Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
from the compulsion to do evil? If they are, then they must really avoid any tasks
that involve force and violence. If they are not, then they may not and must not
shy away from their responsibility to the state, the use of violence, and coercive
methods.
Hermann Schafft’s answer amounted to a no. Christians, like others, constantly
find themselves confronted by situations where a choice must be made between
two equally evil, sinful alternatives. Therefore Christians are also compelled to do
evil. Why shouldn’t they be police officers, soldiers, or executioners?
But that would not be the final word on the subject. A week later at the
second SCM conference the debate resumed. Eberhard reiterated his position:
“Government authority does not fulfill the law; we fulfill it when we act in
accordance with God’s kingdom…It is our duty to witness in word and deed that
Jesus’ words must not be distorted! The unconditional demand to obey God rather
than people is always there. We believe that we are in the world as a corrective to
the accepted norm.” 20
Eberhard had stepped out on a limb. But he was by no means alone. Karl Heim,
now a professor in Münster, basically seconded him with a lecture titled “Tolstoy
and Jesus” that attraced much attention. 21 “The church…went to sleep on the
pillow of grace.” How did that happen? “Because the Sermon on the Mount had
been robbed of its power.” Heim censured the “negotiated peace between the
Sermon on the Mount and capitalism, between the Sermon on the Mount and
power politics…[which is] just as much a fault of Lutheranism as of pietism. As if
it were possible to have peace of heart without following God’s commandments
and working to transform the world. Every compromise between the Sermon on
the Mount and the power politics of this world is like a water ditch dug by human
firefighters – it limits the movement of divine life, dampens the spirit, and prevents
the holy fire from spreading.”
Eberhard gave his closing lecture on Heim’s heels, with only a slight shift in
emphasis. 22 His talk made it particularly obvious that he was not exaggerating the
role of a Christian in a fanatical way. “Even our living in the spirit of Jesus will not
turn the world into the kingdom of God. But the demands of the Sermon on the
Mount remain if we understand and live them out according to Romans 8.” 23
SpEEChlESS at barth’S mESSagE
Germany, unlike neighboring Switzerland, still had no organized religious-socialist
movement. In the post-revolution era, however, hundreds of theologians identified
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