The State and Religion in Vietnam: Faith Under Fire

Walk around any village or city in Vietnam and you'll see signs of bustling religious activities. People crowd into temples and churches, business owners are busy placing offerings at the small ancestral shrine that are set up just inside entrances their shops, votive paper is being burned on the streets in front of homes and statues of the Goddess of Mercy and the Blessed Mother grace balconies. The picture is one of a country where religion is alive and booming. But despite these outward signs of religious freedom, if one scratches beneath the surface you will see those religious followers in Vietnam continue to face harsh restrictions in practicing their beliefs. The State and Religion in Vietnam: Faith Under Fire is a collection of 12 monthly reports on religion in Vietnam that were compiled over the year 2020. This book makes clear, the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), which is atheist, sees religion as superstition and heresy, but more importantly, as a challenge to its own survival. As a result, despite obvious improvements in religious freedom in recent years, the government of Vietnam has not released its grip on religious expression. The Party's most powerful tool is the law. In 2016, the government passed the Law on Faith and Religion. While the law included some improvements compared to earlier laws, the spirit was still aimed at tight control of religion via state interference in the internal affairs of religious groups. The impact is enormous when one considers that these laws give the government the right to approve or disapprove nominations for positions within religious organizations, as well as to approve training and any plans to organize religious events. Furthermore, the state also reserves the right to determine who can publish religious texts. Finally, and no less important, religious organizations must be approved by the government in order to function legally in Vietnam. And it's the Party, which does not believe in any Gods, that decides which religions are to be recognized. This government thus controls all aspects of religion in the country. Both sanctioned and non-sanctioned groups are subject to frequent monitoring and intimidation. Those that are recognized have no choice but to accept government interference and those that choose to resist face intense government retaliation. One of the more interesting things highlighted in The State and Religion in Vietnam: Faith Under Fire is the particularly harsh situation in Vietnam's Central Highlands, home to a number of ethnic minorities, many of them believers in Christianity and new religions. Rough terrain and tight government controls have made it exceedingly difficult for the media, human rights workers, and international observers to visit the area to do interviews. As a result, little is known about the situation there. Fortunately, this book has managed to penetrate the bamboo fence erected around the area to gain important news and insights on the situation in that region. Considering the huge government effort to restrict religion in the country, it comes as no surprise that religious groups have experienced a drop in the number of their followers over the past decade. The national census of 2019 discovered that several of the smaller religions had experienced significant declines in their membership, in some cases as high as 90 percent over the past decade. The Vietnamese government has the power to block any religious trends in the country that it sees as posing a threat to itself. But as the examples in this book show, there are also many firm believers in religious traditions in Vietnam today, and they too are quite resilient and courageous.