Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Washington Post columnist David French asked a probing in his most recent column that appeared under this headline:  “WHY ARE SO MANY CHRISTIANS SO CRUEL?”

I will repeat one solid quote from his column, then reprint many of his words:

Here’s the quote:

“He didn’t just experience a humble birth.  Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power.  As a child, he was a refugee.”

Consider those words for a moment.  Jesus was born in a humble place – a stable — and lived a humble life on earth.  He also did not pursue power for its own sake and submitted himself to a horrible death at the hands of those who opposed him.

And, “he was a refugee.”

If Donald Trump was alive in Jesus’ day, he would have proposed to deport him.  But, that’s enough of Trump for this blog; I’ll save more comments on the foreboding nature of his coming administration for another day.

What follows are excerpts from French’s column, plus a closing point from me.  And, why quote French?  He has credentials.  He is an American political commentator and former attorney.  He was formerly a fellow at the National Review Institute and a staff writer for National Review from 2015 to 2019.  And, also, he is a veteran of the Iraq War.

His column excerpts:

“Here’s a question I hear everywhere I go, including from fellow Christians:  Why are so many Christians so cruel?

“I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone say something like:  I’ve experienced blowback in the secular world, but nothing prepared me for church hate.  Christian believers can be especially angry and even sometimes vicious.

“It’s a simple question with a complicated answer, but that answer often begins with a particularly seductive temptation, one common to people of all faiths:  That the faithful, those who possess eternal truth, are entitled to rule.

“Under this construct, might makes right, and right deserves might.

“Most of us have sound enough moral instincts to reject the notion that might makes right.  Power alone is not a sufficient marker of righteousness.  

“We may watch people bow to power out of fear or awe, but yielding to power isn’t the same thing as acknowledging that it is legitimate or that it is just.

“The idea that right deserves might is different and may even be more destructive.  It appeals to our ambition through our virtue, which is what makes it especially treacherous.  It masks its darkness.  It begins with the idea that if you believe your ideas are just and right, then it’s a problem for everyone if you’re not in charge.

“There’s also a theological objection to the idea that right deserves might.  In Christian theology, Jesus was both God and man, a person without sin.  I’m fallen and flawed.  He is not.

“And how did this singular individual — this eternal being made flesh — approach power?  He rejected it, by word and by deed.  And it all began with Christmas.

“If a person is going to look for a coming king, the last place you’re going to start is in a stable.  But that humble birth presaged a humble life and the establishment of what my former pastor always called ‘the upside-down kingdom of God.’”

“Christ’s words were clear, and they cut against every human instinct of ambition and pride:

• “The last will be first.”

• “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

• “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

“Those were the words.  The deeds were just as clear.  He didn’t just experience a humble birth; Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power.  As a child, he was a refugee.

“And then, faced with the ultimate test — an unjust execution — right yielded to might.  The son of God allowed mortal men to torture and kill him, even though he could have freed himself from Rome’s deadly grasp.

“When Jesus did triumph, he didn’t triumph over Caesar.  He triumphed over death itself.  When he ascended into heaven after his resurrection, he left earth with Caesar still on the throne.

“My own attitude about Christmas has changed over the years.  A day that was once purely celebratory is now also profoundly humbling.  In many ways, the facts surrounding Christ’s birth are as important as the fact of Christ’s birth.  How he arrived was a signal of why he arrived:  To redeem hearts, not to rule nations.

“The way of Christ, by contrast, forecloses cruelty.  It requires compassion.  It inverts our moral compass, or at least it should.  We love rags-to-riches stories, for example, so if many of us were writing Christ’s story, we might begin with a manger, but we’d end with a throne.

“But Christ’s life began in a manger, and it ended on a cross.  He warned his followers that a cross could come for them as well.  An upside-down kingdom began with an upside-down birth.  

“When Jesus himself is humble, how do we justify our pride?”

And, I suggest, we should live by the words in Luke 6:38:  “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Doing good means taking care of others just as you take care of yourself —  not as a way to earn credit for God, but as a result of your salvation.

Take Jesus’ example as an axiom for your life, even as, again, we celebrate Christmas just around the corner.