This Lent has been a strange one.Earlier this month, I covered a counter-protest outside Dutchtown High School against a planned appearance by members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (the “God Hates Fags” people). The WBC crew didn’t actually show up, but I still watched a crowd at least 300 strong yelling against them anyway. A member of a local church stood alone in front of them and was shouted down every time he tried to raise his voice — even though he wasn’t preaching the WBC’s gospel of hatred.”Your God doesn’t exist,” one angry high school girl yelled. “There’s no heaven for me or you or anybody.” She had dark eye-liner, raven-black hair and a sign saying “All You Need is Love.”I picked up the weekly newsletter that Friday for the National Center for Science Education and read about the most recent fundamentalist campaign to block the teaching of evolution in public school. This week, the most recent sex abuse scandal rocked the Catholic Church. Evidence has been piling up that the Pope intentionally covered up child abuse on a staggering scale, and no one in the Vatican seems to be accepting full responsibility.Now the headlines are full of the arrest of nine members of an armed anti-government militia group called “Hutaree” composed of extremist Christian commandos who have apparently been training to fight the Antichrist. They were arrested Monday — the second day of Holy Week.Sometimes it’s hard to go to church.The perception that people of faith are arrogant, self-righteous and hypocritical is spreading, and it’s getting harder and harder to argue that it shouldn’t be — as is the feeling that following around a magical man in the sky is ignorant and laughable.This Sunday is Easter. Whether or not you actually believe there was a man named Jesus who was actually the son of God and whether or not you think that man actually rose from the dead is frankly immaterial.The point of the Easter story — and the real, fundamental point of Christianity and pretty much any major religion — is there’s something redeeming about this life that can get so ugly. The things that are broken, wrong and hurtful about the world aren’t too big to leave no room for hope. And the most broken, wrong and hurtful things in this world are ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be.I go to church every morning I can drag my lazy self out of bed. I don’t do it because I feel like I have to. I don’t do it because my parents make me. I don’t go because I’m afraid of an angry God that condemns me — or anybody else — to eternal fire and torment.I don’t go because I think I’m better or holier than anyone else. I actually go because I’m painfully aware that I’m not.I, like most people of faith, am not interested in converting anyone out of any sense of anger or judgment. The greatest grace of faith is that it’s personal. And if you don’t want any part of it, that’s fine.But it merits pointing out that the vast majority of us think these fanatics who give us such bad press are far from normal. They are the lunatic fringe marring something powerful and beautiful. The overwhelming majority of us believe in grace, redemption and building a heaven on earth — not judgment, condemnation and obsession over a hell after we die.We think God, whatever he looks like, loves everybody — even those of other sexual orientations. We accept the facts of science like everybody else. We think the crisis shaking the Catholic Church is horrible and should be condemned, and we think the leaders of that body need to hold themselves accountable. And we certainly think it’s insane to prepare physically and mentally for a war with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.And we people of faith are just as frustrated as our secular friends at those who disagree.This Sunday is Easter. It’s a time for millions of people across the world to remember we’re human — we’re bitter, broken and hurtful. But more importantly, it’s time to remember why and how we can try to do better.Matthew Albright is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_malbright.—-Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]