Christian History Home > Issue 32 > Pastor Bonhoeffer
Pastor Bonhoeffer
Though known as a theologian and resister, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was also a pastor—even in his final moments.
Dr. F. Burton Nelson is professor of theology and ethics at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, and co-author of A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (HarperCollins, 1990). | posted 10/01/1991 12:00AM
From the age of 14, Bonhoeffer yearned for ministry in the church. His brothers, however, charged that the church was “a poor, feeble, boring, petty bourgeois institution.” Dietrich’s physician father wrote later: “When you decided to devote yourself to theology, I sometimes thought to myself that a quiet, uneventful minister’s life, as I knew it …, would really almost be a pity for you.”
Ministry in Spain and the U.S.
Despite his family’s reservations, Bonhoeffer prepared himself for ministry. At age 22, he received an appointment as curate (assistant pastor) in a German-language Lutheran congregation in Barcelona. In addition to his encountering businessmen and their families, Bonhoeffer also met poverty firsthand. “I have seen long-established and prosperous families totally ruined,” he wrote, “so that they have been unable to go on buying clothes for their children.… ”
The multiple facets of pastoral ministry were all present: preaching, teaching Sunday school, leading youth activities, ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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