Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
to be publicly executed in the Innsbruck marketplace on February 25, 1536. In
Brixen (thirty miles south of Innsbruck), the town archives have preserved the
court records regarding Jakob Hutter and numerous other Anabaptists.
Totally different reasons had led to Eberhard’s choice of this health resort.
The recommendation had come from an uninvolved third party, and it had been
seconded by Emmy’s grandmother, who had previously taken a tuberculosis cure
in Gries, near Bozen. (She had raved to her granddaughter about the landscape
and the mountains’ evening-glow phenomenon.) But it was not long before the
Arnolds learned of the rich history of this stretch of country. They obtained
writings on the Moravian and Tyrolean Anabaptists and studied epistles and
articles by Balthasar Hubmaier and Hans Denck with growing enthusiasm. 11
Though deeply impressed by the surrounding grandeur and the wealth of
Anabaptist history, Eberhard nonetheless felt cut off from the intensive fellowship
of recent years. More than ever, he was open and ready for direction from the
New Tesament. In the last months of 1913 he put together a little book, Living
Churches: The Essence of Their Life. 12 It was published in December as a “personal
testimony and greeting to all who know us back home.” In the introduction to
Living Churches, Eberhard referred to himself as someone whose “only allegiance is
to the Lord himself and to all those belonging to him.” The purpose of the booklet
was “to bring vigorous new life to present-day religious movements and to overcome
the danger of them wasting and exhausting their efforts in conflict.” Newspapers
and fellowship magazines brought from the valley to the Pichler cottage by the
cog railroad must have given Eberhard some idea of the gradual splintering and
waning of the fellowship movement.
For Eberhard, the life and vitality of a church hinged upon eight crucial
characeristics: love of the Lord Jesus, the conquering power of prayer life, the
vital strength of God’s word, the overcoming of sin, love of the brothers and sisters,
the constructive use of all powers and talents, work on behalf of the world, and the
expectation of the Lord.
As the title indicates, Living Churches: The Essence of Their Life is a kind of litmus
test for the spiritual condition of a church. A closer look reveals Hermann Kutter’s
influence here as well. Eberhard had been thinking over Kutter’s challenging
statements and had applied them to the inner life from two points of view. He
recognized lovelessness, pride, and gossip within the church as the prime enemies
of the inner life. The primary goal of “work on behalf of the world” should not
be to change society but to give Jesus Christ the honor in everything achieved.
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