Operating a church in Vietnam just became even tougher because of latest government regulations that went into effect over the weekend. Under Decree 95, the federal government will now require religious groups to submit financial records and permit local government officials to suspend religious activities for unspecified “serious violations.”
Nguyen Ti Dinh of Vietnam’s religious affairs committee said the rules will improve how the federal government manages religion by implementing uniform measures for the 2018 Law on Belief and Religion, which requires religious groups to register with the federal government. Observers imagine the decree is Vietnam’s try and display to the international community that it’s attempting to increase religious liberty and to get off the US State Department’s Special Watch List for countries engaged in religious freedom violations.
Yet religious liberty advocates and native church leaders imagine the brand new rules will do the alternative. Instead of creating it easier to register churches, the federal government is requiring more oversight and control. If the Vietnamese government is trying to indicate the international community that it’s serious about religious freedom, noted Hien Vu, Vietnam program manager of the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), it needs to elucidate how the brand new policy would achieve that.
“With this decree, it’s like Vietnam shot themselves within the foot,” Vu said.
The Southeast Asian country, where Christians make up 8 percent of the population, is ranked No. 35 within the Open Doors’ list of most difficult countries to be a Christian. While Christians can worship freely in greater cities, believers amongst ethnic minority groups and in rural areas still face social exclusion, discrimination, and attacks. Religious groups involved in human rights advocacy have also been harassed.
Yet as a result of work by IGE and other international groups, up to now few many years government officials have turn out to be more open to listening to Christians and making space for Christianity within the country.
Decree 95 got here as a surprise to spiritual liberty advocates and native church leaders when the federal government first made it public in December. It expands on a previous decree (Decree 162) by including measures that allow the federal government to shut down religious groups and adding requirements for receiving and reporting donations, including from foreign sources, according to Morning Star News.
In 2022, a draft dubbed the “punishment decree” (as a result of its give attention to punishments for infraction of the religious law) drew harsh criticisms from religious leaders and even some government officials. That decree was eventually tabled. But with Decree 95, the federal government skipped the step of soliciting public opinion and put the brand new decree into effect three months after announcing it.
To Vu, probably the most concerning aspect of the brand new decree is the way it expands the federal government’s financial oversight of churches. An article of the decree reads, “Within 20 days, religious organizations and spiritual affiliates that receive financial aid are answerable for sending reports on the outcomes of the usage of grants to the competent state agency.”
“The government wants to essentially know where, how, what—every part about receiving financial support,” Vu said. “The government also must understand how you spend it.”
While ostensibly the reasoning is to extend financial transparency, realistically, the principles are nearly unimaginable for a lot of Vietnam’s Protestant churches to follow, as house churches are sometimes not registered with the federal government. The government’s own stringent rules (including that a church must exist for five years before applying) make it difficult to register. Some house churches are denied while others have waited years for recognition with none progress. Other house churches select to not register as a result of the regulatory burdens.
In total, Vietnam has 11 legally registered evangelical denominations, in keeping with Morning Star News.
Without legal status, the groups can’t open bank accounts and all their transactions are done in money. Unlike within the West where tithes and other donations are tax-deductible, such frameworks and practices are nonexistent in Vietnam, and even large donors don’t ask for receipts.
A pastor of a registered church in Ho Chi Minh City, who asked to not be named for security reasons, said that while he’s acquainted with the country’s religion law, the most recent guideline on church funds adds confusion as to what the federal government now requires from them. Churches in his denomination, especially those in rural areas, often depend on foreign funding to construct or expand church buildings, and not one of the pastors understand how Decree 95 would impact this.
“We need the federal government to respect the church,” he said. “Something like Decree 95, something like that mustn’t apply to the church. When we apply to have a church in Vietnam, we’re under very strong control from the federal government [already].”
The pastor believes the federal government doesn’t have to meddle with the church’s funds, adding that if the federal government continues to tighten its control on churches, “the longer term will not be good.”
A 3rd of the decree’s 98-page document focuses on suspending religious activities for serious violations of the principles. Actions reminiscent of “infringing on the morality of our indigenous culture” and “using religion for private aggrandizement” are forbidden. Vu noted that such vague language allows authorities to stop any group they view as a threat to the federal government’s one-party rule.
Religious groups have 24 months to rectify their behavior or face everlasting dissolution. The decree also empowers more government officials within the communist bureaucracy—all the way in which right down to the commune level or the smallest unit of local governance—to suspend religious activities and organizations.
How the brand new rules will play out in point of fact stays to be seen. One Vietnamese leader of a nondenominational ministry told Morning Star News that like previous laws, “in Vietnam every part is open, every part is negotiable.” Despite what’s written on paper, previous regulations haven’t been strictly enforced, and Christians with close relationships with government officials can proceed worshiping in peace.
Vu said that even with the brand new decree in effect, pastors and church leaders in Vietnam remain steadfast and resilient.
“They are used to those restrictions,” Vu said. She described their attitude as “We’ll cope with it when it comes, but we’ll do whatever God calls us to do.”
