Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
to criticism, then our purely formal adherence to this scriptural basis will lead to
dishonesty and hypocrisy, which is bound to drive God’s spirit from our work.” 10
Ludwig von Gerdtell wanted all committee members to sign a statement
affirming the entire holy scriptures – no ifs, ands, or buts –and proposed a
referendum. It failed by one vote.
Since compromise was out of the question for either of the two, this marked the
end of both von Gerdtell’s and Eberhard’s days on the SCM executive committee.
Von Gerdtell left with much thunder and little applause, cutting all brotherly
relationships with SCM members. Eberhard, on the other hand, though grieved by
“the inconsistency that leads to hypocrisy,” still regarded all committee members
“as brothers.” Despite his withdrawal from this particular committee, he remained
in close touch with the movement.
thE pEntECoStal movEmEnt bEginS
Apart from the SCM struggles and the weighty questions of church and baptism,
an ever-recurring concern in Eberhard and Emmy’s engagement letters was the
duration and future of the revival evident in Halle and in many other places at
the time. Eberhard believed that he could detect “an increasingly pure return to
primitive Christianity” in progress: “Our revival bears the marks of the Last Days,
the glorious expectation of His coming…There is still much to do: a great lack of
freedom, and much confusion to overcome, to fight until the Word in the Spirit is
the only authority and sin is put away as a dead thing.” 11 It is not surprising that he
had his ear to the ground for news about particularly striking events in Christian
circles. In one of his first letters to Emmy, on April 4, 1907, he summarized an
account of the unusual happenings during a revival in Frederiksand near Oslo,
Norway, “in which many came to a complete surrender to Jesus, and the Spirit
descended with a power like that at Pentecost in the story in Acts, so that people
are seaking in tongues there even today.” Eberhard was overjoyed at “how quietly,
unassumingly, and yet wonderfully the spirit of God is working in our days.”
Three months later Emmy reported about “four brothers and sisters from
Norway” who, according to their own account, were sent to Halle by the Holy Spirit
and arrived without previous arrangement to stay with a sister in the fellowship
for “perhaps a week, perhaps a year, according to what the Spirit shows them.” 12 She
was surprised at their unstructured and incomprehensible manner of prayer, but
was ready to explore the matter thoroughly. After meeting them a second time she
wrote: “Their focus is not the cross…Rather, it is being filled with the Spirit, and
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