{"id":23,"date":"2007-12-06T11:05:30","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T11:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html"},"modified":"2007-12-06T11:05:30","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T11:05:30","slug":"what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html","title":{"rendered":"What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is there a lesson for modern Christians in the story of Hanukkah?  Yes, says Ted Olson in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2007\/december\/14.18.html\">this provocative article <\/a> he posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/ChristianityToday.com\">ChristianityToday.com<\/a>.  Olson recounts the story of how Judah Maccabee and his band of warriors successfully rebelled against efforts by the Syrian King Antiochus IV to integrate the Jews into Greek religion and culture.  In the story, Olson sees a metaphor that should humble any Christian who believes that it is his or her right to say &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; to anyone, regardless of their faith.<br \/>\nTo these folks, Olson says, &#8220;<em>Just <\/em>say Merry Christmas? To everyone? Regardless of whether they actually celebrate Jesus&#8217; birth? To borrow a line from Band Aid (creators of the worst holiday song of all time), &#8220;Do they know it&#8217;s Hanukkah?&#8221; For the story of Hanukkah ironically sheds light on the aggressive &#8220;Merry Christmas!&#8221; trend.&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2007\/december\/14.18.html\">Click here <\/a>to read Olson&#8217;s entire essay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there a lesson for modern Christians in the story of Hanukkah? Yes, says Ted Olson in this provocative article he posted on ChristianityToday.com. Olson recounts the story of how Judah Maccabee and his band of warriors successfully rebelled against efforts by the Syrian King Antiochus IV to integrate the Jews into Greek religion and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hanukkah"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians - 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\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians - December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is there a lesson for modern Christians in the story of Hanukkah? Yes, says Ted Olson in this provocative article he posted on ChristianityToday.com. Olson recounts the story of how Judah Maccabee and his band of warriors successfully rebelled against efforts by the Syrian King Antiochus IV to integrate the Jews into Greek religion and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-06T11:05:30+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":"What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians - 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\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians - December Dilemma Watch 2007","og_description":"Is there a lesson for modern Christians in the story of Hanukkah? Yes, says Ted Olson in this provocative article he posted on ChristianityToday.com. Olson recounts the story of how Judah Maccabee and his band of warriors successfully rebelled against efforts by the Syrian King Antiochus IV to integrate the Jews into Greek religion and&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html","og_site_name":"December Dilemma Watch 2007","article_published_time":"2007-12-06T11:05:30+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\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html","name":"What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians - December Dilemma Watch 2007","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-06T11:05:30+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-06T11:05:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/what-hanukkah-can-teach-christ.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Hanukkah Can Teach Christians"}]},{"@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\/23","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=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}