Friends with a Mandate: Friendship and Family in Bonhoeffer’s Ecclesiology

Ethics: Marriage/Family and the Other Mandates

There are two passages in Ethics where Bonhoeffer presents his account of the mandates. The first can be found at the end of ‘Christ, Reality and Good’, the chapter that the critical edition places at the very beginning of the manuscript. ¹⁰ Here, the discussion of the mandates follows Bonhoeffer’s articulation of what is arguably his main claim throughout Ethics. Christian ethics, Bonhoeffer explains, does not start where other traditions of moral inquiry might, namely from the concept of ‘the good’, or goodness as a quality of either agents or acts. For Bonhoeffer the starting point lies rather in God’s will as revealed in Jesus Christ. Only God is the ‘ultimate reality’, which implies that only God truly is the source of all goodness. This does not mean, however, that the reality of God is opposed to the reality of the world—as in moral philosophy, where the good often functions like an ideal with which reality needs to be brought into line. Such opposition, Bonhoeffer emphasises, is theologically unsustainable. For in Christ, the reality of the world and the reality of God are revealed as ultimately one. To know the world in Christ is to know it as God’s creation, destined for the Kingdom of God. And despite our experience of evil and disintegration, Christ is our assurance that already the world and God are reconciled. ¹¹

Certainly, Christian ethics involves transformation, as Bonhoeffer explains at length in the following chapter. ¹² Yet this process is not about subjecting oneself, and the world more generally, to certain abstract principles. For in Christ—in his incarnation, cross and resurrection—God’s reality has already taken shape in the world. The moral transformation that Bonhoeffer envisages, therefore, is rather a process through which the reality of God’s revelation and saving work in Christ (as affirmed and expounded in doctrine) is not so much applied as being realised (Wirklichwerden) in a still fallen world. ¹³ Christian ethics, then, is primarily concerned with formation (Gestaltung), the process of being ‘conformed’ to Christ.

This profound unity of reality in Christ means that we must resist the temptation that, according to Bonhoeffer, the Church has often failed to resist: the temptation of regressing into ‘spatial thinking’ (Raumdenken), which separates reality into alleged profane and sacred spheres. ¹⁴ It is at this point that Bonhoeffer introduces his notion of the divine ‘mandates’, the main areas of life where formation takes place: marriage and family (Ehe), work (Arbeit), government and civic life (Obrigkeit), and Church (Kirche). Each of these, while thoroughly worldly, is constituted by God’s command for it. ¹⁵

Bonhoeffer further develops his account of the mandates in ‘The Concrete Commandment and the Divine Mandates’, the second relevant passage in Ethics, positioned at the end of the critical edition. ¹⁶ Sadly, Bonhoeffer never completed even a first draft of this chapter; the only mandate he managed to describe in any detail is the Church. Nevertheless, the chapter opens with a section on the mandates in general, which elaborates on the discussion in the earlier chapter. ¹⁷ To use the term ‘mandates’, Bonhoeffer explains here, is to emphasise the fact that the four spheres identified are no more than embodiments of God’s command (Gebot) for human society. Bonhoeffer suggests the term ‘mandate’ as a better alternative to the more traditional ‘order’ (Ordnung), ‘estate’ (Stand) or ‘office’ (Amt). ¹⁸ For him, ‘mandate’ gives expression to the Creator’s authorisation to which these spheres owe their existence in the first place. And since God’s will is one, they cannot be separated from each other without being distorted. We should rather regard them as closely ordered alongside and towards one another, as well as helpfully limited by each other (a notion to which we shall return later). ¹⁹ Thus Bonhoeffer once again draws attention to the profound unity that obtains between God’s will and worldly reality. We should not be blinded, then, by the apparent hostility we might experience between the various walks of life—an insight that is relevant to our main topic here. Just as creation is rich in dimensions and yet coherent, so the mandates, too, are different yet all bound by the same divine will. ²⁰

Bonhoeffer goes on to note that in each of these mandates God’s command establishes structures and relationships of authority. Some people are charged with specific roles of responsibility, whereas others owe them obedience and support. The former are placed ‘above’ (oben), the latter ‘below’ (unten). The farmhand (Knecht), for example, ought to obey the landlord (Herr). ²¹ Given the unfinished state of the chapter, we can only guess how Bonhoeffer might have applied this generic order to husband and wife (in marriage)—or indeed parents and children (in family). Our guess can be informed, however, by the wedding sermon he wrote in 1943 for his friend Bethge and his wife Renate (Bonhoeffer’s niece). ²² Here Bonhoeffer sticks to a traditional understanding of marital order: the husband, as the ‘head’ of his wife (1 Cor. 11:3) and the household, is called to represent his ‘house’ in public life; the wife ought to support and follow him. The husband holds a divinely ordained office; he acts on behalf of his household, ultimately as a representative of God. Indeed, in that role the husband is called to represent his household before God as well, for example when interceding on their behalf. ²³ This is very much in line, of course, with what Bonhoeffer writes in Ethics about the basic order in each of the mandates: one party holds a position of responsibility (‘above’), the other one of obedience (‘below’).

To our ears, Bonhoeffer’s account of the mandates, and of marriage in particular, may sound old-fashioned, authoritarian, and indeed patriarchal (as, indeed, it did to some of his contemporaries ²⁴ ). Yet we should also note that for Bonhoeffer all human authority is strictly derived from divine authority. The human person in authority is ‘merely’ a functionary, mediating God’s authority towards those under his care. He owes respect to those ‘below’ as much as they owe him respect; they retain their own responsibility to discern and obey God’s command. ²⁵

The Church as Mandate—and More

In each mandate, then, God’s command takes shape in a particular set of purposes and tasks, establishing specific structures of human responsibility and authority. It soon becomes clear, however, that in the case of the Church things turn out to be a bit more complex. The Church is constituted by the same divine command, of course. And, as with the other mandates, that command takes a particular historical form. In the Church, God’s command implies a charge to proclaim God’s Word, a task that comes with particular structures of authority. ²⁶ Yet, despite this formal similarity to the other mandates and their respective authority structures, the mandate Church is also one of a kind. Unlike the other mandates, the Church is not easily identified with a particular dimension of creation (in the way that, for example, marriage corresponds to procreation). Indeed, Bonhoeffer himself acknowledges that the specific task given to the Church suggests it has a rather unique role among the other mandates. Its existence is focused outward: it proclaims God’s Word not just for its own wellbeing but for the sake of the world, including the other mandates. It gives witness to the lordship of the crucified and risen Christ in order that the world may be saved from the distorting power of sin, and restored to genuine creaturely existence before God. ²⁷ The Church, then, stands out because of the universal scope of its witness. Bonhoeffer is quick to point out that from this we may not conclude that the Church has temporal power and authority over the other mandates. ²⁸ The Church’s task is one of service, wholly instrumental to the redemption of the world—and therein only lies the unique character and role of the Church.

But the situation is more complex still. Indeed, had he left it at that, Bonhoeffer would have betrayed a key principle in his own ecclesiology, as formulated in his dissertation Communio Sanctorum (1930). ²⁹ In the spirit of that earlier work, he goes on here to point out that the Church, despite its highly functional nature, has a distinct social form nonetheless. Around the task of proclaiming God’s Word, a concrete historical community (Gemeinde) is formed. The Church, then, is not merely a function, but a concrete body of people with its own social reality; a people who, apart from following Christ in the various mandates (family, work, civic society), seek to perform their task of proclamation also by way of living a common life. This task, Bonhoeffer explains, depends on the concrete Church community just as seed depends on soil for its nourishment. ³⁰ This does not mean that the Church is merely one social domain among others, after all. For even in its concrete social and historical embodiment, it remains ordered towards proclamation—for the sake of the world. Thus the church’s social existence is ‘vicarious representative’ (stellvertretend) in character; it is a community called to step into the place of the world, representing it before God, after Christ’s own example of vicariously representing humanity (and indeed creation) in his life, death and resurrection. ³¹ In fact, whenever the Church lives and acts on behalf of the world, God’s redemption of the world is further actualised. In holding the world’s place, the Church becomes the very place where God’s ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5:17) takes shape. The Church, then, precisely in being an instrument (Mittel) of God’s redemption, is also the very centre (Mittelpunkt) of the world’s renewal. These moments, Bonhoeffer explains, are in fact two sides of the same coin—the two dimensions of a single vicarious representative dynamic. ³²

As will become clearer later on, this account of the Church’s role vis-à-vis the other mandates can help in thinking through the relation between family and friendship as well. In particular, Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the Church’s vicarious representative ministry in the world will stimulate reflection on the specific ways in which family and friendship might give expression to that ministry. But before we come to that, let us first turn to the correspondence between Bonhoeffer and Bethge on family and friendship.

Friendship and Marriage: Bonhoeffer Learning from Bethge

From the passages in Ethics we get a sense of Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the mandates and their function within his ethics as a whole. From his correspondence with Bethge, in the period directly following his work on Ethics, it is clear that he continued to reflect on the mandates. In a number of letters, written between November 1943 and August 1944—when Bonhoeffer was in prison and Bethge was mostly abroad serving in the army—the friends exchanged thoughts on friendship, marriage and the mandates. ³³

The conversation starts in the very first letter Bonhoeffer was able to send to Bethge since his imprisonment (18 November 1943). ³⁴ Among the many news items and thoughts Bonhoeffer is keen to share with his friend is a comment on Bethge’s recent marriage to Bonhoeffer’s niece Renate. He observes that his being unable to spend time with them right now, in the early days of their married life, might actually be good for them. Bonhoeffer alludes here to the ‘conflict’ between friendship and marriage, but adds that Eberhard and Renate have been spared in this respect. ³⁵ Bonhoeffer doesn’t elaborate, but he appears to be thinking of the tension between loyalty to one’s friend(s) and loyalty to one’s spouse. And the reason this tension does not apply for Bethge, presumably, is that Bonhoeffer is not only Bethge’s friend, but also Renate’s uncle. So in this case, fortunately, the domains of friendship and family overlap. Bethge, in his reply (30 November 1943 ³⁶ ), tells Bonhoeffer how happy he is to be married: he rejoices in the stability that married life brings, especially in view of the fleetingness of other relationships and circumstances. Bonhoeffer, in response (16 December 1943 ³⁷ ), agrees with Bethge’s description of marriage, yet then suggests that friendship, too, may be counted among the stable realities in life. ³⁸ Bethge disagrees: in his next letter (2 January 1944 ³⁹ ) he describes how recent experience has taught him that friendship lacks the public recognition enjoyed by marriage and family. However strong a friendship might be, its strength does not command much authority in society. Their friendship is a case in point: whenever a letter by Bonhoeffer arrives from prison, Bethge reminds him, it makes the rounds through the entire Bonhoeffer family before he gets a chance to read it as well, and not without some effort on his part. And the same principle works in the military, Bethge points out: the only people entitled to communications with those on the battlefield are next of kin. Marriage enjoys immediate recognition in society, formally, without the need to prove itself. Friendship has nothing to rely on except its intrinsic qualities. Friendship, Bethge observes, lacks the ‘necessitas’ ⁴⁰ of marriage and family. And that, Bethge concludes, is why he has found his marriage to be a source of strength and calm.

While Bethge does not explicitly refer to Bonhoeffer’s writings, his account of married life chimes with Bonhoeffer’s own emphasis on the institutional nature of marriage (as articulated in Ethics and in the wedding sermon for Bethge and Renate). It is no surprise, therefore, that Bonhoeffer, in his reply to Bethge (23 January 1944 ⁴¹ ), accepts Bethge’s contrasting of marriage and friendship. Yet he does not give up on his initial proposal altogether, wondering if friendship might still occupy its proper place within society, and not just on its margins. What then follows is effectively a revision of his account of the mandates in Ethics. ⁴² Bonhoeffer starts by suggesting that friendship is at home in the domains of culture, education and play—in the same way that ‘fraternity’ is at home in church life, and ‘comradeship’ in the context of work and politics. Friendship, together with culture, education and play, constitute not so much another mandate—another domain of obedience to God’s command—but rather a ‘playground of freedom’ (Spielraum der Freiheit) which surrounds the mandates. ⁴³ In other words, the mandates do not exhaust the dimensions of human life:

Someone who doesn’t know anything of this sphere of freedom can be a good parent, citizen, and worker, and probably also be a Christian, but whether such a person is a full human being (and thus also a Christian in the fullest sense) is questionable to me. ⁴⁴

Whereas the mandates and the ‘necessities’ of creaturely life are governed by God’s command, friendship flourishes—together with education, culture and play—in relative freedom. Yet, instead of driving a wedge between the mandates and this sphere of freedom, Bonhoeffer proposes a more subtle relationship: the goods enjoyed in the sphere of freedom, he suggests, relate to the mandates in the way that a cornflower belongs to a cornfield: the former grows independently from the latter, yet also belongs to it.

Bonhoeffer uses this agricultural metaphor again in ‘The Friend’, the poem he wrote for Bethge’s birthday, later that year (29 August 1944), - and which proved to be the final (written) word exchanged between him and Bethge on the matter of friendship and marriage. ⁴⁵ The poem opens with the same image: like a cornflower blooming alongside the purposeful corn, friendship grows up alongside the domains and relationships of life that are defined by creaturely necessities and purposes—marriage (Ehe), work (Arbeit) and the State (Schwert). Not only does Bonhoeffer here emphasise the difference between friendship and the mandates (including marriage), deferring to the views Bethge had expressed in response to Bonhoeffer’s initial musings; he also adds further contrast by using the more traditional ‘order’ (Ordnung) instead of ‘mandate’. In addition, the orders are qualified as ‘earthy’, jealously self-protective in the face of unnatural disorder. ⁴⁶ Like the soil from which the corn draws its nutrition, the orders (mandates) have a certain ‘gravitas’ (Gewicht), especially when compared with friendship, which flourishes for no fixed purpose. ⁴⁷ From his earlier letter to Bethge, Bonhoeffer also picks up again the theme of freedom. Throughout the poem freedom emerges as the key characteristic of friendship—in the form of playfulness between youthful companions, for example, or accountability among adult friends.

Returning to the letter of 23 January 1944, we should note one more element in Bonhoeffer’s reflections. We saw that Bonhoeffer introduces the idea of a ‘sphere of freedom’ that surrounds the mandates, a sphere where friendship is at home. He goes on to observe, however, that this sphere has come under pressure, not least from a Protestant-Prussian culture that tends to over-emphasise the importance of the mandates. Intriguingly, he then goes on to suggest that ‘today’ the Church might be the only place where this sphere of freedom is preserved—in the face of excessive utilitarian demands or moralistic misgivings: ‘Who in our time could, for example, lightheartedly make music, nurture friendship, play, and be happy? Certainly not the “ethical” person, but only the Christian.’ ⁴⁸

Given the tentative nature of Bonhoeffer’s reflections, one is left guessing exactly what he has in mind here. One thing is clear, however: Bonhoeffer no longer regards the Church as just one mandate among others. Indeed, the poem doesn’t mention the Church at all. While this is no doubt mainly for poetic reasons, it may also mark a shift in his thinking—a shift that, as we saw, already started in Ethics. It seems as if his ongoing reflections on friendship, stimulated by his exchange with Bethge, leads him to relinquish a typology of the mandates that already proved less than satisfactory in Ethics. ⁴⁹ The Church is distinct in that it exists wholly for the sake of the world, including the other mandates. What is more, the Church is presented as the champion of ‘humanity’—the living of life to the full. Humanity in this sense requires a sphere of freedom; yet this freedom, Bonhoeffer suggests, is now at risk of being encroached upon by the mandates. In a culture that values order and necessity, like Bonhoeffer’s own ‘protestant-Prussian’ culture (as he describes it), the goods of education, culture, play and friendship are easily sacrificed to the ‘necessities’ of family, work and political order. Moreover, with regard to the particular moment in history at which Bonhoeffer wrote these thoughts, it is not difficult to imagine how existing prejudices against less ordered or useful enterprises were exacerbated by Nazi ideology, as well as the severe constraints of an increasingly desperate war.

But, how exactly should we imagine the Church to sustain this sphere of freedom? Does it take on this role in dark times only, such as Bonhoeffer’s own days, or are we to envisage a more permanent alliance? Should we perhaps understand it as an aspect of the Church’s ‘vicarious representative’ role vis-à-vis the world, which the Church adopts from Christ himself (as Bonhoeffer suggests in Sanctorum Communio and Ethics)? But if that is so, then what about the other mandates, including marriage and family: how are these affected, if at all, by the Church’s advocacy of freedom?

Again, we can only guess how Bonhoeffer might have answered these and similar questions. In what follows I will endeavour to use Bonhoeffer’s work creatively to articulate my own answers. First, drawing on Bonhoeffer’s reflections just outlined, I will consider what it might mean for the Church to provide a place for friendship (and freedom more generally), and what it means for friendship thus to be drawn into the sphere of the Church. I will then go on to explore how friendship, as an expression of Church, might contribute to the Church’s vicarious ministry towards the mandates, and to marriage and family in particular.

Church as Friendship

One way of answering the first question—how the Church might provide a place for friendship, and what this means for friendship—is to reach back to Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology as set out in his earlier work Sanctorum Communio. It is here that Bonhoeffer explores at length the notion that we already encountered in Ethics; namely, that for the Church to follow the example of its Lord, Jesus Christ, is to participate in his ‘vicarious representative’ (stellvertretend) life, death and resurrection.

In Ethics, we saw that this notion of vicarious representation functions as the principle underlying the various roles of responsibility and authority in the various mandates. Vicarious representation, while primarily Christ’s role towards creation, is also the ultimate pattern for creaturely responsibility and authority. ⁵⁰ Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology in Sanctorum Communio, however, is crucial for understanding how he sees the connection between Christ’s vicarious representation on the one hand, and the multiple ways in which Christians might be called to act vicariously after his example on the other. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss ‘vicarious representation’ as the organising principle of Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology. ⁵¹ Yet, for our purposes here, it is important to note that ecclesiology plays an important role in Bonhoeffer’s ethics. The Church is where Christ takes concrete social form in the world. Christ’s current presence in the world is ‘Christ existing as church-community’, as Bonhoeffer repeatedly states. ⁵² The Christian calling to live and act vicariously in the world begins with learning to act vicariously towards one’s brothers and sisters in Christ. And Bonhoeffer identifies three specific vicarious representative practices, which he considers to be defining for the life of the Church. These are sacrificial service to the other, intercessory prayer, and mutual forgiveness (together with hearing confession). ⁵³ While some of these practices are often performed through formalised ministry and liturgy, in their basic form they are given to all Christians; and as such they are by definition reciprocal. Thus the vicarious representative ministry that Christians are called to exercise is limited not only by Christ’s primary and indeed ‘exclusive’ vicarious representation of humanity, ⁵⁴ but also by the ministry of fellow Christians. ⁵⁵ Thus, while taking responsibility for others sometimes has to be unilateral, in emergency situations for example, ⁵⁶ for members of the body of Christ vicarious representation is basically a reciprocal affair. The ‘life together’ of brothers and sisters is the blueprint for the Church’s vicarious representative service to the world.

This point about reciprocity is relevant to our question about the relation between friendship and the Church. For the pattern of reciprocal service, described by Bonhoeffer in Sanctorum Communio, is arguably a natural component of friendship, too. Other relationships, in spheres such as family, work, education and government, involve forms of vicarious representation as well (although these would normally be described in terms of responsibility and authority). Yet here, of course, vicarious representation tends to be determined by the specific context, exercised through roles that are not reciprocal. We need not adopt Bonhoeffer’s rather patriarchal account of marriage, for example, to realise that parenting, education, law enforcement and indeed ordained Church ministry all involve non-reciprocal structures of responsibility and authority. The same is not necessarily true, however, of friendship: there is nothing to keep friends from ‘taking turns’ in being the other’s ‘advocate’. Indeed, nothing keeps them from taking turns in making sacrifices, interceding for the other, and hearing confession—the three practices highlighted in Sanctorum Communio.

To make this connection is not to suggest, of course, that those engaging in reciprocal service are necessarily friends—or that only friends can serve each other in the way described by Bonhoeffer. Indeed, friendship consists of more than reciprocity alone. The point is rather that friendships offer distinct opportunities for developing Christ-like practices of reciprocal service: practices that are likely to be more enduring, powerful and formative than those engaged in by acquaintances or strangers. Or, to put it differently: in view of Jesus’ words in Jn 15:12-17 one might say that on the ‘horizon’ of every encounter that allows for mutual service to flourish, there is at least a promise of friendship. ⁵⁷

This notion of friendship as a powerful embodiment of the Church is borne out, in fact, by Bonhoeffer’s own friendship with Bethge. One enduring element in their story is the habit of assuming vicarious representative roles for the sake of the other, in ways rather similar to the ecclesial practices Bonhoeffer had identified in Sanctorum Communio. ⁵⁸ One can recognise the element of sacrifice, for example, in Bonhoeffer’s remarkable generosity towards Bethge, in the form of gifts and financial assistance. ⁵⁹ We may also note Bethge’s life-long devotion to his friend’s theological legacy. Relevant too are Bonhoeffer’s thoughts in Ethics on suicide as a last resort to avoid torture, and hence to protect one’s friends against forced betrayal. ⁶⁰ As for intercessory prayer and confession (and declaring God’s forgiveness), the two friends had begun to practise these as regular disciplines during their time at Finkenwalde. And their correspondence suggests that they continued to pray for each other regularly long after that period, aided by a lectionary they both used. Back at Finkenwalde, Bonhoeffer had asked Bethge to be his confessor, and in his letters Bonhoeffer continues to turn to Bethge in that role. In his first letter from prison, the one referred to already, he asks Bethge to forgive him for foolish behaviour in the past, and to pray for him as he struggles with depression and self-reproach. ⁶¹ And while Bonhoeffer’s expectations of mutual confession, absolution and intercession may have been higher than Bethge’s, there is no reason to doubt that Bethge continued to pray for his friend. Indeed, from the correspondence it is clear how much he, too, had come to value the pattern of intense mutual support and counsel that had developed between them. ⁶²

Thus we see glimpses of a friendship that embodies key features of the life of the Church in particularly powerful ways. This affinity between friendship and the ‘community of the saints’ is perhaps behind Bonhoeffer’s suggestion to Bethge, in his letter from January 1944, that the Church provides the freedom within which friendship can flourish. That is to say: friendship may be free and reciprocal by its very nature, especially when compared to the mandates; yet it is in the Church—under the rule of Christ, which sets us free to serve one another vicariously after his example (beyond the more determined responsibilities within the mandates)—that friendship can really flourish, as a particularly powerful expression of Christian fellowship.

This line of interpretation, incidentally, should not be taken into the direction of ideology—for example, one that relegates friendship to a sphere of pure freedom, and the mandates to one of pure necessity. Certainly, Bonhoeffer himself sometimes seems to come close to such dualism, especially in the opening lines of his poem ‘The Friend’ alluded to earlier. The fragile beauty of friendship (like the cornflower) is easily turned into the ‘spiritual’ antithesis of the ‘earthy’ instrumentality of the mandates. Yet, while Bonhoeffer sometimes seems to flirt with such contrasting of spirit and necessity, it should be remembered that elsewhere he emphasises the unity of God’s creation (Ethics); and that friendship and the mandates belong together, like the cornflower belongs to the cornfield (letter from January 1944). Friendship, in other words, is part of the fabric of created human society. Vice versa, the roles that define the mandates can become occasions for friendship, as exemplified by his friendship with Bethge (as Bonhoeffer acknowledges, in pointing to comradeship in the sphere of work and political life). If friendship is more vulnerable than other relationships, then perhaps it is because friendship is more exposed to the specific necessity of time. As friends grow up, moving on to different walks of life, their friendship can easily fade. As Bethge had pointed out, friendship has nothing but its intrinsic quality to depend on; it cannot rely on a social form that is publicly recognised. ⁶³ Marriage, of course, is vulnerable to the same onslaught of time. Yet the vow to remain faithful, regardless of what the future holds, in store belongs to the very rationale of marriage, in a way that does not hold for friendship. ⁶⁴

That said, we may sympathise with Bonhoeffer’s lament that his culture has little time for friendship, and for the other ‘free’ practices. Especially under the severe circumstances he faces when reflecting on friendship, ‘necessity’ can indeed become the enemy of freedom: not just the free practices of friendship, culture, education and play, but even the relative freedoms of family, professional and civic life. It must have seemed nigh impossible for Bonhoeffer and Bethge, and their wider circle of friends and relatives, to maintain the integrity of these spheres and practices in the face of Nazi terror. ⁶⁵ It is in view of these pressures that Bonhoeffer’s suggestion about the Church as a haven makes good sense. For if the Church’s task is to stand vicariously in the place of the other mandates (as Bonhoeffer suggests in Ethics); and if friendship cannot survive apart from the mandates; then the security of friendship lies in the community of the Church, especially at times when even the traditional mandates have been swept away by totalitarian ideology and terror. Transformed into a powerful expression of the ‘Church existing as church-community’, friendship is set free from ‘alien laws’ ⁶⁶ —not so much laws intrinsic to the mandates as those adhered to by a culture that actively opposes God’s will for humanity.

One might object that friendship, thus drawn into the sphere of the Church, is once again subordinated—this time to the seemingly limitless demand for vicarious representative service implied by Christ’s example (and by the suffering of our neighbour ⁶⁷ ). Yet, as pointed out earlier, for Bonhoeffer such demands are strictly limited: first, by Christ’s exclusive representation of humanity, the very basis for our participation in that ministry; and secondly, by the service of fellow members of the body of Christ, who we are to receive as friends in Christ. ⁶⁸ As Bonhoeffer notes in Ethics, in reflecting on the responsibility shaped by Christ: ‘There can never be an absolute responsibility that does not find its essential limit in the responsibility of the other person.’ ⁶⁹

The upshot of these free reflections on Bonhoeffer’s letter from January 1944, then, is that friendship can be transformed into a powerful illustration and embodiment of Christ’s rule, combining freedom and limitation: we are freed from alien demands, and freed for Christ-like service; and our responsibility to serve others is also helpfully limited by the responsibility borne by Christ and our neighbour. We may hear echoes of this in the latter part of Bonhoeffer’s poem ‘The Friend’. Here he turns to friendship in its more mature form, as when one learns to entrust oneself to a friend ‘totally open … freely and in truth’, yet also ‘bound’ to him. One ‘willingly submits’, not to ‘command’ or ‘alien laws and doctrines’, but to the friend’s counsel or even rebuke, which doesn’t diminish but ‘liberates’. Thus ‘one recognises in the other the true helper towards freedom and humanity’. ⁷⁰ Interestingly, the word ‘spirit’ (Geist) occurs nine times. In it we may find an implicit allusion to the rule of Christ, which is of course the rule of the Holy Spirit, who leads those incorporated into the body of Christ so that they might produce the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:16-26).

Friendship’s Mandate for Family

Given this ‘fit’ between friendship as experienced by Bonhoeffer, and the life of the Church as described by him, we can make the following step and consider how friendship might play a part in the Church’s ministry to the world, including the other mandates (as described in Ethics). Thus we turn to our second question: drawn into the sphere of the Church, how might friendship contribute to the Church’s renewal of the mandate of marriage and family? What might be friendship’s particular service—its ‘mandate’, if you like—towards marriage and family?

As noted already, ‘vicarious representation’ is a key concept in Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics. Just as friendship brings unique opportunities for Christ-like vicarious representation, so marriage and family life, too, have their own versions of vicarious representative roles. These may be more anchored in creaturely purposes, in the sense that parental care of children is rooted in (if not limited to) human procreation. Yet they are not for that reason unable to express something of Christ’s vicarious representation of humanity. And this is important for understanding exactly what kind of service friendship might render to family and marriage. In line with Bonhoeffer’s comment in Ethics about the mandates helpfully ‘limiting’ each other, ⁷¹ let me re-frame the question as follows: how might vicarious representation as practised amongst friends inform and sustain vicarious representative roles that are at home in marriage and family? And might the support be mutual?

First, while Bonhoeffer (or indeed Bethge) might have disagreed, one could argue that a marital relationship is itself a kind of friendship—or at least nothing less than that. Therefore, whatever ‘mandate’ friendship might have towards marriage (and family), it is likely to be one that is undertaken from within marriage as much as from outside. The pattern of reciprocal sacrifice, intercession and forgiveness is surely one we may expect to find in Christian marriage as much as in Christian friendship. ⁷² That said, friendship extends beyond and indeed flourishes outside marriage as well, in the friendships of those who are not married to each other, or not married at all. And herein, perhaps, lies the first salutary reminder that is embodied by friendship; namely, that Christian spouses are, and remain, fellow disciples, brothers and sisters and indeed friends ‘in Christ’—and not just sexual partners, parents, and so on.

Friendship involves a further salutary reminder to those who share Bonhoeffer’s patriarchal understanding of marriage, assigning different roles to husband and wife respectively. For if it is the husband’s exclusive role to represent his household before God, then we can see how friendship provides a healthy counter-balance to such responsibility. As long as he continues to be a friend—of his wife as well as of others—the husband will be reminded that his vicarious representative role is strictly limited and functional, regulated by and directly accountable to Christ’s responsibility.

Yet, apart from the spousal relationship, we also need to consider the relations that develop when a marriage develops into a family. While few today would accept Bonhoeffer’s patriarchal understanding of marriage, even the most liberal-minded among us would struggle to deny that a hierarchical relationship obtains between parents (or guardians) and their children, at least while the latter are minors. Indeed, parents of infants and young children are quintessential ‘vicarious representatives’: they live and act on behalf of their children, holding their place in society for as long as these are unable to do so themselves, utterly dependent as they are on their parents’ care. However much we may wish to abdicate our roles as ‘pastors and masters’, we cannot deny that we all started our lives entirely dependent on the tutelage of parents and others in positions of authority. Our entry into this world resembles the way Christian doctrine affirms all of creation came into being: created ‘out of nothing’, with nothing to show for itself. And yet, as the Hebrew Scriptures attest, the human creature is not only given a place within creation, but also called into covenant with the Creator. What takes place in procreation, then, is an echo, albeit in a strictly creaturely mode, of this greater drama of creation and covenant: parents are called to ‘hold in their hands’ ⁷³ the life of those who did not exist before, infants wholly dependent on their advocacy and yet drawn into a reciprocal relationship with them. The gift of life bestowed on them is ‘unasked for’. ⁷⁴ They are not in a position to hold their parents to account for having ‘produced’ them. ⁷⁵ Thus parenthood is maybe the most radical and far-reaching way in which one can be responsible for another; the closest that creaturely ‘vicarious representation’ comes to divine creation.

So what might friendship’s particular ‘mandate’ be with respect to the responsibility of parenthood? Again, friendship, and particular friends, may remind parents of an important limit to their responsibility, this time vis-à-vis their offspring. Friends-in-Christ, and especially godparents, remind parents that their responsibility, however awesome, is only an echo of God’s responsibility in creation, and indeed a temporary one. After all, they are not their children’s makers, and their children not their products. What friends call to mind, then, is that only God genuinely creates ‘out of nothing’. Only God is our true vicarious representative, securing a place for us when previously there was no ‘us’ (creation and covenant), and retrieving our place when we risk losing it (salvation). Friends, then, bonded by a ‘kinship’ not based on blood or race, ⁷⁶ remind parents that their children are brothers and sisters in Christ, destined to be their friends in Christ, too. This is not to belittle biological kinship - a human relationship sui generis, given in creation and claiming its own place within human society. Yet friends provide a particularly powerful witness to the family of Christ, which is constituted primarily through baptism, and onto which the relationships of biological kinship are grafted secondarily. ⁷⁷

Family’s Mandate for Friendship

Claiming one’s offspring as one’s product or property, however, is not the only temptation parents face. Burdening one’s offspring with expectations and aspirations can easily turn into withdrawing from parental responsibility, for example when children fail to meet our expectations—in utero or in life. If our culture struggles to recognise the far-reaching vicarious representative roles just described, then that is not least because it struggles to find any good in dependency and vulnerability. Therefore, as soon as children are seen as faltering on their march towards fully functioning, independent adulthood, question marks begin to form considering their humanity: we are led to ask whether they are worth our care and investment. We may eventually fail to see the point of ‘holding in our hands’ the lives of—and hence reserve a place for—those who, though born into the human family, seem unable to become the autonomous rights-bearers and consumers we expect them to be. ⁷⁸ In the Church, this second kind of temptation might be recognised in the hesitation to baptise infants (literally, those who ‘cannot speak’). As Pope Benedict observes, parents’ inability to ‘hold in their hands’ the spiritual life of their offspring (i.e., in answering for them in baptism) is a close echo of the inability to accept responsibility for their biological life. ⁷⁹

Learning to resist this temptation is surely an important part of parenthood as a Christian vocation, especially in the culture just outlined. And therefore, whatever ‘mandate’ friendship may have in reminding parents of the limits to their responsibility, this may never lead to an undermining of that responsibility. In fact, it is here that the life of marriage and family may have something to teach friends, too. We saw that within the body of Christ, friendship serves as a reminder that all are called to be friends in Christ. Yet, like the first disciples, friends of Christ come in various kinds and shapes, bringing with them a variety of backgrounds, relationships and responsibilities. The body of Christ is not an enlightened cosmopolitan elite, held together by an abstract ideal of ‘civic friendship’. And thus parents may also serve to remind their fellow Christians, in particular those unmarried or without parental responsibilities, that Christ’s circle of friends includes not only the autonomous consumers celebrated by neoliberalism. Friendship certainly flourishes in freedom, yet freedom is not the same as choice. Christ is the Friend who chose us rather than we him (Jn 15:16); which suggests that friends-in-Christ must learn to accept each other as they are given to each other by Christ—with all their differences, peculiarities and unsolicited gifts.

Parents, learning to welcome their children unconditionally, are well placed to teach the rest of us how we are to offer friendship: not in response to the other’s merit, but in response to God’s assigning the other to us. Children, furthermore, and especially infants, can teach us that the state of helplessness, of being created ‘out of nothing’, does not have to contradict the status of being created in the image of God. Parents hold the rather precarious position of being entrusted with a responsibility towards their offspring that others previously exercised towards them, and which ultimately belongs to God alone. Yet, precisely in accepting this precarious role, parents can teach us how to receive as friends those who have nothing to show for themselves—and indeed recognise in them our own profound vulnerability.