A Deeper Way of Living - Comment Magazine

In 1920, the German pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Eberhard Arnold gave up his comfortable middle-class life in Berlin to launch an experiment in community living that has endured to this day. With his wife Emmy and their five children—as well as Emmy’s sister, Else—Arnold moved to the poor farming village of Sannerz, Germany, to found the first “Bruderhof,” a Christian community grounded in Anabaptist theology where members lead lives of radical discipleship to Christ.

The community grew during Arnold’s time to include a diverse cast of characters, from single mothers and orphans, to communists and homeless veterans of World War I—even Jews and anarchists found a home on the Bruderhof farm. And now, one hundred years later, it has grown still more. The counter-cultural movement has twenty-six communities around the world, in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Australia, South Korea, Paraguay, and the United States, where members come together to live like the earliest members of the Christian church, who gave up everything they had to follow Christ.

To mark the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Bruderhof, Plough, the community’s publishing house, has released a beautiful book that collects moving stories and luminous photographs of today’s Bruderhof members. Another Life Is Possible: Insights from 100 Years of Life Together is a snapshot of the Bruderhof community today—and the yearning for meaning that has led its nearly three thousand members to exchange the liberties and luxuries of modern life for a deeper way of living.

Continue reading my article at Comment.