quang Vinh, chairman of the National Committee for Religious Affairs. His delegation was hosted in New York and Washington, D.C., by Church World Service (the relief arm of the National Council of Churches) and by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society.
Specifically, Vinh’s delegation wanted to denounce the Vietnam Human Rights Act passed by the House of Representatives last year by a vote of 410 to 1. The bill would link non-humanitarian aid to Vietnam with improvements in the country’s human rights record. It authorizes assistance to democratic forces in Vietnam, and it provides additional funding of Radio Free Asia to overcome jamming efforts by the Hanoi government.
As Vinh explained in an interview with The People’s Daily Army newspaper, the bill “contains total distortions” and is potentially an “obstacle to the development of relations between the two countries.” The Communist delegation wanted an opportunity to “present the truth to their critics in Washington,” according to Vinh, and “prevent adoption” of the bill by the US Senate.
Rumors of Freedom
Mainline church leaders in the United States were persuaded. “One of the problems is that outsiders continue to stir up problems in Vietnam and continue to create tensions [between] the religious communities and the government,” suggested United Methodist clergyman Lonnie Turnipseed, a former Church World Service executive. “There is clearly freedom of religion in Vietnam.”
John McCullough, a United Methodist clergyman who heads Church World Service, seemed equally supportive of Vinh’s mission. He lauded the Vietnamese government’s “sense of compassion for its people” and its cooperation with the religious community in Vietnam.
In his interview with the Vietnamese army newspaper, which can be found on the Vietnamese Communist Party website, Vinh praised the United Methodist Board of Church and Society for arranging the “agenda” of his delegation’s visit. Vinh incorrectly noted that United Methodism has 25 million members in the United States and 60 million worldwide. (Actually there are 8.3 million in the United States and 11 million worldwide.)
Vinh’s delegation included three Protestant clergy, four Buddhist representatives, and Catholic Bishop Dinh Chau Tran of the Dominican Order. These clergy “rejected categorically the distortions and slanderous information against Vietnam,” Vinh declared. And they “demanded” that their US peers join them in preventing passage of the House resolution.
Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.ird-renew.org) in Washington, D.C.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on communism from the online archives
28.5—Sept/Oct 2015
Remembering Angka & the Idolatry of the Khmer Rouge 40 Years Later by Les Sillars
19.10—December 2006
Workers of Another World United
A Personal Commemoration of Poland’s Solidarity 25 Years Later by John Harmon McElroy
more from the online archives
24.6—Nov/Dec 2011
Liberty, Conscience & Autonomy
How the Culture War of the Roaring Twenties Set the Stage for Today’s Catholic & Evangelical Alliance by Barry Hankins
22.6—July/August 2009
on the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life by Leon J. Podles
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
