Phan Khôi short time. However, he also was very interested in researching the roots of Vietnamese heritage, especially Vietnamese spoken language, which had long been ignored and looked down upon by the elite class in Vietnam. His research Phan Khôi: Việt ngữ nghiên cứu was a well of knowledge for young Vietnamese to follow. One generation before Hoàng Văn Chí, one generation after Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Khôi represented a class of Vietnamese intellectuals caught between colonialism, nationalism, communism. Phan Khôi's progressive spirit and his lifelong effort to raise the Vietnamese people's awareness of human rights, civil rights, and good education were
Peter C. Phan is the first non-Anglo to be elected President of the Catholic Theological Society of America. In 2010 Phan was given the John Courtney Murray Award, the highest honor of the Catholic Theological Society of America, in recognition for outstanding and distinguished achievement in theology. A festschrift was published in 2016 in his honor, focusing on the theme of world Christianity. On March 30-31, 2017, Georgetown University hosted an international symposium to discuss Phan's influence and legacy entitled "Theology without Borders: Celebrating the Legacy of Peter C. Phan." This meeting addressed Phan's scholarly work on aspects of theology, including patristics, ecclesiology,