Bring your unsaved friends

Like most homeschoolers I belong to several homeschooling groups. Three of them are "inclusive" and one is for Jewish homeschoolers.

You know when you hear the word inclusive you think that all will be invited. For the most part this is true. But what reality has shown me over the last four years (holy time frame Batman, has it been that long?) is that inclusive also means they get to throw their opinion in your face without regard for your opinion or feelings. We have one group in particular that I have enjoyed being a member of and have made several friends. There were several active members that decided that inclusive wasn't good enough for them and started their own "Christian Homeschoolers" group. They are no longer active in the original group and stick almost exclusively to their group.

Recently an email went around our inclusive group advertising a class that would teach why evolution was bunk and why creation was the true beginnings of humanity. I am not offended by these types of emails. I feel free to use my delete key. But (there does seem to be a lot of but's lately), the last sentence of this email said, "Bring your unsaved friends." Now that offended me, big time. I tried to hit delete, I really did, but my cursor swerved and the next thing I knew I was feverishly typing a reply.

I was not the only one who couldn't bring themselves to just hit delete and a firestorm ensued. The person who originally sent the email said she was just forwarding it from someone else. Several people tried to justify the comment by saying that no offense was intended. I can handle that, but when a whole group of people tell you that they were offended why would they still insist that it is okay to use the term unsaved. Maybe originally you didn't mean it as hurtful but after being told by a certain sect of Christain's that I am doomed and destined to go to hell because I haven't been saved, well I have to tell you, after that it gets offensive. Most of them never did understand our feelings on the subject and eventually the moderators of the group told everyone to drop it. I did, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

If I said something and it offended that many people I would apologize and make an effort not to say it again. All we were asking for was the same courtesy.