Eberhard Arnold

This modern fascism is a phenomenon that makes me feel like weeping day and night. Goebbels says, “If we are right, it follows that no one else is right. For us there is no justice other than self-interest.” So there is no justice whatever; objective justice is eliminated, and stupidity reigns.

Eberhard Arnold was a German theologian. Born in 1893 he died in 1935. He was, perhaps, lucky to die when he did. The quote above - from a speech in 1934 - shows that he was unlikely to survive the full rigours of the Nazi regime. Having read this book he doesn't strike me as the sort of man to run away.

This is a collection of his writings, sermons, and letters that speak to his beliefs. In the modern world, when American fundamentalists seem more concerned with mammon than God despite the Bible being pretty clear that you can't serve both, it is refreshing to read the thoughts of a man who puts community, poverty, services, joy, unity, and joy at the centre of their theology.

At one point he says: "The Evangelicals are led by a cleric with an ignorance unprecedented in thousands of years. That's pretty cutting so you wonder what he'd make of the ignorance of modern evangelicals.

I suspect Arnold's theology would be an anathema not just to American evangelicals but to a lot of other established Churches. His idea of a community is one serving the Spirit not one artificially pulled together by history or nationhood. Arnold's goal is:

The new awakening must therefore be both religious and social, a Christ-centred communist awakening, an awakening to God’s kingdom, to grace as a reality. This is the only kind of awakening that comes into question. . Communist here isn't Marxism but the communism of the early Church - to whom he refers on numerous occasions. It is there example that I feel he reaches for. But as he says every so often a community pops up preaching 'communism' and the mainstream Churches and Nations tend to hammer it down or absorb it and enrich it.

Everything about this church should be in keeping with the simplicity of Jesus. Poverty, too, belongs to this embodiment: because we who represent the church are called to serve the whole world and because there is so much need in the world, we must live as simply as possible in order to help as many people as possible.

This is a message that I think needs to be heard all over the world.

Arnold preaches against Capitalism, but not against work. He believes in work as a spiritual endeavour. He isn't a socialist. He regularly makes his disagreement with that approach clear. He talks about a 'revolution', but a revolution of the spirit. He also talks about joy, which reminded me of how Dante talks about Heaven in 'The Divine Comedy'.

But the central point I took from this collection is - to steal a quote from W H Auden - 'we must love one another or die.'

This is the kind of Christian theology I could get behind.

I got this as a copy from NetGalley so it isn't as neat and tidy as I would have liked it. I'd like a hard copy at some point because I feel this is a book that I will return to and take notes from. I have made many highlights.

I suspect it will be a painful read for people who follow 'prosperity theology' (which would, I suspect have infuriated Arnold) or whose pastors live in mansions and own private jets. But they should read it, and ponder on it, and find better communities.