Exactly! I’m stunned sometimes at how differently we conservatives deal with the rudeness of it all.
I recently saw an old high school friend and spoke of my beloved son being engaged to a lovely young, faithful Catholic girl he met in church. Her father is studying to be a Deacon in the Church.
Her response was to bring up all the child-abuse, pedophilia priests...
At the time, I let it pass but am now stunned at her insensitivity to my religious beliefs...but if I had said to her what I should have said to her then, our friendship would be over. But am ashamed to be the one who “backed down”...
I know many would just say, screw it and her for her rudeness but I can’t cut off everyone I disagree with..just can’t.....so I’d better cowboy up and not let it bother me....
Religion is another harsh frontier with friends and family. A former friend of mine-an irreligious fellow-decided that my fundamentalist ways needed enlightening. He conned his liberal ELCA Lutheran wife into having a "religious discussion" with me. What neither one of them knew was that at the time I was teaching formation classes at my church and was drawing heavily on Luther's Large Catechism. In fact, at the time I had it pretty well memorized. I had also recently read the Book of Concord and taken notes. So imagine her astounded surprise when I started contradicting her pro-abort, pro-gay, lukewarm Christless theism with quotes from Luther and the BoC, complete with page referneces. I let her talk long enough to convince herself that she had won me over first, of course. It was delicious fun. I never saw my friend's wife again after that day...she avoided me like ebola.