Vietnam official pledges religious freedom during meeting with Franklin Graham 

A senior Vietnamese official recently pledged to protect religious freedom during meetings with Franklin Graham.

The meeting comes as Christians in the communist country continue to face imprisonment for worshiping outside state control.

Nguyễn Đình Khang, Vietnam’s minister of ethnic and religious affairs, and other government officials met with American church leaders in North Carolina last week.

“In the years to come, the government of Vietnam, at all levels of administration, is committed to promote religious freedom,” Khang said in an Oct. 15 release from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Khang made the pledge despite Vietnam’s long record of government pressure on Christians.

Vietnam has been under communist rule since the war ended in 1975. Its government continues to exert control over religious life through state-backed groups, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports.

Christians who worship outside that system sometimes face harsh treatment. The commission says authorities have jailed and tortured people for practicing their religion outside state control.

Hmong and Montagnard Christians have been targeted. A 2026 commission profile says Protestant believers from those two ethnic groups face pressure to join government-recognized churches. Those who refuse risk harassment and imprisonment.

In 2016, Vietnamese authorities arrested Pastor A Dao after he returned from a religious freedom conference in East Timor. He spent four years in prison before his release in 2020, the commission reported.

“I am delighted that Pastor A Dao is free, even as I lament the fact that prison robbed him of four years of his life,” Commissioner James W. Carr said at the time.

In 2018, Vietnam passed its Law on Belief and Religion, which requires religious groups to register their activities with the government. The government says the restrictions protect national security and social unity.

Abuses have continued since the law’s passage.

In its 2026 annual report, the commission urged the United States to designate Vietnam a Country of Particular Concern because of severe religious freedom abuses. The report says Vietnam uses broad national security laws to prosecute members of independent religious groups.

A recent case involves a house church pastor whom Open Doors identifies as B’Kun.

In August, a court sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison and four years of probation, the Christian ministry reported last month. Authorities accused him of undermining national unity.

“My church members and I just want the freedom to worship God,” he said around the time of his arrest.

Heartlander News also reported last year that Open Doors had placed Vietnam among 17 countries facing extreme barriers to Bible access.

Yet Graham said he has seen signs of change through his work in the country.

“I know some local churches faced great difficulties in the past, but I have seen things improve,” he told the delegation, according to Decision magazine.

The government has allowed Graham to hold evangelistic events in Vietnam. His next outreach, the Season of Love Festival, is scheduled for Hanoi next March.

Graham leads both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. The Christian relief group has served people in Vietnam for 30 years.

The delegation included nine government officials and three evangelical church leaders. They visited the association’s headquarters in Charlotte last week, then traveled to North Wilkesboro to learn about Samaritan’s Purse’s disaster relief work.

Khang said religious minorities can raise concerns with officials by letter or online. However, he did not pledge to repeal laws used against independent churches.

(Image credit: Tràng An, Ninh Bình, Vietnam/Photo by Rowan Heuvel on Unsplash)