| Vietnamese church leaders visit Washington, D.C. By Linda Bloom United Methodist News Service A delegation of Vietnamese religious leaders spoke about religious tolerance in their country and expressed thanks for past cooperation during meetings with U.S. church leaders. In a May 9 stop in New York, the Buddhist, Roman Catholic and Protestant clerics met with National Council of Churches and Church World Service executives, chatted with representatives of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and attended a discussion with U.N. representatives of religious organizations. Also participating was a delegation representing the Vietnamese governments National Committee for Religious Affairs. The delegation then moved on to Washington, visiting Foundry UMC on May 12 and the offices of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society on May 13.  Jaydee Hanson, a Church and Society executive, said the Vietnamese had asked his agency to help arrange the U.S. itinerary because of previous involvement in issues regarding Vietnam. They were aware of our having raised concerns about religious freedom and our support for the establishment of the State Department Office on Religious Freedom too, he said. The chief concern raised by the Vietnamese government representatives during the visits was what they consider to be a misperception about religious freedom in their country. Le Quang Vinh, chairman of the National Committee for Religious Affairs, pointed to a bill called the Vietnam Human Rights Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, which he said claims that Vietnam has no religious freedom. He refuted the claim, pointing out that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese participate in religious festivals and that churches and pagodas can be found in use throughout Vietnam. The country has six major Catholic seminaries and three Buddhist institutions, and the religious affairs committees publishing house has printed 400 different religious items over the past two years. The government is not interfering into religious affairs, he said. However, Vinh added, the Vietnamese government will intervene on political issues, and it considers its problems with the Montagnards, an ethnic group in Vietnams Central Highlands, to be political, not religious. The Montagnards, he explained, want independence from Vietnam. An April report from Human Rights Watch charged the Vietnamese government with religious oppression of the Christian Montagnards, including an incident of a church burning and villagers being forced to renounce their religion. The Rev. Lonnie Turnipseed, a United Methodist and retired executive from Church World Service with longtime experience in Southeast Asia, said that while isolated incidents of religion-related harassment and even persecution have occurred in some areas, those are not the results of government policy. One of the problems is that outsiders continue to stir up problems in Vietnam and continue to create tensions within the religious communities and the government, he explained. There is clearly freedom of religion in Vietnam, said Turnipseed, who wrote the mission study on Vietnam used by the 2001 United Methodist Schools of Christian Mission. Many churches are flourishing, and you see very active worship. The Rev. Pham Xuan Thieu, chairman of the Executive Council of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South), told his U.S. counterparts it was time to focus on a better future, not dwell on religious problems and restrictions of the past. Currently, Vietnam has 80 Protestant churches, he said, and the number of members who have joined since 1975 is equal to the entire church membership between 1911 and 1975. Cooperation exists among the various religious groups, according to the Rev. Dinh Chau Tran, former superior provincial of the Vietnamese Dominican Order and a professor at St. Jesus Seminary in Ho Chi Minh City. At Christmas, for example, Buddhist dignitaries come to midnight mass, and Catholics have participated in ceremonies marking the birthday of Buddha. We have a good dialogue among us, he said. Dao Nhu, a member of the Vietnam Buddhist Sanha and chairman of the Association of Khmer Monks of Can Tho Province, pointed out that the Khmer ethnic minority receives equal treatment in terms of religious training and participation. We enjoy the fact that we can live happily together, he added. Members of both the religious and governmental delegations expressed appreciation for the development work Church World Service has done in Vietnam since 1954 and hope that the relationship will continue. In response, the Rev. John McCullough, a United Methodist pastor and the agencys chief executive, said his first impression upon traveling to the country last year was a sense that the government of Vietnam clearly expresses a sense of compassion for its people, along with a desire to help lift people out of poverty. He lauded the cooperation between the government and religious communities in Vietnam, and he said Church World Service will continue to share their common interest to enable the people of Vietnam to have a better quality of life. | 
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