Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
call as clearly as he continued to do. He wrestled without reservation for the sake
of certain individuals. And sometimes he lost.
do you want to go away, too?
On July 15, 1933, a novice member deserted the Bruderhof, abandoning his wife
and children as well. Eberhard was deeply affected. So were all other brotherhood
members. It was not so much the act of desertion of the brotherhood – at times
other companions of the way had left the community for a wide variety of
understandable reasons. Rather it was the circumstances that Eberhard found so
shattering. The brother who left had made his decision entirely on his own and 181
had disappeared without a word of explanation. This, Eberhard felt, was a breach
of trust. “We certainly cannot expect that everyone stays with us,” he said to the
assembled community. “People can remain here only if they have surrendered
unconditionally and forever to the gathering, uniting power of Jesus Christ.
Nothing else can keep them here. When people leave us, we are saddened as we
think of the individuals themselves, but for the sake of the cause we are glad if
those who do not belong to us part from us. I mean in the sense that they show no
sign of a unifying power at work in them…It is a question of what they really want
in their deepest hearts.”
From a purely objective standpoint, a thousand excuses and arguments could
easily be formulated on behalf of this novice who left the community: the material
need, the inner tension, the Nazis’ very real political pressure, the prosect of being
crushed between the millstones, the obligations of community life. And always
the demanding – necessarily so – order of the life together. Certainly it seems
understandable that not everyone would be equal to such demands.
But Eberhard chose that event to present the crux of the matter to the
brotherhood:
This morning we must once more ask: are we ready? Do you wish to leave, too? Who
wants to go away? If anyone does, let him say so; let him have the courage to explain
why he is leaving. We ask anyone who wants to go away to stand up and tell us. Only
those may stay who have chosen without reservations and forever Jesus’ purpose of
drawing people together; who have chosen the spirit of reconciliation, unity with the
perfect sacrifice of Jesus, the unity of the body of Christ, and the peace and unity of
his kingdom – only those may stay who are ready to live and die for all this. Everyone
else should leave.