The calls for Christians to be nice are heard most often in discussions about the gay rights movement. The world accuses Christians of being mean, and some conservative Christian leaders are following suit. While still officially holding to orthodox teachings about sexuality and marriage, they’re starting to sound like LGBT activists when it comes to browbeating their fellow believers for supposedly persecuting gays. There certainly are cases of Christians being less than charitable, even hateful. But is this in reality a widespread problem?

Christians are to be winsome and full of “convictional kindness”, we’re told by a growing chorus of conservative Christian leaders. For sure, the Bible has a lot to say about being loving and caring. But the admonitions we’re hearing now sound shallow and simplistic. They fail to reflect a deeper understanding of sincere Christian love and integrity in a dark and challenging world.

The Bible presents a rough backdrop against which we are to practice love and kindness. It’s full of warnings about the deceitfulness of the world around us and that which we find in ourselves. We’re told to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16) and to be on guard against people “who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts” (Psalm 28:3). The love that prevails in the Bible is both generous and tough-minded, and not easily duped by the treachery working against God’s people.

The calls for Christians to be nice are heard most often in discussions about the gay rights movement. The world accuses Christians of being mean, and some conservative Christian leaders are following suit. While still officially holding to orthodox teachings about sexuality and marriage, they’re starting to sound like LGBT activists when it comes to browbeating their fellow believers for supposedly persecuting gays. There certainly are cases of Christians being less than charitable, even hateful. But is this in reality a widespread problem?

In June, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and promoter of convictional kindness, told Christian parents not to kick their gay children out of the house. But how big of a problem is this really, and where is Moore getting his information? The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force? The mainstream media is often loathe to challenge statistics presented by gay rights organizations, but that doesn’t mean Christians have to be similarly neglectful.

We can and should ask tough questions, starting with who is confirming these cases? Are parents who supposedly gave these kids the heave-ho being asked their side of the story, or are the words of the child being accepted without question? Was the child 13 or was the “child” 19? Were there other issues involved? Was the child involved with drugs and alcohol, violence, or continual gross disrespect? Did the parents make an effort to find somewhere else for their child to stay, with a friend or relative, before allegedly throwing them to the curb? Did the child instead voluntarily run away and the parents are looking for him? If the Christian community stands accused of harboring parents who have cruelly tossed out their children, then we deserve more details and evidence than we’ve been given.

Moore, who was speaking at the SBC annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, also cautioned Christians not to see their LGBT neighbors as the angry gay activists they see on TV. “They’re not super villains in a lair somewhere seeking to destroy marriage or destroy us,” he said. Leaving aside the question of whether a kind LGBT person can still be working to destroy marriage via their support of gay marriage, there’s the troubling question of why Moore seems more than willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to LGBT neighbors, but not Christian ones. Too many people – Christians included – are buying into crude caricatures of Christians they see in the media and are using those portrayals to make sweeping judgments about the average Christian believer.

Moore’s rhetoric is echoed in some PCA churches, where pastors shy away from talking about the sinfulness of homosexuality from the pulpit and instead, on the rare occasions they mention the topic, shame their congregations for supposedly being full of spite toward gays. Whose interests are Moore and others serving? People trapped in self-destructiveness being told by the culture to party on? Or are they seeking to protect and promote their own image as enlightened leaders who can see all sides and bring everyone together, having possibly deluded themselves they’ve found a loophole in the inherently divisive nature of the Gospel?

When pastors are silent or send mixed messages, they’re certainly not serving the interests of committed Christians in their pews facing mounting pressures socially and at work to support the LGBT cause. If Christians don’t see their pastors making difficult stands, they’re less likely to do so themselves. When that happens, leaders have less reason to bemoan secularists pushing progressive teachings about the family in public schools. It will be Christians teaching those lessons as well, having convinced themselves they’re only showing niceness and respect toward beleaguered sexual minorities. In the business world, Christians will be going along for the ride as their employers link the company brand to the rainbow flag.

Manipulative LGBT activists have skillfully pushed all the right buttons to get people to buy into their plans and ideas. Their emotional bullying and blackmail have worked to a lamentable degree even on conservative Christian leaders, despite how they might protest otherwise as they point to their doctrinal statements. Their squishiness has potentially devastating consequences for the church going forward, and not just on this issue, but on other ones as well, such as growing Muslim influence in the U.S. and the growing right-to-die movement. A church that is selling out to the modern notion of niceness won’t be an effective one, but a seriously enfeebled one. We need convictional clarity and commitment as much as convictional kindness. Otherwise, we are practicing an impoverished and spineless form of Christianity.

Wendy Wilson is a teacher and freelance writer. She attends a PCA church in Nashville.