Often times, after a war, soldiers return from a conflict so sickened by the ugliness that they've seen that they enter into a state of psychological shock. For about the last year or so, I've been spiritually shellshocked by all the ugliness I've seen.

        I can warn you right here that what I have to say is going to offend some people, because we don't like having our dirty little secrets talked about.

        Most of the people here, if they come from a large enough church, will know of at least one person who doesn't seem to fit into the same mold of Christianity that most of the rest of us do. These people are driven by politics in the church, making sure their good family name and their social position guarantees them a suitable place within the church. If you're lucky, you'll only have a few of these people in your church, so they don't disrupt everyone else's Walk.

        Unfortunately, there are far too many of these people. They seem to spread like vermin. They can be spotted by their different value judgments of various people to the extent that it's perfectly justifiable for these "good Christians" to look down their nose, or worse, at those not of the same social status.

        They tend to grab all the authority they can, telling themselves that God wants them to have it.If called on this behavior, they launch into long explanations of "how the real world works" to avoid the conclusion that they've discarded theie ethics as being far too inconvenient.

        I've run head on into these people. If you know me at all, you'll realize that I am different from the other people around here; substantially different. And, for the most part, people here have accepted that.

        But there is a "beautiful people" clique here on campus if you open your eyes to it. And for some of those "beautiful people," I presumed far above my station. I was betrayed by people whom I thought were my friends, and had it labeled "business as usual".

        Why do I bring this up here? Each of us will face the choice someday of whether to go along with this, or fight it. This choice is offered very subtly, and it's a lot easier to close your eyes to it, and go along in the direction of self-interest.

        In worldly terms, if you're not being hurt by this, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by fighting this system. Spiritually, it's the exact opposite.

        You may not quite get what I'm saying right now, but someday you will. It's going to be up to you to make the right choice then.