Chicago Clergy Ask Baptists to Stay Home

A coalition of Chicago religious leaders has asked Southern Baptists to reconsider plans to bring a massive evangelistic effort to the city next summer.

The scores of volunteers the Southern Baptists plan to gather in the city “could disrupt the pattern of peaceful interfaith relations in our community, and unwittingly abet the designs of those who seek to provoke hate crimes by fomenting faith-based prejudice,” the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago wrote in a letter to Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson.

While acknowledging the Baptists’ 1st Amendment right to evangelize, the letter expresses particular concern that Muslims and Jews “appear to be among your primary targets” and are groups that have been the victims of violence in recent months in the city.

The Nov. 27 letter was endorsed by Roman Catholic Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago; Rabbi Ira Youdovin, executive vice president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis; Bishop Iakovos of the Chicago diocese of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; and Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church’s Northern Illinois Conference, according to the Rev. Paul H. Rutgers, executive director of the interfaith council.

Southern Baptist leaders said the letter writers “misunderstand the design and intent” of the Baptists’ evangelical effort.

“It’s our belief as Southern Baptists--in fact it is the historic Christian confession--that everyone is separated from God by sin and that only faith in Jesus Christ can bridge that gulf,” said Bob Reccord, president of the denomination’s North American Mission Board. “We believe it is our biblical responsibility to share this good news with all people in a loving, noncompulsory way.”

In addition to Chicago, the Southern Baptists also plan a major evangelism project in Phoenix next year. They plan similar projects in Las Vegas and Boston in 2001 and in Philadelphia and Seattle in 2002.