University of Destruction

The 222mission leadership is about to begin reading David Wheaton's book, University of Destruction. You can read excerpts, like the one below, and find out more about this book at www.DavidWheaton.com. Let us know what you think.

From University of Destruction, here's the introduction:

Success, Surfing, and Stanford
Stanford? Not a problem.
The week before entering my freshman year at Stanford University, I was riding a major wave ... in more ways than one. I spent the week surfing Pacific rollers in Malibu, California, while visiting my brother, who was toiling away at Pepperdine Law School.
Sitting on my surfboard waiting for the next set of waves to appear, my thoughts drifted back over the previous months--the best summer of my life. In June I had graduated valedictorian of my high school class, and now in September I had just won the U.S. Open Junior Tennis Championships in New York, confirming my place as the top-ranked junior player in America.
I was number one on the court and in the classroom.
How appropriate that in just a few days I would travel up the coast of California to attend the top-rated academic and tennis university in the land ... on a full scholarship, no less.
While I was riding a perfect wave that golden summer, do you think I was concerned about the next stage of my life in college? Guess again.
Welcome to Stanford
My duffel bags had barely touched the dorm room floor when two tennis teammates-to-be barged through the door with pitchers of beer in hand. It may have been the middle of the afternoon, but the party had already started. Girls and guys roamed the co-ed dorm, checking out their new surroundings. Classes started the next day, and I kid you not, I had neither pen nor paper. The first assignment in Great Works of Western Culture, a required freshman class, was to read the books of Genesis and Job. "Easy enough," I thought, since I came from a Christian background and was familiar with the Bible. Imagine my disbelief when the professor and other students ridiculed the Bible and mocked God for the "stupid" way He dealt with mankind. I had never heard "God" and "stupid" in the same sentence before! I was so stunned, I didn't know what to say.
The night life was just as shocking. It was as if all moral restraint had been lifted from the campus. Drunkenness and sexual activity were seemingly everywhere. The overall scene brought to mind images of wanton sailors coming ashore at a foreign port of call. Surely this wasn't Stanford--it was Sodom!
Why was I so surprised by my introduction to college? After all, I had heard what college was like. I had already seen and experienced a taste of campus life on college recruiting visits. I was no potted plant--I had been out of my own backyard plenty of times.
But this was different ... way different. I was now living full-time in the midst of a world diametrically opposed to the one I had grown up in--there would be no returning home to Mommy and Daddy every night. I would soon find out that an excellent upbringing coupled with academic and athletic success was no match for the maelstrom called college. The waters were baited, the sharks were circling ... spiritual shipwreck loomed.