evangelical 360°

Ep. 55 / Faith Under Fire: Mission Reframed in Vietnam with Reg Reimer

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 55

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A farm boy from British Columbia hears a call, steps onto a Vietnamese tarmac, and discovers a faith that refuses to be managed by war, ideology or fear. In this episode we dive into conversation with seasoned missionary and advocate, Reg Reimer, whose life bridges Bible school hallways, evacuation flights from Saigon, and quiet rooms where persecuted pastors whisper strategies for survival. 
 
Reg unpacks why mission still matters—less as a Western export and more as a global partnership forged in prayer and shared risk. He reflects on paternalism’s legacy, the early push for indigenous leadership, and what changed when Vietnamese believers asked God to alleviate their fear. The result was remarkable: after a near-silent decade under communist rule, the church grew fourteenfold, and through miraculous signs and wonders, entire coastal communities turned to Jesus. 

Reimer also shares the necessity for the “two wings” of mission—proclaim salvation and resist human suffering—and looks ahead to a future where the global South leads, the West serves alongside, and all peoples send and go. If you’ve wondered how to discern a call, navigate politics without losing your soul, or serve across cultures with integrity, this conversation offers hard-won counsel and hope.

If you'd like to learn more from Reg Reimer you can purchase his book and find him through social media. 

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. Now and then one meets someone outside of the ordinary, courageous, maybe even reckless, and pushing the boundaries. Reg Reimer is one of those. Raised on a Canadian Mennonite farm, educated in a conservative church community, he and his bride Donna headed out for a part of the world that was about to blow up. Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s was not for the faint of heart. Mastering the language and learning early the nuances of Vietnamese culture, Reg now engaged with an archaic and in retrospect a paternalistic Western mission force walked the dangerous roads of civil strikes, overhung by an American army set on subduing its people. All of this at a time when Christian missions are finding that its Western domination just wasn't flying as national and indigenous leaders were stepping up to lead. Wise and outspoken. Just the kind of person I love to listen to. And the person with experience that rising generations can be beneficiaries of in his life and journey. And to you, please know how much I welcome you as part of this conversation. And as you listen, would you consider sharing this episode with a friend? And if you haven't, please hit the subscribe button and join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. Now to my guest, Reg Reimer, seasoned Journeyman of Faith.

Reg Reimer:

It's wonderful to be here, Brian.

Brian Stiller:

Your ministry, your exploits, remarkable. And I want to get to that, but uh just before we do, as we get into On the Cruel Edges of the World, your new book. How does a Mennonite boy from the farm in British Columbia end up in Vietnam in the middle of the disaster of uh that war and that country?

Reg Reimer:

Brian, I I came to uh firm faith myself my last year in high school. And uh at that point, uh I I wanted two things. I wanted to uh study about my faith, and I wanted to get away from home. So uh I enrolled in uh a Bible college in Nebraska, head shanked from Chilliwack to Omaha, and uh enrolled in this um uh uh Bible college. Um each fall, the Bible college held a full-throated missions promotion week. I was there for the very uh first one, and they had the they brought in powerful mission speakers. One of them was Dr. Arthur Glasser, missionary statesman, who later became my major mentor at Fuller. But Dr. Glasser preached a powerful message, and he ended up with quoting John Mott, leader of the uh student Christian movement at the beginning of the last century. John Mott said, show why you should not obey the last command of Jesus Christ. And uh I could not, and uh, I received a call to mission that uh set the course for the rest of my life. I avoided other distractions and headed this direction. So uh there uh at the Bible college I met uh Donna. She was also uh called to mission. And uh after finishing our education in Nebraska, we were required to go to uh Nyat, New York. Uh we had joined the Christian Missionary Alliance uh to be our sending agency. And uh there for a year in graduate school, I prepared to go to Indonesia, actually the far um eastern part of Indonesia to work with Stone Age tribal people. Uh but just before we finished our course, I got a call from the mission director, and he said uh there's been a communist coup in Indonesia, and there's a vicious suppression of it, and Indonesia is not giving any visas to foreigners for the foreseeable future. Would you go to Vietnam? Well, we uh had a newborn girl and a toddler boy. Um, we asked for 24 hours to consider it, pray about it, and next day we said, yes, we'll go. So there we went.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, you ended up in Vietnam, and of course, in my generation, when I say Vietnam, I remember the Vietnamese war, not France, but America involved. And the picture that comes to mind is the helicopter over top of that building in Saigon, as Vietnamese are rushing to the top of the building to try and climb the ladder to get up into this last helicopter, last American helicopter, was just before the Vietcom took over. That was your world, wasn't it?

Reg Reimer:

Yes, it was. Um I actually uh was evacuated from Vietnam on the last Royal Canadian Air Force plane that came to Vietnam to pick up the Charge de Fer.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, what was it about the Vietnamese people, their culture, their style that captured your attention? You became, as I recall, a uh very fluent in in the language to the degree that people were amazed that uh you you spoke like one of them. What was it about that world that captured your attention?

Reg Reimer:

Well, I've I found the Vietnamese um people and culture to be both uh inscrutable and seductive. Vietnam has a history going back about 5,000 years, so it's as it's as old as Israel practically, and of course developed a highly sophisticated culture, a language that is very hard for Westerners to learn, but I applied myself to the language and tried to understand, made Vietnamese friends that tried to understand how to relate to Vietnamese. One of the finest days of my life was when a Vietnamese friend of mine said, you know what, Reg, you have actually you speak Vietnamese quite well, and you have made some inroads into understanding our culture. Um that was a huge compliment for me, even though I know I wasn't very deep into it.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, I guess the big question is: in a globalized generation, does missions still matter? Does it still make sense?

Reg Reimer:

It certainly does. Ever since I began my missionary career about six decades ago now, we were asking the same question. Things were changing so rapidly, even back then. And we were saying, you know, is it still necessary to have missionaries? We have a national church is planted and growing and it is sending its own missionaries to certain tribal people in the country. Yes, there is a place for mission. First of all, you know, there is there is a church universal. And uh mission is an expression of that. You might even say that mission was an early expression of globalism. The body is interdependent, and though things have changed rapidly and are changing, and we're always asking the question, you know, what should be the role of foreign missionaries? There still is a need. There are frontiers, there are still about 7,000 so-called unreached people groups where the Church Universal needs to partner together to take the gospel there. Missions and the integration of the of the worldwide church is a beautiful expression of the kingdom of God. If ever we needed something in our divine world, the church in mission is a beautiful model.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, reading your book on the cruel edge of the world, it seemed to me that the mission agency that you were a part of espoused a kind of paternalism. Was is that true? And does paternalism still mark the nature of missions as you know it today?

Reg Reimer:

I would say that when we began our mission work in Vietnam, we were kind of at the tail end of the colonial era. There were still some vestiges of colonialism in the way I think our mission operated and the way we dealt with nationals and and so on. But that changed during my missionary uh career.

Brian Stiller:

Uh I I guess was the church paternalistic? Was it so dominated by the West that the indigenous nature of the church was overrun by this paternalistic West?

Reg Reimer:

We were at the end of the colonial period. But our pioneer missionaries in Vietnam were very enlightened. They arrived in Vietnam about the time that Roland Allen was preaching the three-self support, self-governance, and self-propagation, and so on. And very early, our mission established an independent Vietnamese church that we worked with. So I did not find a lot of paternalism in our situation in Vietnam.

Brian Stiller:

People have misconceptions about missions, about the nature of missions. Have you met, have you encountered those misconceptions in your ministry?

Reg Reimer:

I think so. A lot of people still have very primitive understanding of missions. They think of a white man preaching to dark-skinned people under a tree somewhere. But my own life and ministry, I think, is an illustration of something else. Many friends and supporters that have read my memoir are quite surprised that my mission vocation required me to be an evangelist, a church planter, development worker, a field director, a uh chief executive, an advocate for the persecuted, and that required me to learn some spy craft. People were surprised that I had uh had to have skills in so many areas.

Brian Stiller:

So when you arrived in Vietnam, when you and Donna arrived in Vietnam, did your experience match your expectations?

Reg Reimer:

Uh no, it did not. We were formerly prepared to be missionaries and so on, and we found that helpful. But thrown into a war in which the main protagonists, the Americans, you know, were thought to be Christian, uh was a very difficult, very difficult situation. And in many ways, we were not prepared for that. We had to we had to make our our own way. There was no problem with our adjustment, with you know, living and so on. That wasn't a problem. But working in a war, as we were uh raised lots of questions and uh tensions within me and even within our mission community.

Brian Stiller:

But given that your denomination was American-based, would there be conflict between being loyal to your mission agency that was American-based and yet not being pro-American?

Reg Reimer:

The um majority feeling of the mission community during the Vietnam War was that the Americans were holding back the forces of communism, which was allowing for the preaching of the gospel. So this was the predominant feeling of the mission community, not only our own mission, but other missions that were there. And something in me said this was this had other dimensions, this had other problems that we weren't really dealing with.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, in reading your book, I get the feeling that you were kind of out of line with the missionary, the denominational missionary line that was that was dominant at the time.

Reg Reimer:

Uh yes. I I began to question the war. I went when I first went, I accepted what the the majority mission missionaries were were feeling that you know we were holding back communism and this was allowing for the preaching of the gospel. But I I slowly came to another view. Uh I ended up believing that the Vietnam War was lost the moment the first Marine set foot on the beach in Danang back in 1965. This was a war for national independence, and there was no way all the might of the U.S. and technology and everything was going to stop the Vietnamese people from protecting their land and establishing their own country.

Brian Stiller:

And is that part of why the Vietnam church emerged with such strength after the after the war and even under the harsh rule of a communist uh uh government?

Reg Reimer:

Of course, we were very concerned. I remember flying out of Vietnam on that last Royal Canadian Air Force Hercules, wondering what in the world was going to happen to my friends and the church as well as to the to the whole country. Church is actually for nearly a decade kind of went underground and went silent. And then about five or six years into the communist period, a prayer movement began among the church, and some pastors and leaders were led to pray that the Lord would take away their fear of communism. And the Lord answered that, answered that prayer, and about 10 years into the communist period, the church began to grow markedly. Uh so there were only 160,000 evangelicals when I left Vietnam in 1975. And today there are 2.1 million. That's an increase of about 14 times in the last, well, it's 50 years now. And I think that that was remarkable, remarkable growth.

Brian Stiller:

So, Reg, you have a very small Christian community in Vietnam in 75, as you say. You have a communist dictator that uh that rules Christianity as being illegitimate, or if not illegitimate, at least off-center. And yet the underground church explodes. What is there about the gospel and the activity of the church in that time that uh that gives it such strength and in time allows it to grow to the numbers you've just identified?

Reg Reimer:

When the Lord answered the prayer of some Vietnamese leaders and Christians uh to take away their fear, the Lord, the Lord really did that. And the the church became churches became became really the only refuge for Christian people where they could find support and comfort and help when they needed it. If they observed what was going on around them, they experienced pressure and persecution, but that seemed to in fact um increase the attractiveness of churches in in Vietnam. And many people joined churches. One of the things that happened was the Lord exhibited his power in uh in many situations. The Lord expresses his power in situations where the gospel is first preached, miracles and exorcisms and so on take place, and also where the church is under terrible pressure and persecution. There miracles take place, God shows his power, and people are attracted to that, and also strongly attracted to the communities in which this happens.

Brian Stiller:

Can you tell some stories of of how the gospel was transformative while you were there?

Reg Reimer:

Let me tell you one that goes back quite a bit. I was doing my research for my master's dissertation at Fuller on the topic of what were the dynamics that caused the Vietnamese churches to grow in the first place. And in my studies, I read about a small people movement to Christ that took place in some remote fishing villages on the coast in central Vietnam. And the story was that a young woman who was blind from birth received her sight. And this miracle was a driver that brought hundreds of fishing people to Christ. And a number of churches were established there. Now, uh, part of my research, I wanted to confirm this for myself. So during my field research for my dissertation, I traveled to the area which at that point was largely communist-controlled, and it was also very near where the infamous Milah Massacre took place. And I went and I found the home of Mrs. Who, who was the uh person that had received her site. I met family there and visited, and I asked if I could see Mrs. Who. And uh they didn't respond and kept insisting, and they said, We don't think you want to see her. And I said, Well, why not? They said, Well, because she's dying. I said, excuse me, that's all the more reason I want to see her. So they took me to the back door of the Thatch house fronted on the ocean, and there they pointed me to a figure lying in the sand under some tall palm trees. I made my way slowly to the body with shriveled body of a very old woman with only a sack covering part of her. And uh suddenly my question about sight didn't seem appropriate. So I went to her and I got down on my knees and I crawled toward her and I said to her, Mrs. Who, do you know the Lord? And uh there was no answer. I asked it a second time, Mrs. Who, do you know the Lord? There was no answer. So I crawled right up to her, put my mouth close to her ear, and I said, Mrs. Who, do you know the Lord? And her tiny tongue came out of her mouth and she licked her parched lips, and her eyes flickered, and she whispered, which being translated means, the Lord gave me light for my eyes. I realized I was on holy ground. I made the sign of the cross on her, prayed for her, and uh retreated. The Lord having answered both my questions through her five words. That's just one example of the Lord's power and how the Lord used it also to bring many other people uh to himself.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, you have been an advocate for those in Vietnam who are persecuted for their faith. Under the communist regime, what is the freedom of religion like in Vietnam? And what are the kinds of issues that they face as it relates to living out their life as Christians?

Reg Reimer:

The attitude and practice of the government toward religion and Christians in particular, Vietnam has about two million evangelicals and about eight million Catholics, has changed over the years, especially in regard to Protestants. The government was very concerned to see Christianity growing so rapidly, especially in the 1990s. Um my research, uh, acquisition of documents and papers and so on showed that the government's policy was, they used the word eradication, eradication of Christianity, especially among the minority peoples in Vietnam. That has changed over the years now to containment. The government still works hard to prevent the gospel from going to areas where it has not yet been preached. And there are still fairly isolated examples of serious persecution where new people and new communities are becoming Christians. My call to advocacy came during my very first trip to Communist Vietnam in 1980. That's 45 years ago now. I joined a first Western tour group to Vietnam. None of us were tourists on this group, and I managed to break away from the tour group on a Sunday to meet at a church. And out of that, straight out of a John Laqueray novel, I arranged a secret meeting with top church leaders, and they poured out their hearts about the terrible persecution that was going on in those days. And I asked the senior pastor who was actually my Vietnamese godfather, I said, What do you want me to do? And he said, raise our voice in the outside world. That set me on the course for advocacy for the last 45 years. And it's changed a lot. The situation is better now than it was, but the communist state still has major institutions whose job is to quote manage a religion. So all Christians always realize somebody is looking over their shoulder. So what can you do?

Brian Stiller:

What can be done? What are you doing? You and Donna, you're in your mid-80s and you're going back to Vietnam again this year. What is there that can be done by others with respect to freedom of religion and persecution that you see continuing in places like Vietnam and other countries?

Reg Reimer:

In the beginning, I was one of the only advocates for persecuted Christians in Vietnam. And so I was the one that was supplying information to Christian advocacy organizations like Open Doors, Voice of the Martyr, and so on, and also to governments, State Department, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and also to journalists in well-known newspapers, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and so on. Nowadays, the Christians in Vietnam themselves have access to these outside organizations and can and do report religious liberty abuses. I still work exposing the relatively few worst cases of persecution, where Christians that become people that become Christians in new areas are pressured by clan and by local government all the way to being driven from their homes with only the clothes on their backs. That still happens in some cases in Vietnam. And I still raise those issues worldwide in press releases and so on. Things have changed a lot. The Vietnamese churches are learning to live with the government, to engage with the government, and based on personal relationships of church leaders and government leaders, things thankfully have improved.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, let me cycle back into your life as a missionary in the latter part of the 20th century and ask what were the lessons you learned about cross-cultural missions? You're coming from the Western world, and there's a certain kind of cultural arrogance that comes with that. What did the Vietnamese people teach you about what missions might best look like?

Reg Reimer:

Oh, I'm greatly indebted to Vietnamese people, Vietnamese friends, Vietnamese church leaders. I fortunately developed a close relationship with a number of them and were the to the point where they were, they felt very free to talk to me about some of these hard issues. So I benefited from gentle lectures and encouragement on how to carry on, how to be the most helpful, how to be a true partner, um, in many, many, in many, many ways.

Brian Stiller:

What would be your takeaway for Western missions, especially, or for missions from countries where Christianity is a more of a dominant faith? What are your takeaways from your own experience as to how missions might best be done and what missions might mean as it relates to the call of Christ and the mandate from the scriptures itself?

Reg Reimer:

Well, uh, the missionary call, the missionary mandate remains with us. And my admiration for those that have answered the missionary call through the centuries continues to grow as I study about them. And, you know, while it's somewhat popular, popular culture, even in church culture, to kind of minimize, misunderstand, and even minimize the missionary call, the missionary role, my admiration for my colleagues and my forebearers just continues to increase as they have found ways to carry the message of Jesus Christ salvation. And also the second wing of the gospel. I was raised in the evangelism primacy ideology in my mission, but I soon discovered in the Vietnam War and in other situations in which I've I've worked, that the second wing of the gospel is Jesus' fierce opposition to human suffering. You know, look at what he did. And I remember when John Stott preached it the first Luzon on the John 2021, as the Father has sent me, so send I you. So these two wings of the gospel are necessary. And I think Evangelical Missions has really discovered the second wing and is wonderfully involved in Jesus' mission of opposing human suffering.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, over the last few decades. The growth of the church globally has been in what we call the global south, which is Africa, Latin America, and Asia. But the numbers that exploded in Vietnam, what do you see as the future of missions? Is uh is it the West to the rest of the world, or is it now the cycling of people from any country to any country?

Reg Reimer:

You're asking, is there is there still a role for Westerners to play in the Christian world mission? Um yes, there is. Okay, so we have the uh the theology, the theory of the unity of the body of Christ as a theological truth. But it's also an existential reality. And uh this is where I see the whole church, churches from every part of the world uh coming together in order to carry on the Christian world mission in in new and effective ways. Um the roles the roles are changing. We Western missionaries, partly because of our success through a couple of centuries, have had a part in raising up churches which are now carrying on the Christian world mission. And I think our role is still to be part of it, though it is changing, and we have many new allies and resources in which to do it.

Brian Stiller:

Reg, you and I have traveled throughout Vietnam considerably, and reading your book on the cruel edge of the world, I'm reminded of how your life has been invested in that part of the world and their lives invested in yours. Now you're coming to the twilight of ministry and life. Uh, if a young Reg Reimer out of Abbotsford, BC came to you after a service and asked, What should I do? How should I approach this call of mission? What would you say to a younger Reg Reimer?

Reg Reimer:

I would say, first of all, go for it. If you're open to God's call, he has He has something He has something significant for you to do. I would say nurse and nourish that call. Um get out there and explore and see what can be done, contact mission organizations, even travel the world a bit and look up missionaries and Christian organizations that are scattered all over the plains, big ones, small ones, doing wonderful kingdom things. And then I think you will find your own calling and your own niche in God's mission.

Brian Stiller:

Reg Reimer, thanks for joining me on Evangelical 360 today.

Reg Reimer:

It's been a pleasure, Brian. Thank you for your friendship and thank you for your ministry in my life through the years.

Brian Stiller:

Thanks, Reg, for joining me today. Of the many hours we have spent together in ministry today, your passion and insights never cease to amaze me. This has been a good moment, as I had expected. And I know those who joined us were also informed and challenged. And my thanks to you for being part of the conversation today. Be sure to subscribe to Evangelical360 and share this episode wherever you watch or listen to this podcast. If you'd like to learn more about today's guests, be sure to check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't already received my free ebook and newsletter, please go to Brianstiller.com. Thanks again. Until next time.