{"id":18,"date":"2007-12-04T10:30:21","date_gmt":"2007-12-04T10:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html"},"modified":"2007-12-04T10:30:21","modified_gmt":"2007-12-04T10:30:21","slug":"a-short-history-of-removing-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html","title":{"rendered":"A Short History of Removing the &#8220;Christ&#8221; from &#8220;Christmas&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/atheism.about.com\/od\/christmasholidayseason\/p\/SecularChristma.htm\">new article <\/a>by Austin Cline, a regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, attempts to dismiss the idea that Christmas is being stripped of its religious meaning in modern times by proving that such secularization began ages ago.<br \/>\nCline, who published &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/atheism.about.com\/od\/christmasholidayseason\/p\/SecularChristma.htm\">Secularizing Christmas Holidays<\/a>&#8221; on <a href=\"http:\/\/About.com\">About.com<\/a>, argues that a number of holidays, from Michaelmas to Candlemas, have disappeared from the Christian liturgical calendar over the centuries, opening the door for holidays like Christmas to be expanded into the flurry of secular consumerism that it is today.<br \/>\nCline takes special aim at those Christian groups that accuse retail stores of undermining Christmas by saying &#8220;Happy Holidays&#8221; instead of &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221; &#8220;Christians want retailers to defend against the secularization of Christmas,&#8221; he writes.  &#8220;This is an error because retailers are the primary reason for secularization.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new article by Austin Cline, a regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, attempts to dismiss the idea that Christmas is being stripped of its religious meaning in modern times by proving that such secularization began ages ago. Cline, who published &#8220;Secularizing Christmas Holidays&#8221; on About.com, argues that a number of holidays, from&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Short History of Removing the &quot;Christ&quot; from &quot;Christmas&quot; - December Dilemma Watch 2007<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Short History of Removing the &quot;Christ&quot; from &quot;Christmas&quot; - December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new article by Austin Cline, a regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, attempts to dismiss the idea that Christmas is being stripped of its religious meaning in modern times by proving that such secularization began ages ago. Cline, who published &#8220;Secularizing Christmas Holidays&#8221; on About.com, argues that a number of holidays, from&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-04T10:30:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Short History of Removing the \"Christ\" from \"Christmas\" - December Dilemma Watch 2007","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Short History of Removing the \"Christ\" from \"Christmas\" - December Dilemma Watch 2007","og_description":"A new article by Austin Cline, a regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, attempts to dismiss the idea that Christmas is being stripped of its religious meaning in modern times by proving that such secularization began ages ago. Cline, who published &#8220;Secularizing Christmas Holidays&#8221; on About.com, argues that a number of holidays, from&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html","og_site_name":"December Dilemma Watch 2007","article_published_time":"2007-12-04T10:30:21+00:00","author":"hrossi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html","name":"A Short History of Removing the \"Christ\" from \"Christmas\" - December Dilemma Watch 2007","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-04T10:30:21+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-04T10:30:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/a-short-history-of-removing-th.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Short History of Removing the &#8220;Christ&#8221; from &#8220;Christmas&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/","name":"December Dilemma Watch 2007","description":"Winter Holidays Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687","name":"hrossi","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","caption":"hrossi"},"description":"Holly Lebowitz Rossi is Beliefnet's Health and Relationships Editor. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}