Joy in God’s love fills believing hearts to overflowing, so much that their love has to go out to all men. All men shall become the object of this joyful faith; one after the other they are to be encompassed by love and the perfect community of love. The spirit of justice and peace and joy is the Spirit of the Church.
- Eberhard Arnold
Selected Reading
Seeking the Root of Strength
Eberhard Arnold
Eberhard Arnold reminds us that we must remember our calling: to become rooted in the strength of an inwardness founded in God. This deeply encouraging devotion from 1935 will point you back to the fundamental mission of all followers of Christ.
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God’s Revolution
Eberhard Arnold
Eberhard Arnold’s reflections on vital issues such as capitalism, war, suffering, disease, poverty, community, property, military service, and sustainable farming, among others, are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago. Excerpted from the book God’s Revolution.
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The Root of Grace
Eberhard Arnold
On his fiftieth birthday on July 26, 1933, when Eberhard Arnold gave a talk to members of the Bruderhof community, he surprised his listeners. Instead of looking back at what he had accomplished, he saw only his own human weakness and pointed his audience to One who is truly great.
Not Just Personal: The Conscience and Its Restoration
Eberhard Arnold
In 1932, in the waning days of the Weimar Republic, Eberhard Arnold published a booklet on the conscience and its relation to politics and society. This article is adapted from a newly released English edition of that work.
Eberhard Arnold on Youth and Identity
Eberhard Arnold
The following comprises a series of excerpts from a 1919 publication titled The Religious Sentiment of Today’s Youth. While exploring the unease of the post-war generation, Eberhard Arnold explains that finding a true identity is nothing less than finding God’s will.
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Faith does not depend on feelings. It is not feelings but the will that forms the character, especially the Christian character. Often we must continue on the way simply through strict obedience, quite soberly, while at other times the Lord will overwhelm us with floods of joy. He does both in order to teach us. The peace of God is not a feeling. It is the relationship of the soul to God, and an expression of the fact that a reborn person is a child of God.
- Eberhard Arnold, April 1907
The experience of God runs through all of human history as the overpowering of man by God’s overwhelming superiority. The first experience of God by human awe and reverence is His tremendous might, before which all men’s powers are nothing. God is unattainably high and glorious. Thus the prophets know that no other power can endure beside Him.
- Eberhard Arnold