Belief — The Bruderhof

The Bruderhof

Movement·Founded 1920 CE·About 3,000 people in roughly two dozen communities as of 2024, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Paraguay, Australia and South Korea. The Bruderhof does not publish an audited membership figure; the count includes children and resident non-members.

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle All 1 →

E Eberhard Arnold — the theologian who went looking for the Hutterites. A doctor of philosophy and a lecture-circuit speaker in the German youth movement, he left Berlin in 1920 for a house in the Rhon and a shared purse. In 1930 he crossed the Atlantic, spent a year among the Hutterite colonies and was ordained by them; he died in 1935 after a failed operation on a broken leg. Domain Community of goods, the Sermon on the Mount as social orderStanding Read constantly, quoted constantly, and not venerated Meet them — context →

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum All 2 →

The shared center — held across the tradition

The Sermon on the Mount is a set of instructions, not an ideal. Arnold's argument in 1920 was that the church had spiritualised the Sermon in order not to obey it, and that if it is true, a group of people can simply start doing it. The Bruderhof is that argument made into an address you can visit. Go deeper — context →

Nobody is paid and nobody owns anything, including the leadership. Members receive no wage, stipend or allowance; housing, food, healthcare and education come from the common purse. The two businesses — Community Playthings and Rifton Equipment — turn over serious money, and no member has a personal claim on any of it. Go deeper — context →

Cosmos & Afterlife

how reality is built, and what follows death

The nature of reality

The Sermon on the Mount taken as a practicable order for a shared life rather than an ideal to be admired

After death

Resurrection and the kingdom, expected and partly built now