In recent weeks, the homes of eleven Christian families have been burned to the ground in Vietnam because they refused to deny their faith in Jesus Christ, according to a September 16 report from Compass Direct.
The most recent incident was on August 21 when the police incited a crowd to burn down the home of evangelist Dinh Van Hoang in the Son Ha District of Quang Ngai Province. On the morning of Sunday, August 21, the local public security police chief, Dinh Van Hoanh, and his deputy, Thai Mai Quan, came to the home of Dinh Van Hoang and told him that his Christian faith would no longer be tolerated. He had to sign a paper declaring the recantation of his faith in Christ or face the destruction of his home. When he refused, a mob forced itself into the house and destroyed one of the walls of the home. When he and his wife still refused to deny Jesus, his home and all his property were burned. This is the third time Hoang's home has been burned down. He is an official worker with the government approved Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South).
Sources in Vietnam also report that ten homes of Christian families from the Hre ethnic minority in Quang Ngai Province were destroyed on July 26 and 31 because they refused to give up their faith in Christ. In recent years, opposition to Christianity has been intense in this province. The number of Hre Christians has increased from 500 in 1991 to around 6000 today.
The official Vietnamese press denies these allegations. On September 9, the Vietnam News Service (VNS) published the government's view of the incidents. They claimed that Hoang had no association with the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South) and that he had been warned several times to not "lure people to blindly believe in nonsense and refuse to work." The government claimed that the villagers eventually had enough of his preaching and burned his house down. In explaining the destruction of the other ten homes, VNS claimed that the homes were in an unsafe location because of the potential for landslides. Authorities claimed that new homes had been built for the families, but they refused to move. To force them to move, authorities claimed they were forced to burn down their old ones. Christian sources in Vietnam say there are no new homes for the families.
Pray for the families now displaced because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Pray for Hoang, as he continues to spread the Gospel, despite the ongoing persecution.
For more information on the persecution of Vietnam's Christians, click here.
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