The great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that "the chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men." I fear that in these Christmas debates, Christians are behaving not as Christians but as a tribe: "We will pound them if they get in the way of our customs and rituals." Tribal behavior is antithetical to the spirit of peace and goodwill. In this season, we ought to be taking the most expansive possible view of our obligations to others.