About the Book

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts aside his usual parables and speaks plainly in language anyone can understand.

Like Francis of Assisi and others, Arnold chose to live out Jesus’ teachings by embracing their self- sacrificing demands. In this collection of talks and essays, he calls us to live for the Sermon’s ultimate goal: the overturning of the prevailing order of injustice. In its place, Arnold writes, we must build up a just, peaceable society motivated by love.

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Praise

The founder of the Bruderhof offers reflections on the Sermon on the Mount that stress God's forgiveness. Eberhard Arnold calls people to a life on complete trust in God so that their attitude toward God's kingdom, other people, material wealth, and earthly power are transformed.

Christianity Today

My life has been greatly enriched by reading Salt and Light. The eternal truth of its contents at times gives me the feeling that I am reading scripture. You have done humankind a service by making this available.

Clarence Jordan, Koinonia Farms

A little known but powerfully articulate saint, Arnold lived faithfully in difficult circumstances. For preachers who preach from Matthew 5–7, this book will be a benefit.

Clergy Journal

Expecting everything from God and from God alone, certain that his seed and his light are in all people, Eberhard Arnold permits no compromise in witnessing to the way of nonviolence and non-possession that he sees exemplified by Jesus.

Friends Journal

Arnold’s writings are a light of hope in an age which seems very dark. May they no longer remain “hidden under a bushel,” but shine out to be heeded by many.

Jürgen Moltmann

Many will be made uncomfortable by Salt and Light, and it is no wonder. The Sermon on the Mount is, at a minimum, challenging and controversial. It threatens the present order of society. So does Arnold's interpretation of it.

Senator Mark O. Hatfield

An admirable, excellent book needed by a world which has turned against the Great Teaching of Jesus.

Pitirim A. Sorokin, Harvard University

Salt and Light has all the simple, luminous, direct vision into things that I have come to associate with Eberhard Arnold. It moves me deeply. It is the kind of book that stirs to repentance and to renewal. I am very grateful for it.

Thomas Merton

These heart-searching meditations on our Lord's Mountain Manifesto are most fittingly entitled Salt and Light. Their spiritual impact is both salty and enlightening.

Vernon Grounds, Denver Theological Seminary

Tablet of Contents

Introduction by Scot McKnight

‍

  • God or Mammon
  • The Fight Against Mammon
  • Mammon and the Living God
  • The Decision
  • Resistance by Surrender
  • The Spirit That Overcomes
  • The Present Experience of the Future Kingdom
  • The Joyful News of the Kingdom
  • God and the Future of Humanity
  • The Jesus of the Four Gospels
  • Afterword by Jürgen Moltmann