Woe to a community if it tries from gloomy depression of soul to rise up to the Spirit! All our own cramped efforts to reach the heights end in downfall! Only the liberating Spirit coming down from above is able to lead the inner life of a community to health, to unity, and to the achievement of God’s work, free from all our own efforts.
- Eberhard Arnold, January 1934
March 26,2025
- Eberhard Arnold From a letter, July 1922Our inner fire, yes, even our enthusiasm, our inspiration, and soul, and Eros—everything that is fire and love—must flow together with the one great light, with the holy Agape, with the heart of God, with Jesus Christ; and being born out of Him, it must gain new life in purity and power. It is quite clear that this means that everything which is greed, desire for possession, despotism, the demand of the individual, is consumed and completely spent in this sun fire. The one—the old world with its greed for possession—perishes, and the other—the new creation with its divine life that dedicates, embraces, and pours itself out in joy—is born.
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We small people must disappear from our own field of vision so that only one question remains in view: “What is happening to God’s Kingdom?” What is going to happen to the injustice of the world situation, which cries out to heaven? How shall God’s Kingdom come? And how can we do away with all distractions so that we come to the cause entrusted to us by the Church?
- Eberhard Arnold, July 1934
We know that here the absolute truth reigns if we experience the unanimity of the believers. The spirit of truth never contradicts itself. We see unity and unanimity as the characteristic mark of absolute truth. This way, because it is the simplest way, the way which unites men in the Spirit, is the way of truth; for it is the way of God’s love, the way of God’s heart, the way of the uniting creative spirit. If this is our certainty, then to work! All hands on deck! Let us dare it, whatever it costs!
- Eberhard Arnold