Like the water of the mountains, the Spirit of the heights seeks the lowest place. He strives downwards. His Church bears the lowly and childlike spirit which alone is of God. She is with Mary in the stable. The Church comes into being with Christ on the gallows. She goes the way of apostolic poverty. With her one mind and one heart, she honors no one but God in Christ Jesus.
- Eberhard Arnold
Selected Reading
The Church Comes Down to Us
Eberhard Arnold
Eberhard Arnold always emphasized Gemeinde – the living congregation of believers – over Kirche, the church as an institution or establishment. In a series of talks given in response to a letter from his friend, the Swiss Religious Socialist Leonard Ragaz, Eberhard talks about this question.
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The Jesus of the Four Gospels
Eberhard Arnold
We live in an age where it seems Jesus has become almost unknown or his words distorted and disfigured, his work weakened. All the more, we must rediscover this Jesus and hold him up before all the world. We must place the Jesus of the four Gospels in the center of our faith and our life.
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The Courage of Love
Eberhard Arnold
How should the church relate to politics? Eighteen months after Hitler’s rise to power, Arnold spoke about this to members of his community, whose German branch had already been raided twice by Nazi forces. The question was no longer just theory...
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The Spirit of the Early Church
Eberhard Arnold
The early church was not perfect, nor can it be blindly imitated, admits Eberhard Arnold in this groundbreaking 1926 essay. And yet, never since in church history has the Spirit been so forcefully at work. Why has the example of the first Christians never ceased to fuel renewal and reform?
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The Economy of the Early Church
Eberhard Arnold
In an age when Christianity is comfortably entwined with consumer capitalism, the early Christians’ passion for social and economic justice can come as a shock. So why did the first Christians abandon private property? Eberhard Arnold addresses this question in an excerpt from the introduction to The Early Christians (1926).
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Quick Quotes
We testify to the church of Christ as an embassy of God’s future state. Therefore the church of Christ should represent today what God’s kingdom will be. The Apostle Paul says, “The kingdom of God is today, here and now, and it is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the element of the great future. For this reason the church receives the Holy Spirit, not in order to figure out for itself a timetable for God’s kingdom, but in order to let life be directed by the Spirit, through perfect love.
- Eberhard Arnold
The church of Christ has a great message entrusted to it which must go forth to all mankind. All men shall be reached by it. This does not mean that already in this moment of history everyone must live in the church of Christ; but it does mean that all men must be reached by the witness of truth which tells what the final goal of human history is: this unity of Christ which is revealed in the embassy of Christ’s church. This fact strikes deep into the heart of all men, even if they are not all ready for it today.
- Eberhard Arnold