When Jesus preached unconditional love, why did people reject it and change his message?

When Oprah suggested recently that God is unconditional love, her fundie christian audience members went ape-sh!t on her, instead desiring God to support their specialness and concepts of punishing non-believers. When Jesus did the same, the people of his day killed him and put their own twisted version of his message in the bible. What's so threatening about unconditional love?