This Unconditional LOVE is God's gift to all of us, and there's nothing we can do to earn that which has been given to us. It won't work. Basically, when it is all boiled out and the gravy alone remains, this is the essence of The Reverend Doctor Spong's thesis in his saying the Church must change or die. The focus of the Church is all wrong. It's nothing but one group self-righteously proclaiming those who differ from it are sinners and beyond the grace of God.
Nothing is further from the truth.
The Bible literalists among us will speedily search out and select Bible passages either to support my comments or to refute them. One comes to mind, and bear in mind, I am not a Bible Literalist who would use the Bible as a sword to cut and slash those who disagree with me, or with whom I disagree. Now, to face for a moment what all writers face. There are those who will invariably in complete innocence misunderstand and distort the meaning set forth by any writer. These are the ones about whom I'm concerned.