Books by Eberhard Arnold
Books for general and academic audiences. Some are available from Plough as free eBooks. All are available for purchase in print.
Eberhard Arnold: Writings Selected
Whether you’ve never read Eberhard Arnold before, or have already been profoundly affected by one of his books, this introductory selection from many of his important works will surprise and challenge you.
Salt and Light
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts aside his usual parables and speaks plainly in language anyone can understand. In the seventeen essays collected here, Eberhard Arnold puts hands and feet to Jesus’ demands, showing that these are viable and inescapable – and must be lived out today.
God’s Revolution
Do you feel powerless to change the injustice at every level of society? Are you tired of answers that ignore the root causes of human suffering? This selection of writings by Eberhard Arnold, who left the established church and a career in Berlin in order to live out the gospel in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount, calls us to a completely different way. Arnold approaches discipleship as a transformation that begins within and spreads outward to encompass every aspect of life.
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The Early Christians
Eberhard Arnold assembled, translated, and added commentary to this collection of early Christian writings. A person with no prior interest in the beginnings of Christianity will find here a vivid portrayal of the immense power of their faith and of the movement inspired by it.
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Why We Live in Community
In this time-honored manifesto, Eberhard Arnold adds his voice to the vital discussion of what real intentional community is all about: love, joy, unity, and the great “adventure of faith” shared with others along the way.
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The Individual and World Need
This short book explores the relationship of the individual to world suffering and points clearly to a solution. Enlivened by a wide variety of anecdotes, Eberhard Arnold’s message is simple but revolutionary: only by overcoming the cancer of individualism can we begin to address the need of the world.
The Prayer God Answers
Why has God not answered my prayers? What should I be praying for? If everything I prayed for came true, would I be ready? In this spiritual classic, Eberhard Arnold points us back to the prayer that pleases God most – prayer that has the power to transform our lives and our world.
A Testimony to Church Community
A concise, readable introduction to the life and theology of a man who, in his search for Christ, spent his life turning conventional Christianity on its head. Includes a biography penned by Emmy Arnold and a selection of Eberhard’s writings.
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Children’s Education in Community
A collection of the talks and writings by Eberhard Arnold on children’s education in Christian community. Arnold’s insights, while firmly grounded in biblical study, also engage the ideas of leading educational reformers of his day, and draw on the practical experience of his own community, the Bruderhof.
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Poems and Rhymed Prayers
Eberhard Arnold published most of his essays during his lifetime, but almost none of his poems. It might have been shyness: many are love poems, and others reveal private struggles. All of them open a window on a man’s inmost thoughts, and show him at his most essential and Christ-centered.
Inner Land (Complete Boxed Set)
All five volumes of Arnold's Inner Land in a boxed set. Find the clarity of vision needed to win the daily battle that is life, and the inner anchor without which we lose our moorings.
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Inner Land: The Inner Life
The first volume of five in Inner Land: A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel is a trusted guide into the inner realm where our spirits find strength to master life and live for God. It is hard to exaggerate the significance of Inner Land, either for Eberhard Arnold or his readers. It absorbed his energies off and on for most of his adult life.
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Inner Land: The Conscience
The second volume of five in Inner Land: A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel. In it Arnold points the way to complete healing and restoration of even the most troubled conscience. When Christ’s forgiveness sets the conscience free and floods it with his live-renewing spirit, it becomes an active force for good, giving us clarity in personal, social, and political questions and leading us to peace, joy, justice, and community.
Inner Land: Experiencing God
The third volume in Inner Land: A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel. For those who hunger for change that is genuine and tangible, for a personal peace of heart that is inseparable from justice and peace between nations, Arnold’s words will be a rousing encouragement to expect more than you ever dared hope.
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Inner Land: Fire and Spirit
The fourth volume in Inner Land: A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel. Eberhard Arnold surveys the symbolism of light and fire in the Bible, literature, and history to illuminate our love/fear relationship with God. The Holy Spirit, like fire, is a two-edged sword: it brings the blazing wrath of God’s judgment, consuming all that is dead and cold in us, but also the radiant warmth of his love, mercy, and redemption.
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Inner Land: The Living Word
The fifth volume in Inner Land: A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel.The living word, Eberhard Arnold writes, is greater than the words of the Bible, which even the devil used to tempt Jesus. The scriptures on their own can never produce the righteousness, mercy, and faithfulness that count before God. But when the Holy Spirit speaks this living word into the hearts of those who have set out on the way of discipleship to Christ, the deepest meaning of the scriptures are opened up to them.
Love Letters
Everyone’s looking for true love, but few people seem willing to work at making it last. The engagement letters of Eberhard Arnold and Emmy von Hollander tell the story of a couple who were passionately in love. Yet they rejected romance as the basis of their relationship, building instead on the promise of Jesus’ words, “Seek first the kingdom of God.”
Inner Words
Daily meditations selected by Emmy Arnold from the writings of her husband Eberhard Arnold, as well as those of Augustine, Blumhardt, Bodelschwingh, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meister Eckhart, Hermann Loens, Martin Luther, Thomas a Kempis, Hudson Taylor and others.
When the Time Was Fulfilled
A revised and expanded edition of an old Advent favorite. This book includes 40 short, pithy readings from Eberhard Arnold, Christoph Blumhardt, and Alfred Delp, witnessing to the fact that the birth of Jesus is more than history – it is a reality – but only for those who feel their need and are personally ready to come to the manger.
Books about Eberhard Arnold
Biographical and historical accounts on the life of Eberhard Arnold and the founding of the Bruderhof.
Against the Wind
A journalist’s biography of Eberhard Arnold, a man who, in his search for Christ, ended up turning the Christianity of his day on its head. Author Markus Baum looks at the forces that shaped Arnold’s life, recreates the colorful era in which he lived, and explores Arnold’s connection with other thinkers of his day.
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An Embassy Besieged
The story of the Rhon Bruderhof Christian community in Nazi Germany. This is an amazing account of a community who stayed true to the nonviolent way of the cross, and how, despite relentless Nazi opposition, God protected and victoriously led them along the way.
Zeugnis, Liebe und Widerstand: Der Rhönbruderhof 1933–1937
An in-depth account of the Bruderhof’s (and Eberhard Arnold’s) confrontation with the Nazi regime from 1933–1937. Only available in German.
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A Joyful Pilgrimage
This memoir offers a refreshing account of the founding of a community movement that began when Emmy Arnold and her husband Eberhard abandoned their affluent Berlin suburb to live a completely different life. It is her own story, candidly told, of a venture dared and realized, in spite of poverty, persecution, and trust betrayed. Her memoir is a call to faith and commitment against all odds.
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Die Neuwerkbewegung
The Neuwerk movement, a vibrant branch of the German Youth Movement after WWI, tried to answer the question, “How can Christians truly follow the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount?” Although influenced by personalities such as Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Helmut Gollwitzer, this group has long been forgotten. Using historical publications, numerous personal letters and eyewitness accounts, Antje Vollmer paints a vivid picture of the movement that gave rise to the first Bruderhof settlement in Sannerz. Only available in German.
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