I saw a Facebook post just before church started the other day that has gotten under my skin pretty good, and I'm thinking this is exactly the goal the poster intended. This post caused me to do a little research which confirmed something I figured was true - I am a member of a minority group in this Nation. No, it has nothing to do with the color of my skin, or my ancestry. It has nothing to do with my economic status or my education.

Instead, my minority status has to do with what the Government would identify as my "religious preference". I am a member of a group that would be designated on a Government form as "Protestant Evangelical". Some quick research indicates that this group comprises somewhere between 6 and 35 percent of the American population. Personally, I tend to believe our number is closer to the lower end of that scale than the higher end.

But here's the thing that got under my skin about the post I saw on Facebook Sunday morning. The writer said [and I am paraphrasing now] - What a wonderful world it would be if Evangelicals exhibited the fruit of The Spirit instead of seeking political power by embracing and assisting hate and violence and racism.

And so, for perhaps the first time in my life, I have found myself being judged based simply upon being a member of a minority group. In other words, I have been "pre-judged". In other words, I have experienced "prejudice". And let me tell the rest of you who, like me, have lived up until now in a world in which the terrible shadow of "prejudice" has not touched you - prejudice is a terrible thing.

And, I can just hear those of you who already know first hand about the horror of prejudice quoting from that great Christmas movie, "Die Hard", when John McClane shouted, "Welcome to the party, pal!"

OK. The easy "answer" is that the person who wrote the Facebook post that got under my skin has clearly erred by painting all Evangelicals with a broad brush. He has lumped all of us together. He has assumed that all Evangelicals are guilty of the same behavior, or are at least guilty of the same mind-set as the few who MIGHT be guilty of the terrible things he says we are all doing. And this is exactly what prejudice is.

When I started typing, I was prepared to unleash an attack on this poster for all of these reasons, and probably for a whole lot more. I mean, the nerve of that guy! How wrong can one person be? I admit I haven't met all of the people who make up my minority group. But, of the hundreds I have met, not a single one resembles in the least the twisted and evil caricature this poster has described. If there are some who act that way, they are few and far between. How dare he blame me for the sins of others!

But, it finally occurred to me that defending my "honor" from this kind of attack may not have been the reason I happened to come across this obscure post. The foolishness of this post has given me something I am sure I needed. I have now seen only the tiniest fraction of what so many in our Nation have endured for far too long. And I now have the tiniest fraction of an understanding of what it means to be judged on the basis of something other than facts, on something other than the content of my own character.

The guy who posted this, of course, hasn't actually hurt me in any way. He hasn't taken anything from me; he hasn't prevented me from doing or being anything; he hasn't changed the way I am perceived by anyone. All he has done is gotten under my skin a little bit.

But what he has actually done is open my eyes. And maybe, this is what I needed.

Ambrose Ramsey | Shepherd