Journal

Bruderhof Visit

Posted on October 18th, 2004, in the small hours

I spent an inpsiring, challenging, moving two days with the Darvell Bruderhof community in East Sussex this weekend.

I first came across the Bruderhof three or four years ago, picking up J. Christoph Arnold's book on forgiveness 'Seventy Times Seven'. Later I came across Eberhard Arnold's dissertation on Neitzsche online, and since then several other publications from their Plough publishing house, including 'The Violence of Love', which I'm currently reading, having picked it up at a book market in Melbourne, Australia in April. Everything I have read from Plough has greatly stimulated my thinking, and the discovery of the dozens of articles and free e-books on the main Bruderhof website has only added to that effect.

The thing that most interested me, however, was the Bruderhof community itself. The Bruderhof's common life is very outward looking (by contrast it seems to many such communities) and their anabaptist roots also fascinate me. On discovering that not only do they have communities in the UK, but that one (Darvell) is just an hour's drive from my current home in Sydenham, SE London I knew had to visit.

I wont go in to details here, but suffice to say that the Bruderhof embody Christ's sermon on the mount teaching in a more powerful way than I've ever encountered before. Several times I found the bookish theological questions I wanted to ask were simultaneously incoherent and already answered (though not in the way I wanted to ask) in the context of the truly incarnational theology of the community.

I don't feel led to join, but I think I need to ask myself why not over the next little while. I definitely hope to keep the connection with everyone I spent time with this weekend. I have a couple of books to keep my mind focussed on the things I have learned, which I'll no doubt post about as I read them.