{"id":109,"date":"2010-12-28T11:09:15","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T11:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html"},"modified":"2010-12-28T11:09:15","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T11:09:15","slug":"christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html","title":{"rendered":"Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/0664234291.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"0664234291.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/83\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/0664234291-thumb-250x399-19805.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt\" height=\"399\" width=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Merry Christmas! Our devotions from Dietrich Bonhoeffer&#8217;s <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thethoughtfulchristian.com\/Products\/0664234291\/god-is-in-the-manger.aspx\">God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas<\/a><\/i> have passed through the waiting and mystery of Advent to the joy of Christmas. <\/p>\n<p>Much of that joy, at least for me, comes in being with family and friends at Christmas. But for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer\">Bonhoeffer<\/a> in the last few years of his life, all of these simple holiday pleasures were stripped away because of the war and his own imprisonment for defying the Nazis. Gone were the carols he loved to sing with his <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bonhoeffer_family\">highly musical family<\/a>. Gone were the presents, the visits, the special foods and traditions. Yet despite all this &#8212; or even because of it &#8212; his celebration was rich indeed. <\/p>\n<p>On December 17, 1943, Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents from prison:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>From the Christian point of view there is no special problem about Christmas in a prison cell. For many people in this building it will probably be a more sincere and genuine occasion than in places where nothing but the name is kept. The misery, suffering, poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt mean something quite different in the eyes of God from what they mean in the judgment of man, that God will approach where men turn away, that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn&#8211;these are things that a prisoner can understand better than other people; for him they really are glad tidings.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas! Our devotions from Dietrich Bonhoeffer&#8217;s God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas have passed through the waiting and mystery of Advent to the joy of Christmas. Much of that joy, at least for me, comes in being with family and friends at Christmas. But for Bonhoeffer in the last few&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5 - Flunking Sainthood<\/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\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5 - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Merry Christmas! Our devotions from Dietrich Bonhoeffer&#8217;s God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas have passed through the waiting and mystery of Advent to the joy of Christmas. Much of that joy, at least for me, comes in being with family and friends at Christmas. But for Bonhoeffer in the last few&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-28T11:09:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/0664234291-thumb-250x399-19805.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Riess\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5 - Flunking Sainthood","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\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5 - Flunking Sainthood","og_description":"Merry Christmas! Our devotions from Dietrich Bonhoeffer&#8217;s God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas have passed through the waiting and mystery of Advent to the joy of Christmas. Much of that joy, at least for me, comes in being with family and friends at Christmas. But for Bonhoeffer in the last few&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html","og_site_name":"Flunking Sainthood","article_published_time":"2010-12-28T11:09:15+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/0664234291-thumb-250x399-19805.jpg"}],"author":"Jana Riess","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html","name":"Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5 - Flunking Sainthood","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/0664234291-thumb-250x399-19805.jpg","datePublished":"2010-12-28T11:09:15+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-28T11:09:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/0664234291-thumb-250x399-19805.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/0664234291-thumb-250x399-19805.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/12\/christmas-with-dietrich-bonhoeffer-week-5.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Christmas with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Week 5"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/","name":"Flunking Sainthood","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jana Riess","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/?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\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8","name":"Jana Riess","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","caption":"Jana Riess"},"description":"Jana Riess is the author of Flunking Sainthood, a 2011 book about failing at twelve different spiritual practices. She is also currently working on The Twible, a three-year Twitter project with humorous daily Bible updates for your amusement (find her on Twitter as @janariess). She has a few silly degrees from swanky schools but was never once able to climb the rope in gym class. Her spiritual director is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/author\/jriess"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}