Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
and do what is good…The divine spirit is the spirit that awakens to life; it is the spirit
that binds together in unity. It is the spirit of the divine life…that is in Jesus.”
Eberhard called his listeners to form communities in the spirit of Jesus, to start
settlements, “voluntary associations of working people.” Up to this point he could
count on everyone’s applause. But his underlying thoughts went much further, and
he made concrete suggestions: farming and gardening; schools and welfare work
among children; publishing work and outreach; a children’s home esecially for war
orphans; arts and crafts. 17 Although everyone found these proposals desirable no
one could see any possibility of realizing them in the near future. Nonetheless the
idea of a settlement inspired by early Christianity now captured the imaginations
of a much greater number than before.
By April things had developed to such a degree that the Arnolds wanted to
relocate nearer to the Schlüchtern movement. 18 They had already looked at one
house in Schlüchtern, but it was not suitable. On his next visit to Schlüchtern
Eberhard went with the purpose of searching the surroundings for a good place to
start a settlement. Otto Herpel told him about Herrnhaag near Büdingen (about
twenty miles northeast of Frankfurt). It had once been a Zinzendorf settlement of
the Moravian Brethren, a community of goods and of love. Prior to that Herrnhaag
had been a thirteenth-century Cistercian foundation. In the seventeenth century
it had served as a place of refuge for “‘Anabaptists and sectarians of every kind.”
Eberhard was immediately fired with enthusiasm at the thought of resoring
the Lichterburg, the rather dilapidated castle at the center of Herrnhaag, and
filling it once more with the spirit of brotherly life that had radiated love and
promoted communal living in the period from 1767–1790. The astronomic cost
of renovation (450,000 marks, to be paid off in annual 30,000-mark installments)
did not frighten him at first. In his mind’s eye he could picture a medieval-type
guild developing there. He also wanted to lease an empty farm nearby for a farming
cooperative. The income it produced would cover the rent. 19 Doubtless this was a
truly fantastic plan. His friend Kurt Woermann, a Hamburg ship owner with
level-headed experience in financial matters, had to intervene and cool the ardor.
The money could be obtained, but what about the countless willing hands?
In spite of this, such pipe dreams were not in vain. Eberhard synthesized his own
clear direction only by grappling with other community experiments – “in the
Moravian Church…in the Anabaptist communities, among the Quakers, with
Jean von Labadie, in Russia, and in Palestine.” Some of the goals he first expressed
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