It will have been noted that again and again in Life Together we see Bonhoeffer’s abiding commitment to the person and authority of Jesus Christ: it is Jesus Christ who is the leader and authority of the community. In fact, it almost seems from Bonhoeffer’s description that apart from Jesus Christ, a Christian community is a leaderless community: it is wrong for one person to act as confessor to all the community, because that would place an unnecessary burden upon the shoulders of the confessor, which may lead to “the exercise of spiritual tyranny over souls.”¹ Although Bonhoeffer mentions “head of the house” (hausvater), he only does so once, and in the context of the person offering extemporaneous prayer at evening prayer². If we accept that Bonhoeffer’s description of Christian community is a valid one for parish ministry, then where does that leave the parish priest, as hausvater or Weaver?

The first point to make is that although the seminary in Finkenwalde might appear to be a leaderless community from the description in Life Together, in practice, it was anything but. Eberhard Bethge’s memoir of Bonhoeffer shows the reality. Bonhoeffer, we are told, “did not look kindly on attempts to evade [the necessary] daily routine”. His capacity for hard work and “his ability to interrupt work for play without ever falling behind sometimes made him unjust towards others who were toiling night and day in preparation for some examination.” His manner, like his preaching style, was “startlingly direct”³. And yet, most of Bonhoeffer’s leadership was modelled by example:

A request arrived from the kitchen for help with the washing-up but there were no immediate volunteers. Without saying a word Bonhoeffer arose from the table, disappeared into the kitchen and refused admission to those who hastened to follow suit. Later, when he rejoined the students on the beach, he made no comment. And in Finkenwalde many a student was to discover with shame that someone else had made his bed in the big dormitory.⁴

Bonhoeffer’s role as hausvater enabled the Finkenwalde community to begin the transformation from a collection of individuals to a community. Bonhoeffer was the pump-primer, allowing the community to place itself, penultimately and ultimately (to use a favourite Bonhoeffer motif), under the authority of Christ.

1. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 116. [↩]
2. “The extemporaneous prayer at the close of daily worship normally will be said by the head of the house. But in any case it is best that it is always said by the same person. That places an unexpected responsibility on this person…”. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 69. [↩]
3. Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pp. 349, 351, 363. [↩]
4. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 350. [↩]