Book Review: Seeking Peace

Title: Seeking Peace 

Author: Johann Christoph Arnold

Date: 2013

Publisher: Plough 

ISBN: 978-0-87486-249-2

Length: 248 pages

Quote: "We live in an unpeaceful world." 

Yes, this is the Christian book I've been reading this week. The one. All the other books I've read have been frivolous genre fiction, although one forthcoming novel TBR on its publication date was written by a Christian and can be read as a metaphor for a Christian comment on recent news. Anyway, yes, immediately after reading a new book in Spanish I like, when possible, to read it in English; this is the English edition of the book I reviewed last week.

If any Gentle Readers feel cheated or disappointed, please use the comments form below, and I'll pop another Christian book review out of the can for you. 

People who read last week's review may skip...

For those who did not read last week's review: this is a book about the Bruderhof (who operate a furniture factory, and other things, to support their unique calling as a church)--as one of the "Peace Churches" that grew out of the German Anabaptist movement. Of the Peace Churches in the United States, the Amish are the best known, the Mennonites are the largest, the Brethren are still fairly active in some places, the Hutterites still have their colonies in western Canada and adjacent States, and the Bruderhof are the newest group and the one that is actually growing. An allied group, the Moravians, trace their collective origin further back and still have churches of their own in Pennsylvania. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, are a Peace Church of English origin. 

Growth has not been the goal of the other German-American Peace Churches. Survival in their own peculiar little way seems to have been the goal. The Amish and Hutterites have resisted change and assimilation so vigorously that most of them still speak German at home; they avoid secular society except for a necessary minimum of trade. As a result they are so poorly understood that other Christians sometimes express confusion about whether these outlier congregations are Christian. (They are; they just don't proselytize.) In theory a person not born and brought up in a German or Moravian Peace Church could join one, but as the groups are conservative and follow rather strict rules, and the communities are close-knit, it seems to have been hard for members of Peace Churches to imagine outsiders ever wanting to join them. Though, as Sue Bender found, they do try to be courteous and hospitable if an outsider ever did want even to sojourn among them.

But the Bruderhof formed later, starting with one congregation led by a series of exuberant, radically Christian pastors who opened their homes to needy believers, growing into a neighborhood and then into several neighborhoods of people living in "intentional communities." Their appeal was to people who were attracted to the ideals of communism, but not to violent revolution or even use of force to impose communist ideals on anyone.  These people sought peace on three levels--"the inner peace of the soul with God; the fulfillment of non-violence through peaceful relationships with others; and the establishment of a just and peaceful social order." 

So members of the Bruderhof take vows, like monastic vows; they pool their resources and live in a sort of comfortable poverty; they can be married, and live with families, but they take vows of chastity in the sense of fidelity; they promise to serve the church in whichever of its communities, around the world, the church considers them most likely to be useful. Each community supports itself by some sort of work in which every member participates so far as they are able. People with severe disabilities may be offered rooms, as rooms become available, and allowed to "pay" with such work as they are able to do. It works in a more effective, egalitarian, friendly way than state socialism ever could. It's not for most people, but it's very attractive to many people who've come to terms with the failures of socialist national economies. 

In describing the Bruderhof's pursuit of peace Johann Christoph Arnold, a grandson of founding pastor Eberhard Arnold, has much to say to people who wonder if a communal or monastic lifestyle is for them. I'm afraid he makes the Bruderhof sound like a support group for extroverts, but...God must have had some reason for allowing otherwise intelligent human beings to have to live with extroversion, and any church that gives extroverts the discipline they need to do good work is doing a very good thing. 

For those who read last week's review: What, you may ask, does the English edition have to offer that the Spanish edition lacks? Different introductions, for one thing. The introductions to the English edition, by Madeleine L'Engle and Thich Nhat Hanh, are short essays that anyone who liked and misses those authors will want to read. 

Otherwise...some people read only one language. If you read both, you might want to buy both for parallel reading. I find parallel reading an easier way to build my vocabulary than trying to learn lists of words straight from the dictionary. The vocabulary in these books happened to be about the level I needed. The new words I'm learning from these books are not specifically theological vocabulary, either. If you no longer need parallel reading, congratulations, the translation is close enough (except for the introductions, written by and to different people) that you can choose the language you prefer. 

In any case, if you already have a religious identity, this book will not try to "convert" you to leave your own community and join a Bruderhof. It may warn you off trying to do that, or encourage you to do it, or simply give you something to think and talk about with your own faith community. As Eberhard Arnold said: not everyone is called to live in an intentional community but, if not that, what else are you called to do? (Fair disclosure: the Bruderhof's magazine has printed, among others, articles by a German aristocrat who wrote about how he believed God had called him to manage ancestral land. But, although a patron, he's not a member of their church, and his story is not among the many personal testimonies in this book.)

I don't believe anyone will regret reading this book. (Though it does contain some intense moments; people found their way to the Bruderhofs through horrible situations.) Written in consultation with non-Christian authors, it manages to be thoroughly Christian while politely engaging Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist thinkers in the discussion. Which is, if you think about it, a profoundly Humanist achievement.

Dona Nobis Pacem Linkup Book Review: En Busca de Paz

Today's blog posts (both of them) reflect Mimi Lennox's call for posts on the topic of radiating peace from within out into the world. It just happens that the Christian book I've been reading this week is on that exact topic. This book is about a Christian group who try to carry peace from their prayers out into the world. Mimi invited everyone to customize their peace graphic, but I only really know how to do graphics with Zazzle, so I've copied and pasted one of her basic ones.

Title: En Busca de Paz 

Author: Johann Christoph Arnold

Translator: Juan Segarra Palmer

Date: 2015

Publisher: Plough

ISBN: 978-0-87486-000-9

Length: 248 pages

Quote: "Se habla constantemente de paz, pero hay muy poca."

This book is available in English; the English edition came out first. Sometimes I find it useful, when a book is available in two or three languages, to read the Spanish or French edition first. It is slower reading; it helps me focus on what may be fresh ideas stated in familiar phrases. Just as some teachers urge us to read the "copyright Bibles" because the Authorized Version is so familiar that we may get lost in pleasant memories and overlook the meaning of the words we study, I find that reading in a different language helps me to think past previous experiences with people who used popular phrases and consider whether this writer may be using the same phrases to say a different thing. 

This book serves two main purposes. One is to teach us about the history of the Bruderhof group as one of the "Peace Churches"; the other is to share what the author has learned, from a long religious life, about the peace of Christ. 

It is valuable, and should be in libraries, as an historical artefact. Here are the testimonies of Bruderhof members, now mostly old people, from Europe and from South and North America, explaining why they chose a sort of voluntary small-scale communism, or communalism, as an essential part of their Christian practice. Although some of them came to the Bruderhof because of conflicts at home, work, or school, some lost their positions only after joining the group. One or two were addicts who drifted in off the streets, but more were middle-class people who wanted a deeper, more radical religious practice than they had had before. These people felt a special vocation to live in communities along with their callings to oppose war.

It is also valuable for Christian readers because of its thoroughly detailed discussion of how people manage to live in peace after giving up the simple, natural solution to interpersonal problems: interpersonal space. A good healthy distance allows all the world to live in harmony. When people want to reduce that distance, the question arises how they do it? 

My guess is that those people must be extroverts and the Bruderhof is yet another church for extroverts alone, but some of Arnold's language in this book suggests that masochism is also involved. 

Why do Christians suffer? Because we live in a flawed world. What consolation does Christianity offer? When Christianity works, a group of Christians actively reduce one another's suffering: they tend and distract the sick, they trade with the poor with a long-term goal of relieving poverty, they shelter those who have lost their homes and visit or write to those who have been imprisoned for being Christians. In many churches it's hard to see any evidence of this being done; in a welfare state it's far too easy for churchgoers to say "Oh well, they can always go on welfare...and why is it that, when I'm not physically attracted to anyone in the room, I don't feel anything special about going to church?!" Before welfare states were invented Christians used to be known for falling into a different trap--embracing suffering for its own sake, becoming infatuated with suffering, imagining that we become better people by suffering more; this is known as masochism. They didn't just take a quick cold shower to distract themselves from an unproductive train of thought; they deliberately sought the experiences of frostbite and pneumonia. Masochistic religious groups flourished in the medieval era, when the incidence of gruesome diseases was high, and true believers seem to have made a positive effort to infect themselves with as many diseases as possible while subjecting themselves to hunger, cold, and filth; we don't need further details, although they have been documented. If Christians do think of going out of our way to help others, we're "radical." The Bruderhof certainly qualify as radical Christians whose self-supporting communities have stayed out of the welfare trap and made real efforts to reduce the large-scale suffering of humankind from starvation and diseases. 

How much of human suffering is small-scale, caused by too much physical proximity to others? A great deal  How can Christians relieve that kind of suffering? We can reduce it by increasing interpersonal distance; we can treat its root cause by teaching people how to show respect for others if they don't naturally feel it; we can be masochistic about it and, while perhaps being able to feel that we are burning ourselves out for God, misrepresent Christ by being part of the harmful effort to normalize extroversion. There may be other possibilities. I'm afraid that what Arnold describes in this book looks like the masochistic one. 

Most people participate in schemes that pool resources toward a common goal to some limited extent, but never consider giving all of their resources to an "intentional community" beyond marriage. Some marriage contracts even intend to limit the material commitment to the marriage. So, most readers of this book will find Arnold's description of how Bruderhof groups pack people into every room in every house, and survive, merely interesting as a sociological pattern of minority behavior. Some Christian widows, however, may be more interested in the idea of leaivng their estates to groups who will function in the places of the children they may have lost, or never had, by the time they need home care. These people (male or female) may be very much interested in how the Bruderhof live. They need this book. 

Another category of readers who will be interested in this book are Christians who've been attracted to "the social gospel" but recognized that socialist totalitarian government has sometimes managed to reduce wealth, but only to expand poverty. It's easy to waffle about how loss of individual incentives discourages individual workers from doing more to increase overall profitability. That happens, and then there's also the truth that absolute power corrupts absolutely and, when governments are given a chance to cheat the people, they invariably do. We must uncompromisingly reject socialism. We must find ways to move beyond even the benign "Social Security" pension schemes in the English-speaking countries--benign, but unsustainable, and intended to lead people into the trap of expanding socialist government. The easiest way to defy this "devil" is to say "No Social Security pension for me! Whatever I paid in, I paid to support my parents," and while I personally intend to work for my living until I die, people whose elders have led them to anticipate a long painful decline may be looking for a nice monastic order to join about now. 

(Disclaimer: I know nothing about different religious or secular intentional communities' policies with regard to Social Security pensions. Nor vice versa. Such groups prefer to take in members who are dedicated to working for the group's mission, without thinking of retirement...but it must be admitted that many of Europe's medieval saints "founded" this and that and accomplished other good works by running to the nearest convent to sign over their land as soon as some other family member was buried.) 

Well, if you would prefer to adopt some religious people as son-and-daughter surrogates, the only respectable way to do that is to get to know them, work with them, and join them while you still have some years of service to offer them. Old left-wingers may find the Bruderhof congenial. Reading Arnold's words, I can imagine a Bruderhof group being congenial to somebody like Zahara Heckscher--to the extent that there may be other people like Z Heckscher--and that is high praise indeed. The "miraculous grace" that allows these groups to live together, a married couple sharing their home with any number of students and elders and disabled people, and the fact that the Bruderhof has grown steadily around the world, offers hope that a religious approach to social problems may do more than political approaches have done.

For me, personally...I sit on my hill up above the town and remember my kinfolk who have gone on. I always loved my home for the privacy it afforded. Houses were built by people who needed to be close together for physical safety, one to two hundred years ago, but also needed to be well separated, from one another and from their townsfolk, for safety from the plagues that ravaged my town a hundred years ago. I love the place itself, the rocks and trees. I enjoy being here. I have a healthy introvert brain and never feel lonely, though I have outlived many good people and my home is where I'm most often reminded of most of them. I do not want just to bring in more people, any old people. But I remember that my paternal-line ancestor was a German Anabaptist; none of the women his male-line descendants married was German, and by 1860 they were no longer radical pacifists if they'd ever been, but they were radical Christians. I think my father, who never tried sharing a house with another couple after marriage, and my grandfather, who did, would have liked Johann Christoph Arnold. I may not always agree with him, but I enjoy his writing.