HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — The Assemblies of God (AOG) in Vietnam received an “operating license” Oct. 19, which the government described as “the first step … before becoming officially legal.”
This operating license gives permission for all of the congregations of the Vietnam AOG to “carry on religious activity” anywhere in the country for the next year.
During this time the church body must prepare a doctrinal statement, a constitution and bylaws and a four-year working plan to be approved by the government before being allowed to hold an organizing assembly.
The operating license is the first one granted since five were granted two years ago.
The last of those five churches, the Christian Fellowship Church, was finally allowed to hold its organizing assembly in late September.
With no more operating licenses being granted, the future of registration is in a kind of limbo.
Sources said a lower level of registration in which local authorities are supposed to offer permission for local congregations to carry on religious activities while the more complicated higher levels are worked out has largely failed.
Only about 10 percent of the many hundreds of applications have received a favorable reply, they said, leaving most house churches vulnerable to arbitrary harassment or worse.
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