Humorist Dave Barry’s tag line is "I am not making this up," which he uses whenever reporting one of those strange-but-true news stories that fit right into his parody columns. That line somehow comes to mind as I bring you the news that major Chicago religious leaders, many of them Christian, are warning that evangelism causes hate crimes.

Here’s the story: Southern Baptists are planning a massive (100,000 people) missionary trip to Chicago for summer 2000 in which they’ll undertake various public service projects and share the Gospel. This provoked a letter sent to the Baptists (but sent first to the media) from the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago—a group of 40 representatives of Christian and Jewish churches and institutions—urging the Baptists to stay away.

The reason: In light of the Baptists’ open desire to convert Jews, Muslims and Hindus, their visit could "contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes." While conceding their "peaceful intentions," the letter cited two Chicago incidents from 1999—a synagogue shooting and the vandalizing of a mosque—as just the sort of thing the Baptists’ presence could somehow inspire. (In language at best careless and at worst revealing, the Council’s letter described Jews and Muslims as being among the Baptists’ "primary targets.")

For the record, the Southern Baptists are coming anyway. But I have a hunch we’ll see more of tactics like the Council’s—perhaps on college campuses, where self-proclaimed representatives of various groups are quick to suggest that any criticism voiced against them is a step on the slippery slope to violence, and maybe genocide.

We shouldn’t be surprised if this happens. After all, linking people to "hate crimes" is just so easy. Under the rules of political correctness, you don’t have to present any evidence; merely belonging to (or claiming to speak for) an approved minority group is sufficient to lend your charge respectability and moral gravity. The motives of the accused are instantly suspect, though as columnist Joe Sobran points out, the motives of the accuser aren’t subject to any sort of scrutiny. It’s no wonder that opponents of Christianity per se use these rules to their advantage as readily as (say) homosexual activists do.

What’s disappointing is that so many Christians accept those rules without challenge. They wouldn’t think of publicly asserting the truth of their faith to nonbelievers, much less (the unavoidable corollary) the falsehood of others on key points. They seem petrified of confrontation with non-Christians—and they know that any profession of Christianity’s fundamental tenets, no matter how lovingly expressed, risks bringing on those angry reactions they so desperately wish to avoid.

This was evident in Chicago, where (according to press reports) the letter to the Southern Baptists was generated by a rabbi, but sent out under the name of a Presbyterian minister and acquiesced in by other Christians. Some, like the city’s Catholic archdiocese, balked at first but went along out of what the Chicago Tribune called "concern for . . . interfaith relations." (The archdiocese had "taken great pains over the last two decades to build good relations with the Jewish community," the paper noted.) Others went further. Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church’s Northern Illinois Conference pronounced himself offended at the idea that "non-Christians . . . are outside God’s plan of salvation"—a notion he said "smacks of a kind of non-Jesus-like arrogance."

Well, good relations are very desirable. But the quest for them must not reach the point of suppressing fundamental truths. Chief among those truths is one that, Bishop Sprague notwithstanding, comes straight from the lips of Jesus Himself: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." (John 14:6)

If anything is arrogant, it’s for Christians (particularly clergy) to think they can ignore or override the clear statements of Christ. Indeed, to demand that Christians stop repeating the words of Christ is to demand they stop being Christians at all. It requires them to harden their hearts and suppress their consciences—to stifle a message they believe is absolutely essential to the salvation of others.

Of course Christians should beware of adopting a needlessly combative—and thereby counterproductive—attitude in presenting their message. But the far greater problem with the church these days is not excessive feistiness, but crippling timidity. One reason some Christians go along with the attempt to link evangelism with "hate crimes" may be that it gives them an excuse for keeping their mouths shut about the truths of Scripture and sticking to safe, noncontroversial subjects.

They would benefit by considering the words of the Apostle Paul: "For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). To the believer those are primarily words of promise, assuring him that where his courage fails, God’s is more than ample. But they are also words of at least implicit reproach—a reminder that true love requires us to deliver the message of salvation through Christ, and Christ alone. Silence is not an option.