Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

gEmEindE
Against the Wind
Gemeinde takes center stage as the great, overarching theme of Eberhard Arnold’s
fourth decade. What is Gemeinde? It is church-community. What is the true
characer of Gemeinde? How, where, and when does it come into existence? It
would be erroneous to say that Eberhard had not had any conception of Gemeinde
in his earlier years. Very early on, in fact, he had formulated an understanding
of what Gemeinde is not: “Not an institutional church, not a sect.” 2 He already
considered Gemeinde as something supernatural, beyond and above the natural
world – something that surpassed the bounds of human understanding.
Eberhard never presumed to have plumbed this mystery. He was simply a 128
chronicler, a spokesman seeking for words to express what had transpired in
the community life at Sannerz. Where the mystery of the church-community
was concerned, no comparison was too colorful for him: Gemeinde germinates
and blossoms in secret; it is an unspoken reality. It is “the noblest and tenderest
form of all possibilities of community on earth.” 3 He coined the phrase
“werdende Gemeinde” – “Gemeinde that is coming into being” 4 – and spoke of
“a fellowship of voluntary dedication that strives for Gemeinde.” Gemeinde is always
in the process of being birthed and, therefore, demands intense struggle. “Life in
community cannot be confused with the church of Christ itself…The mystery of
Gemeinde is different and greater.” It penetrates the community “whenever open
and willing hearts are granted that indescribable strength of longing which God
needs if he alone is to act and seak.” Gemeinde cannot be compelled into being,
nor is it at our beck and call. When it actually occurs, it is both a mystery and a
gift.
At Easter of 1925 Eberhard described such moments in a circular to the
community’s friends and supporters: “Sometimes people were so deeply struck
and shaken that an element of God broke in. It led to community experiences
of the most profound kind. We felt our guilt and at the same time the grace that
comes to us from Christ himself. We sensed something of what it means that ‘the
kingdom of God is among you.’” 5
Eberhard realized that this Gemeinde experience was not limited to any particular
form, not even to a particular lifestyle such as community of goods. In the same
connection he spoke of the “unheard-of riches and variety of tasks and gifts.” He
was open to every movement and group so long as such a group “leads toward
Christ and truly serves the whole, the Gemeinde, the coming kingdom.” The more
he sensed the “invisible reality and unity of Gemeinde ” in Sannerz and elsewhere,