Evangelical Christians and the Vietnamese Government appear to have learnt from past mistakes – and their joint response to a recent coronavirus outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City has highlighted the benefits of prompt co-operation.
After some students at the Evangelical Church of Vietnam South’s Institute of Bible and Theology developed coughs and fevers last summer, church authorities immediately called the government health department. Tests revealed that 290 of the 306 students and staff on the campus had Covid-19. The authorities immediately quarantined the campus and sent in a medical team. Two Christian doctors and five volunteers of a Christian student fellowship also entered the campus to serve the sick. The 15 who needed hospital treatment included the Dean of Students, pastor Nguyen An Thai, and his wife.
This constructive episode is in stark contrast to what took place following a serious Covid-19 outbreak at the Revival Ekklesia Mission (REM) house church last April. Then, the government and state-controlled media came down hard on the small church and its leaders, blaming and shaming them and launching a criminal investigation for spreading the disease. The resulting media and public hostility only subsided after Ho Chi Minh City was overcome by other, larger outbreaks in factories and schools.
With the memory of the REM situation still fresh, however, Institute leaders asked the communist authorities not to overdramatise its outbreak in the media – and they complied. Vietnam churches, other Christian organisations and individuals donated equipment and supplies, and churches in Hong Kong donated 100 ventilators. The Institute’s Social and Medical Committee not only provided care packages for the quarantined and served them 1,100 meals a day, but donated 1.1 billion Vietnamese dong (US$48,000) to the government’s national vaccine fund. Vietnam is currently recording about 6,000 new infections a day, mostly in Ho Chi Minh City.
Although many of Vietnam’s evangelical churches are experiencing increased scrutiny under the onerous terms of the 2018 Law on Belief and Religion, it may well be that the Vietnamese Government is starting to recognise that Christianity is not a parasitic leech on society but a willing contributor to the national fight against the pandemic.
