COMMENTARY: Church shouldn’t be this hard
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/commentary-church-shouldnt-be-this-hard/2014/01/07/1d869022-77c0-11e3-a647-a19deaf575b3_story.html By Tom Ehrich | Religion News Service , After 36 years of serving churches as a pastor and consultant, I came to a startling conclusion the other day. Not startling to you, perhaps. I might be the last person to get the memo. But the conclusion drew me up short. My conclusion: Religion shouldn’t be this hard. An assembly that exists to help people shouldn’t be so willing to hurt people — by declaring them worthless, unacceptable, undesirable or strangers at the gate. An assembly that should relax into the serenity of God’s unconditional love shouldn’t be so filled with hatred and fear. An assembly that should do what Jesus did shouldn’t be so inwardly focused, so determined to be right, so eage...