In trembling reverence, man stands in wonder before the life-filled tree, by the living bubbling spring, under the life-giving radiant stars of day and night, in the midst of the fruitfulness of earth and its life. How great and mighty must God be, who brings forth and sustains all things! Into a powerfully shaken and moved heart comes the demand: the great Creator God must become undisputed ruler over all this powerful life.
- Eberhard Arnold
April 27,2026
- Eberhard Arnold From a letter, May 1920How glad I am that you are so positively united with me in the experience of peace and of Jesus’ spirit of love! The question is not at all one of our only refusing to do military service, though people always put it in this negative way. This refusal, after all, follows as a matter of course from a positive experience of the Spirit of Christ. When this Spirit, which is expressed so very intensely in the Sermon on the Mount and in Romans 8, penetrates us and glows in us, then we will become victorious people who must work as long as it is daylight—work in the productive, creative work of love.
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Each one of us, of course, must preserve his inner freedom, so that each one follows the holy Shall and the holy Must that lives within him, without making himself in any way dependent.
- Eberhard Arnold
Only the Spirit of Christ can guarantee such a working together. It is a fact that today the Spirit is again urging the realization of this communal life. All are expecting the Christians to give an example; all expect that they will be able to attain what others seek in vain. In our circles, in us all, there is still much weakness. Yet I have the invincible certainty that our small strength will urge us toward results that do not come from ourselves.
- Eberhard Arnold