Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
Sentenced to inacivity, Eberhard was unable to participate in the Neuwerk
conference at Marburg in September. As it was, he had anticipated the conference
with mixed feelings. His uneasiness was confirmed after the fact by reports
from Else von Hollander and others who took part. Speakers like Günther
Dehn and Karl Mennicke demanded greater involvement in party politics and
did not hide a certain touch of arrogance toward the “Schlüchtern pietists.”
Consequently the Marburg conference drove a wedge of division through
the Neuwerk movement, prompting Eberhard to describe it as a defeat for the
Neuwerk cause. 9 He wrote: “Since the Marburg conference we are more resolute
than ever to promote the gosel and nothing else in Das Neue Werk and in all
our work…It is crucial that there be solidarity and loyalty among those who are
glad to be called ‘pietists’ but whose eyes are open to the social responsibilities of
Jesus’ disciples.”
Even Otto Herpel was eventually bruised by Eberhard’s energetic acivity
in building up the Neuwerk Publishing House. Before becoming coeditor with
Eberhard, Herpel had put together the Christian Democrat as a sideline to his
pastoral work. But Das Neue Werk was to be run professionally or not at all – that
had been Eberhard’s stipulation on assuming the management. Authorization
for this and that, punctual payment of royalties, recruiting members for the
cooperative, soliciting advertisements, alternating with Eberhard on the final
editorial check of the magazine’s bimonthly issues – all this soon grew too much
for Herpel. In mid-September Otto Herpel visited Eberhard on his sickbed and
informed him that he was resigning as an editor for good. He was not, he admitted,
the committed person needed for such work.
It is clear enough that these two men, who had been so quickly drawn to
each other, had just as quickly drawn apart in spirit. Otto Herpel had already
swallowed Karl Barth’s sober direction – hook, line, and sinker – at the conference
in Tambach in September of 1919. Now he wrote, “Arnold’s articles have
too much pietism in them for me.” 10 But in spite of reservations and friction
Otto Herpel continued as co-publisher of Das Neue Werk, and in the end his
resignation as editor improved, rather than impaired, his friendship with
Eberhard.
City on a hill
Community of work, community of the Lord’s Supper: the first aim had been
accomplished, and the other soon followed. On September 26, 1920, the household
105