Vietnam: Authorities using registered churches to suppress unregistered ones

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Pastor Foley

Local authorities harassing members of unregistered churches is nothing new in Vietnam. But what is new is authorities using registered churches to do the harassing.

“Churches in Vietnam have always hesitated to register with the government because it’s difficult to register, and then after they register, it’s difficult to comply with all the ongoing government restrictions,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “Now in addition to complying with government requirements, registered churches are more and more being expected to assist the government in cracking down on unregistered Christians in their area or denomination.”

Dak Lak Province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

According to Representative Foley, this can create mistrust and conflict between registered and unregistered Christians, especially in regions like Dak Lak Province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands where registered and unregistered churches often exist side by side.

“The registered churches say, ‘According to Romans 13:1, we must be subject to the governing authorities’, and the unregistered churches say, ‘But according to Acts 5:29, we must obey God rather than human beings’,” says Representative Foley. “In practical terms, that means that the registered churches have to report a lot of information about their congregations to the government, and they have to apply for permission from the government whenever they want to do any special events. They also are limited to doing ministry in the specific geographical area for which they have received permission to operate. Meanwhile, the unregistered churches carry out their ministry freely, despite the danger. They go where the Spirit leads them and do what the Spirit guides them to do. And even when they are persecuted or imprisoned, they give thanks to the Lord. It’s not difficult to see how the issue can create division between Vietnamese churches.”

According to Representative Foley, government officials are quick to exploit that division.

“There is a pastor from an unregistered church background in the Central Highlands * who loves the Lord with all of his heart and who goes to the remote and inaccessible areas to preach the Gospel to the unreached people,” says Representative Foley. “The local authorities were not happy with him and were trying everything they could to stop him, including allegedly jamming a wooden stick into one of his motorbike wheels when he and his wife and son were riding.” (*name and location withheld for security reasons)

She says that even though the pastor and his family members were injured, they are continuing their ministry work.

“Since the authorities couldn’t stop the pastor directly, they reportedly went to a registered church leader who had been appointed as the delegate of the region by the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN). The authorities told this leader that he had to stop the unregistered pastor.”

Representative Foley says that the ECVN is the oldest and largest Protestant church in Vietnam, established by Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) missionaries from North America in 1911.

“The delegate from the registered church called the unregistered pastor and rebuked him, exhorting him to evangelize only within the local area,” says Representative Foley. “But the unregistered church pastor says that he obeys God rather than human beings, and that he will continue the ministry the Lord has entrusted to him, no matter what the cost. So the government and its registration process has come between these two brothers and created division in the body of Christ in Vietnam.”

The United States Department of State designates Vietnam as one of ten “Countries of Particular Concern” under the terms of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 due to what it regards as “severe violations of religious freedom”. The other countries on the State Department’s list are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

The Executive Summary of the State Department’s 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom in Vietnam notes, “Religious activists blamed authorities for ‘manipulating’ recognized religious groups and accused their agents or proxies of causing conflicts in order to suppress the activities of unregistered groups.”

“It’s a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy, and it certainly wasn’t invented by the Vietnamese government,” says Representative Foley. “Christians have been getting caught in this trap going all the way back to the New Testament. Paul’s letters all deal with outside forces seeking to divide the early Christians. No matter what the source of division was—whether circumcision or food laws or following certain leaders—Paul’s advice was always the same: Trust Christ alone for salvation, don’t force anyone to violate their conscience, and love one another. Even in the letter to the Hebrews, the situation described there is that some Christians have returned to Judaism, likely in order to avoid persecution from Roman authorities because Judaism was a ‘protected’ religion, but Christianity was not.”  

Unregistered churches in Vietnam continue to grow despite facing pressure from both the government and now, registered churches.

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea primarily partners with Christians in unregistered church settings and has published a series of books entitled “Preparing for the Underground Church” on how churches in any country can transition from registered to unregistered status.

Still, she says her organization makes every effort to help Christians in both registered and unregistered churches avoid conflict between each other. “Nothing makes governments happier than when Christians fight other Christians,” says Representative Foley. “With registered churches we try to help them understand that Romans 13 doesn’t teach us to render unto Caesar whatever Caesar demands–only God deserves our unconditional obedience. With unregistered churches we try to help them understand that while Acts 5 does teach us that only God should receive our unconditional obedience, it also teaches us that we must willingly and joyfully accept the punishments governments lay upon us for obeying God, even when those punishments are unjust.”

More information on Christian persecution in Vietnam is available at https://vomkorea.com/en/country-profile/VIETNAM/. The “Preparing for the Underground Church” series is available at https://vomkorea.com/en/store/.

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Hong Kong: Christian college requires students to pass government security exam

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Pastor Foley

Beginning with the 2022 school year that opens next month, students at Hong Kong’s Gratia Christian College, including those enrolled in the school’s Christian Ministry diploma program, will be required to complete four national security education courses by video and pass the national security course test.

“The book of Romans in the New Testament says that those with authority above are used by God, and we should generally listen to all the arrangements of the government above, otherwise the world will be in chaos,” Dr. Chui Hong-sheung, the president of the college, told the Christian Times of Hong Kong in a July 7 interview. “Whether in Hong Kong, the United States or Australia, there are local governments, and from the perspective of the Bible, God allows them to be in power. As citizens, you should act in accordance with the laws of the government. This is a very basic biblical truth.”

But Voice of the Martyrs Korea CEO, the Rev. Dr Eric Foley, describes the new curriculum and the comments of Gratia’s president as “distressing”.

“As Christians, we are never permitted simply to ‘render unto Caesar’ whatever Caesar asks for,” says Pastor Foley. “Nowhere in Scripture—whether in Romans 13 or anywhere else—are Christians commanded to ‘listen to all the arrangements of the government’. Nowhere in Scripture are Christians taught that failure to listen to the government will result in the world descending into chaos. Nowhere does Scripture teach obedience to the government as ‘very basic biblical truth’. Instead, Scripture teaches that we are to give absolute obedience to God alone and conditional obedience to governments in civil matters. To give Caesar more than that is to commit the gravest sin of idolatry.”

The National Security Law was instituted in Hong Kong in June 2020. It requires universities and schools to teach “National Security Education” to their students. But Pastor Foley says he believes that Gratia College’s national security courses are part of a larger effort in which Gratia is being raised up as a model of government cooperation for other Hong Kong schools to imitate, especially Christian schools.

“I believe that what we see in Gratia is Beijing’s vision for the future of Christianity in Hong Kong, and that vision ought to concern us deeply,” says Pastor Foley. “Dr. Edmund Ng, the head of Gratia’s School of Christian Ministry, spoke by video to the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 24 and said that the National Security Law has, in his words, ‘more fully guaranteed’ the freedoms of speech and religion in Hong Kong. In 2019, Gratia began offering what they call ‘the first government-recognized Higher Diploma in Christian Ministry in Hong Kong’. Li Fucheng, the deputy director of the program, said that Hong Kong’s 15 seminaries were teaching ‘traditional theology courses’ that were ‘only recognized by the industry’—that is, designed to train people only for church service. Wu Ruilong, the program’s director said, ‘Theology courses do not have to be old, they can be well-suited and meet the needs of society.’ In my opinion, it’s a vision of church serving society in the ways judged by the government to be helpful and permissible. The idea that God might call the church to any kind of a prophetic role, or to be anything more than a religious social service agency, is downplayed considerably.”

According to officials at the small privately-funded Christian college, the security courses and testing will not be listed as a graduation requirement, but students who fail the test will be required to re-test until they pass.

Gratia Christian College’s website promoting its School of Christian Ministry. Beginning next month, all students at the college must take courses in national security and pass a national security exam.  

“It feels like a kind of ‘double-speak’: not required but still required,” says Pastor Foley. “I have no doubt that the college would insist that all their statements and policies can be easily reconciled with each other. But taken together, in my opinion they form a picture of a school which is more focused on being a government-sanctioned servant of the Hong Kong SAR than in serving the historical body of Christ which transcends every nation.”

Pastor Foley says “Gratia’s prominent emphasis on obedience to government and service to society is a slap in the face to Christians in Hong Kong and mainland China who have experienced persecution as a result of dissenting from increasing encroachment by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments in affairs that are clearly religious, not only civil.”

“Scripture never promises that God and government will always be in proper alignment and that Christians will be OK with God if they just obey their political leaders. In fact, Scripture repeatedly demonstrates exactly the opposite,” says Pastor Foley. “Thousands of Chinese Christians have prayerfully determined that they cannot in good conscience obey certain things their government demands. In almost every case those Christians have willingly and joyfully accepted the government’s extreme punishment for their obedience to God. They are not radical elements disregarding ‘basic biblical truth’. Instead, they are modeling what is actually the ‘very basic biblical truth’ that Gratia and every Christian school should be teaching: Obedience to God is costly in every time and place, and in this world we Christians will always be persecuted for it.”

Individuals interested in learning more about Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s work in partnership with underground Chinese Christians wherever they are found can visit www.vomkorea.com/en/china.

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North Koreans working abroad give thanks for “scary book”

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Pastor Foley

Voice of the Martyrs Korea, an NGO which serves persecuted Christians worldwide, released letters it received this week from North Koreans working abroad who received audio Bibles through the NGO’s distribution efforts.

“The workers wrote that they previously regarded the Bible as ‘the most terrifying thing’, a ‘scary book’, and even an ‘evil thing’,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr Hyun Sook Foley. “But having listened to it for themselves, they’re now expressing heartfelt thanks and crediting it with freeing them from ‘mental slavery’ and ‘foolishness’.”

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea supplies audio and printed North Korean dialect Bibles to North Koreans inside North Korea, as well as to North Korean laborers working abroad and North Korean sex trafficked women in China.

“The North Korean government’s COVID lockdown has prevented many North Korean workers from returning home,” says Representative Foley. “But the longer stays have given North Korean workers opportunities more time to access materials not available to them at home.”

Representative Foley quoted from the letter of one North Korean worker who wrote, “If I were in Chosun, I would not see it because the Bible of Christianity is the most terrifying thing. In (Location removed), I am seeing and hearing things more than I was in NK. So, I am open to this scary book.”

According to Representative Foley, the Bibles are individually distributed directly to recipients, often as part of small care packages containing other items like masks, medicines, and hygiene items. She says that the distribution is done by underground Christians from North Korea and the other countries where Voice of the Martyrs Korea reaches North Korean citizens.

Representative Foley says distributing the audio Bibles to to workers is dangerous work. “One worker wrote: ‘When I first received this thing called the Bible through (audio player), I was very terrified and suffered. I thought I finally was caught with evil things. I even thought to report this person who delivered it to me to the authorities.’”

But Representative Foley says that North Korean workers almost always respond with thankfulness after listening to the audio Bible. “One worker wrote to us, ‘If I do not know who God is in my life, I might miserably end up my life as a mental slave.’ Another wrote, ‘In (a city in North Korea), I visited a fortune teller to ask for my future. And I prayed to a ghost if I had wishes. As receiving the Bible for the first time, many people in Chosun are foolish and so am I. Now, I am truly praying. I truly believe that my fate and future are held by God.”

Representative Foley says that the letters were written in May and June and received by Voice of the Martyrs Korea this week. The text of the letters follows:

  1. In this factory, we have (number removed) women. Therefore, we have lots of fights and many of us are patients. And we are locked up to work. We sleep and then we work again. It seems like we become slaves. If we did not read and hear the Words of God every day through (audio Bibles) that we had received from (name removed), we may end up dying of disease or become mentally ill. We are in pain, but we are not really in pain because God is with us. God knows my pain and sufferings and we now have faith that God is with those who are in sorrow. For now, it is not pain every day but with prayer, through faith, I was reborn. Thank you. – Anonymously from Chosun
  1. Greetings. When I first received this thing called the Bible through (audio player), I was very terrified and suffered. I thought I finally was caught with evil things. I even thought to report this person who delivered it to me to the authorities. But now, I am very ashamed as reflecting the fact that I had foolish thoughts before. If I do not know who God is in my life, I might miserably end up my life as a mental slave. I am not worried about it anymore. If I would die here, am I not going to the place called heaven because of the faith? I only have this mind that I want my beloved families and friends go to heaven, not hell, so that I need to share it with my people around me. I am giving thanks to God for letting me become who I am now. From (City removed), Chosun.
  1. If I were in Chosun, I would not see it because the Bible of Christianity is the most terrifying thing. In (Location removed), I am seeing, and hearing things more than I was in NK. So, I am open to this scary book. Especially, the part of love in the book of 1 Corinthians, it is full of grace. My friend is more serious than I am. My friend rejected this in the first place, but now falling into it deeper than I am. I am so happy that I came to know God. From Chosun.
  1. Hello, nice to meet you. I do not know what to write. In (Location removed), I visited a fortune teller to ask for my future. And I prayed to a ghost if I had wishes. As receiving the Bible for the first time, many people in Chosun are foolish and so am I. Now, I am truly praying. I truly believe that my fate and future are held by God. 2022.5.20 From (Location removed)

According to Representative Foley, the long daily work hours and tight security of North Korean worker groups requires Voice of the Martyrs Korea to rely only on the power of God’s word rather than the possibility of building personal relationships with the recipients. She says it is the strategy missionaries used in the earliest days of the Korean church, beginning with pioneering missionary John Ross.

“Missionary Ross believed that people met Jesus directly through reading or hearing a vernacular language Bible rather than through building a relationship with a missionary,” says Representative Foley. “The North Korean workers who are receiving these audio Bibles are being discipled only by the Holy Spirit guiding their Bible reading and listening. I think Missionary Ross would be delighted by that.”

Representative Foley says that for the safety of its workers and the Bible recipients, Voice of the Martyrs Korea no longer releases the specific quantity of Bibles distributed each year, or the media or methods by which they are distributed. “Generally we distribute 40,000 to 50,000 North Korean dialect Bibles a year in print and electronic formats to North Korean citizens outside of South Korea,” she says. She notes that the Bible is also read daily on Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s five shortwave and AM radio broadcasts.

Individuals or churches interested in supporting Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s North Korea ministry can make a donation via website or wire transfer to:

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