Overview
Laos, officially the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in south east Asia. Sandwiched mainly between Thailand to its west and Vietnam to its east, it also has smaller borders with Myanmar and China to the north and Cambodia to the south.
At the end of the 19th Century three separate regional kingdoms were united under a French protectorate, to form modern day Laos. It gained its full independence from France in 1953. A post-independence civil war followed (1959-1975), fought between the government and Communist forces. This conflict had links with the Cambodian civil war and the Vietnam War. The constitutional monarchy of Laos was abolished in 1975 and the country became a Communist one-party state.
What it means to be a Christian in Laos
About 60% of Laotians would consider themselves to be Buddhists. In practice this has always been heavily intertwined with local polytheism and animism. Christianity constitutes a small minority of the population. The country’s constitution provides for freedom of religion but the authorities have restricted this in many places. The Communist government’s national development agency recognises only the Roman Catholic Church and two other groups: the Lao Evangelical Church and the Seventh Day Adventists.
Protestant Christianity has been growing in recent years, mainly through the LEC, but also in and through some independent house churches. However, many congregations lack an adequately trained pastor, and the need for good pastoral teaching, coupled with isolation, can be a challenge for Christians in Laos.
Persecution
In the past there have been cases of Christian missionaries to Laos being imprisoned by the Communist government. The persecution of Christians was especially harsh between 1975 and 1978, in the early years of the Communist regime. Although restrictions eased somewhat Christians and churches still tend to be watched. Persecution tends to be sporadic and to occur on a local level, sometimes because family members or local community leaders fear that Christian activity offends native spirits.
In 2011 the World Evangelical Alliance reported that troops from the Lao People’s Army arrested a group of Christians from the ethnic Hmong community. All the believers’ Bibles were confiscated. On another occasion that year several Christians were attacked and killed in Xiengkhouang Province.
There have also been occasional reports of the government closing down churches and of attempting to force Christians to renounce their faith.
Voice of Persecuted Christians work
Voice of Persecuted Christians supports seminars to train church leaders from Laos. Some take place in another country and seek to encourage leaders and provide teaching on a variety of biblical topics. Others, for believers and front-line workers, are run within Laos, in areas where there has been considerable persecution.
We also provide on-going support for some individual Christians in Laos who have been imprisoned or forced to flee their village because of their faith in Christ.
