Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
comfort that it falls on a long list of other prominent theologians and leaders of
the Evangelical Alliance Movement as well.
did god want thE war?
Eberhard titled his first article after the outbreak of war “God Speaks in Serious
Times.” 9 In the opening paragraphs he borrowed a statement from his father:
“World history is world judgment.” As a nineteen-year-old Eberhard had rebelled
with every sinew of his being against this viewpoint. Now, at thirty-one, he had
lost his youthful edge. Had he grown more staid and middle-class? It almost
seems so, judging by his explanation of the war to readers of the Evangelical
Alliance Magazine: “God wants us to recognize that this war, the most terrible the
world has ever known, is a proof of his goodness, patience, and long-suffering.”
A full year into the war he still wrote that the war was “from God,” contending
that God was pursuing a “vein of good,” which in this case was “the defense of
righteousness by the more righteous of the warring governments.” 10 His theological
basis began to take a dubious slant. “Because unrighteousness has gained the upper
hand in recent years, we must consider every war as a merciful check against the
satanic and anti-Christian powers, and as directed against evil.” Shortly afterwards
he wrote on the same theme that “Satan and his spirits must be fought with the
weapons of violence and wrath, war and the sword, fire and brimstone.” 11 Through
such words as these, Eberhard had fallen back on a Gnostic pattern of thought as
a recourse to bolster his war theories: God will win in the final battle, but only by
a hair’s breadth. God bears responsibility for the fight, but the devil prescribes the
weapons of battle.
This is the essence at the core of his war premise, and it is not without a certain
dramaticeffect.Itdoes,however,presentvariousdrawbacks,themostobviousbeing
that it is simply not Christian. Only drastic distortion can bring it to any biblical
foundation. Furthermore, such a statement is incomplete and illogical. Wasn’t it
actually the war itself that had unleashed satanic and anti-Christian forces? At the
end of the first year of the war, hundreds of thousands had already bled, burned,
or suffocated to death in Flanders, in Champagne, in Alsace, and in Galicia. Proofs
of God’s goodness, patience, and long-suffering?…
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