HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — The first appearance by a U.S.-based evangelist preaching at a major event since the 1975 Communist victory in Vietnam helped the country’s Protestants to celebrate their centennial in April after government officials gave last-minute approval.
In what seems to have become standard government procedure in Vietnam, permission requested months in advance was granted — at a venue several kilometers from the one organizers sought — just three hours before the first major celebration of the Centennial of Protestantism in Vietnam (1911–2011) at Thanh Long Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City on April 9 was scheduled to begin. Argentine-born Luis Palau delivered the gospel message.
The venue change meant equipment staged in one part of the city had to be moved to the new location before it could be assembled, church leaders said. It also meant notifying many thousands of people invited to one venue about the change to the other, they said. Given the lack of government cooperation, the leader of Vietnam’s Evangelical Fellowship (of house churches) said the fact that the event went ahead at all was “an absolute miracle.”
Nguyen Xuan Duc, president of the Vietnam World Christian Fellowship, said he was encouraged about the future of the church in Vietnam. “These are watershed days for Protestantism in Vietnam,” he said. “There is no fear, but rather wonderful spontaneity and irrepressible joy. Events like this happen in spite of the government and without the blessing of some overly conservative church leaders.”
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