Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
Various lists in Eberhard’s handwriting show his anticipation of rapid growth
for the settlement. At one time he was hoping for twenty-two members in the
community, at another time thirty-two. Some of the people named in his lists
announced their willingness to work with the little group, but never made an
appearance. Others dropped by for a short while but then left. The community’s
core group remained small, and during the first three years it never numbered
more than a dozen. Most of those present were guests or novices who stayed
for an indefinite period. Perhaps many of them shrank from the conditions that
Eberhard had formulated for the core group in September 1920:
We need Christians – reborn people who have accepted the life of the Sermon on the
Mount.
We need people who work – people who are capable and willing to work.
We need people who radiate the spirit of Christ – people who witness for Christ
with their entire being.
We are a working community of disciples of Jesus who give up everything to live
simply and solely for love and for productive work. We must testify that we are a
church of Christ, a Lord’s Supper fellowship.
We need Christ and the kingdom of God, protest and the call to repentance,
testimony and faith, a bold commitment to life and love. Witnesses are needed – not
self-idolization, not the right-eousness of works, not self-appointed goals, not prophets,
not leaders. We need brotherliness in forgiveness and grace, because each proclaims
not himself but Christ. 2
It is no longer known who first proposed the idea of changing the village name
of Sannerz to “Sonnherz” – “Sunheart.” Perhaps it was a guest, a romantic such
as Normann Körber, or maybe a daughter of the muses such as Else “Tata” von
Hollander. At any rate Eberhard immediately grased the symbolic impact of the
image. By the fall of 1920 his letters were referring to the “Neuwerk Sonnherz,”
because, as he put it, “our community life needs and feels the life-giving power of
the heart of God in a particularly powerful way.” 3 A little later Karl Mahr, an artist
friend of the Arnolds from the days of Die Furche, designed the blazing sunheart
emblem, a symbol that literally radiated.
bookS and papErS
Back in April of 1920 Eberhard, filled with fiery enthusiasm, had set to work
reconfiguring and expanding the Neuwerk Publishing House. He had enrolled a
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