I failed a class in college. Political Science 101. I love all things politics so you’d think I would have earned an A++. But that class started at 8am, in a building at the top of a very large hill, during the very cold winter. I skipped it. A lot. 

That professor taught me two things:

1. The phrase hell in a handbasket.

2. Always read the syllabus.

His class had an attendance policy, which I didn’t know but I also thought shouldn’t matter because I was smart. Wrong. But I am actually very thankful for the lesson, which I have thought about on dozens of occasions since. That lesson made me better. 

Hell in a handbasket was a phrase he said often, and at 18 I thought it sounded a little crazy and overdramatic. But now that I’m the age he was when teaching the class I find myself thinking a lot of things are going to hell in a handbasket.

For instance, there is absolutely no reason to rearrange the TJ Maxx. We go there to wander around until we hear the call of the things that need to be in our home. But when some new manager decides to move whole sections around, shoppers can’t hear items calling them while trying to navigate the new walkway pattern and aisles. 

Put. It. All. Back.

But that’s not the real reason I’m annoyed today. This evening I passed a church with a sign out front that said “Everyone Welcome. No Exceptions.” And it made me angry. Why would anyone NOT be welcome? In any church, anywhere?

Maybe because we’ve been getting some things wrong, like our responsibility to show the world the love of God. To live lives that reflect Christian values, to the best of our ability. To vote for policies and people that reflect Christian values, to their best of their ability.

So many church-goers give Christians a bad name, with a lot of it boiling down to the refusal to obey God’s call to love your neighbor. So many church-goers give Christians a bad name, we have to put up signs – SIGNS – that show where the people who are marginalized are welcome and safe.

We have so much repair work to do, and what that sign represents makes me mad.

Sometimes I feel like half of America has put hope in a man because they desperately want to hold some sort position, at the expense of others. That’s not going to save anyone or make disciples. Sometimes I feel like half of America has put hope in a man simply because, whether or not they realize it, they no longer have hope in their hearts or their churches.

Either way, it seems like a path to hell in a handbasket.