A History of Plough Magazine

The Plough was launched in March 1938 (along with a German version, Der Pflug). My book A Christian Peace Experiment (2018) discusses major elements that featured in the content of The Plough from 1938 to 1940. The journal proved to be very popular, and the fact that Hardy Arnold, the editor, drew in a wide range of authors from outside the Bruderhof or Mennonite/Anabaptist circles helped make it a significant contribution to wider thinking about pacifist Christian communities. The first issue promised articles on “the fundamental aspects of the coming order or the conditions which must be fulfilled for it to become reality here and now.” There would also be articles on historical movements or groups that were seen as being of special relevance, and contributions that dealt with contemporary ideas and activities. In addition, there would be commentary, news, and book reviews. All of these were included in the issues that followed. Hardy Arnold was a son of the Bruderhof founders, Eberhard and Emmy Arnold. Articles by Eberhard Arnold, who died in 1935, would feature throughout the history of publication of The Plough.

As a signal that the publication would draw from a broad constituency, one of the articles in the first issue of The Plough was by J. B. Rusch, a Swiss Roman Catholic who was committed to applying Christian principles to social and political life. A month later the Peace Pledge Union’s Peace News spoke of The Plough as fulfilling an important role in this renewal of wider interest in community. It was a “most attractively produced” publication, described as emanating from what was by then the “famous Cotswold community” of the Bruderhof. The community was being built up in the Cotswolds, and grew to about three hundred people. Peace News declared, “No one who is interested in the development of contact and coordination between the various communities in existence should fail to see The Plough.” At this stage (since 1930) the Bruderhof was linked with the Hutterite communities in North America, although that would come to an end in 1955.

Plough Print Shop in the 1930s. Bruderhof Historical Archive.

The Plough, in line with its commitment to having a wide vision, often shared news about the development of communities in England, Scotland, and Wales, and sometimes elsewhere. In the 1930s there was considerable interest in Britain in Christian community. The Bruderhof attracted the attention of national newspapers, with most of the coverage being favourable. At the same time as reaching out nationally, The Plough included local news of the community in the Cotswolds, which was near the village of Ashton Keynes. In each issue there were also substantial articles on aspects of Anabaptist history, theology, and current thought. Writers were a mix of those from within the Anabaptist tradition and those outside. A range of books was reviewed. There were specific themes taken up in some issues, such as arts and crafts and education.

Reflecting on twenty years of Bruderhof life, the summer 1940 Plough recalled that in 1920 a small group of people in Germany, “deeply disquieted by the horror and injustice of the World War of 1914–18,” had embarked on a “new venture of community living.” Now, in 1940, the people of Europe and people from other parts of the world were caught up in another world war. At this critical moment in history, Bruderhof members wanted to declare again their conviction that “the common life, community in all its spiritual and material things, is the fruit of love, and as such the only solution for the need of the world. To it belongs the spreading of the good tidings of the coming kingdom, and the call to repentance throughout the world.” The emigration of almost all of the Bruderhof community from Britain to Paraguay brought The Plough to an end for the time being. The last issues were in 1940.

Renewal of The Plough

Although leaving the Cotswold community meant a severe loss, a Bruderhof community was built up at Wheathill, near Ludlow, Shropshire, from 1942, and in Spring 1953 a “new series” of The Plough was announced. In Vol. 1. No. 1, the editors expressed the hope that the content in this renewed Plough might bring the Bruderhof into closer contact with “seeking people” in different parts of the world. Some of the history of the Bruderhof was given, from its founding in 1920 and the link with what became the Plough Publishing House. The vision in the 1950s was said to have remained the same, despite twelve years when The Plough was not produced. This vision was for a faith “which is active in love and leads to works of peace, a way of life based on Christ’s teaching.” Periodical articles were promised on issues of fundamental significance, along with reports of past and present events, and an open forum for discussion of contemporary questions. The Plough was not just “propaganda for the Bruderhof.” The desire was to bring a message of Christian community to new groups and movements, to kindle a light for those who might feel in darkness, and to call all seekers to a way of brotherhood that leads toward the coming order of God’s kingdom.

In the first issue in 1953, a member of the Bruderhof, Philip Britts, wrote an article “Men and brothers, what shall we do?” He spoke of issues that were urgent because the world was moving with increasing speed from one disaster to another. Jesus, he insisted, proclaimed the new way of love, a new kingdom of peace. Now, Britts continued, whole nations were claiming to follow the Christian way but were living in violence, injustice, and impurity, even using the name of God to bless and justify their wars. He focused attention, in the midst of this, on any places in the world, however small, where people live in brotherly justice and peace, and give their lives to the cause of peace. The weakness of pacifism, he argued, was that it was defensive, at best a counter move that left the initiative in the hands of the enemy. In his view, those who longed for peace must take the initiative and put the gospel of the new kingdom into practice. He spoke of brotherhood as “a joyous aggression” against all that was wrong; an utterly different way of life, away from the dog-eat-dog of competitive living; and a move away from “the limitation and coldness” of property and selfish living.

During the course of 1953, several members of the Bruderhof who had joined during the time when the Cotswold community was in operation contributed articles. Marjory Hindley wrote about the church and the world, advocating Christian involvement but not a mirroring of the world. She was adamant that “the church does not sever itself from the world” but that in its practice it has to be free from all evil and injustice. Without that the salt has lost its savor. Stanley Fletcher, who had joined the Bruderhof after having been part of a group of itinerant preachers, wrote on “Fear and Perplexity.” As with others, he lamented the perplexing reality that professing Christians had slaughtered other professing Christians by the million on battlefields. There was fear of ongoing war. People had suffered mental collapse out of fear and perplexity. When the early Christians were taken as an example, a different kind of world was to be seen. They did not engage in militancy but they were faithful in witness. They did not imagine that witness was going to bring about a gradual betterment of the world but instead they knew they were a small minority in following Jesus. Jennifer Harries had been inspired by a youth trip to Germany and wrote: “Our communities are not havens of refuge from the troubles of life but gathering centers for those who wish to follow Christ.”

There was a significant new development in 1954, with the opening of the first Bruderhof community in North America: Woodcrest, in the mid-Hudson Valley, New York State. North America became increasingly significant. The Spring 1954 Plough carried an article on the Catholic Worker Movement by Dorothy Day. She had been cofounder of the movement in 1933, in the United States. Her vision was of radical discipleship, in which followers of Christ were immersed in the social issues of the day, with the aim of transforming both individuals and society. There was a continuing Bruderhof community in Paraguay in 1954, which included a hospital, and indeed several of those who came together in the United States had visited Paraguay. One of the members there, Arthur Mettler, wrote in Summer 1954 on “The Spirit of Prophecy: The Role of the People of God.” He outlined the way in which churches in Europe had tended to take up either a liberal or an orthodox theological position. Now a third voice was attempting to gain a hearing. For liberals this voice seemed orthodox, for the orthodox it seemed liberal, and it might be called “the prophetic spirit.” Both the Anabaptist and the Quaker traditions were seen as bringing a prophetic call for a new way.

A Wide Vision

Although The Plough in the 1950s saw American and British developments as important, other parts of the world and other times in history were featured. There was a wide vision. In Autumn 1954, Paula Thijssen, a Dutch Bruderhof member at Wheathill, wrote on community as the outcome of Christian belief. She referred to the early church document The Didache and quoted the outstanding fourth-century preacher and bishop, John Chrysostom, who said: “In accepting the gift of community the Christian also bears witness to him who gave it. Christ prayed for the oneness of disciples that the world might believe.” Thijssen stressed that this was a call to all, not just a monastic option for some. Attention was given to the Jesus Family communities in China, and to Ching T’ien-Ying, an influential founder and leader. There was also a report in 1954 from the Aiyetoro Community of the Holy Apostles, in Nigeria, which had been founded in 1947. They reported that they were “going forward through the Holy Spirit of God” who was working among them and that they were “receiving varied gifts of the Holy Spirit.”

The wide coverage continued through 1954. There was a report from India, from the Mar Thoma Syrian church, which had a sense of missionary calling inspired in its origins by Saint Thomas. Fritz Wendel, a member of the German parliament in Bonn, wrote a substantial article on “The message of Saint Francis of Assisi.” He argued that Francis and the brothers knew that discipleship was the key to the transformation and salvation of the world. This was, for him, an example to be followed. Other articles in the Winter 1954 Plough were on the work of French communities. (1954 was the year that The Rule of Taizé, written by Brother Roger, was first published; the Taizé community had begun in Burgundy in 1940.) Along with these ecumenical interests, news was shared of what was taking place in Bruderhof communities. A former Reformed Church minister had joined Wheathill at age twenty-nine, with his wife and young children. Previously he had held to convictions about the gospel, but felt that “the revolutionary power of the gospel is scarcely ever expressed in deed.” In the Bruderhof he and his wife had found what they had been seeking.

A number of writers who were known in the Christian world contributed to The Plough in 1955. Eberhard Bethge both wrote an article and visited Wheathill. His concern was to spread the thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In 1955 Bonhoeffer’s powerful work Ethics, was published in English by SCM Press, and this was edited by Bethge, who wrote that Bonhoeffer “believed that the Christian cause was a costly thing and should not be made cheap. He felt very keenly that of all groups the churches used Christ’s words without living according to them.” On his visit to Wheathill, Bethge commended Bonhoeffer’s book about community, Life Together. Another writer was A. J. Muste, who had been one of the founders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). The Bruderhof was keen to have FOR speakers. Other communities reported on were initiatives taken in different parts of Italy, partly inspired by the history of the Waldensians. In winter 1955, The Plough had an article by Eivind Josef Berggrav, Lutheran Bishop of Oslo and leader of the Lutheran Church in Norway. His article was on “Solitude and Community.” Berggrav led the Norwegian Church’s resistance to Hitler and was imprisoned in solitary confinement. However, his inspirational leadership meant that almost all of the Lutheran priests resigned in protest against the Nazi tyranny. It was with this in mind that he wrote of solitude but not isolation, as there were always those who belonged together in community.

Witness in the World

The theme of Christian presence and witness in the world was a significant one in the context of the 1950s and the Cold War. The Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, in response to the earlier formation of NATO by the United States and its allies. One of the major articles in The Plough in 1955 was by Lewis Benson, an American Quaker. He stood in the historic Quaker pacifist position and was an expert on the scripts of George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement. Benson wrote about how first-century Christians were called to become the new Israel of God. They were few in number and weak in terms of outward standing, but they were a “holy community,” as Peter in his letter powerfully described them. However, Benson went on to talk about how Christian faith became in time something different from what God intended. Christianity became the official religion of Western civilization and in so doing was vastly changed. The church ceased to understand that it was called to enter into the sufferings of Christ’s cross, and the power of God was taken from it. In the sixteenth-century Reformation, Benson argued, the new churches very early sought earthly policy and power to uphold and carry on their Reformation. Anabaptism represented a different way, but its development was arrested. Benson saw Quakerism as a movement of spiritual reformation.

A Bruderhof member, Llewelyn Harries, wrote in autumn 1956 on Christian pacifism. He saw the character of Christ’s kingdom as entirely different from that of a worldly king. Christ’s teaching about peace was applied to life in the early Christian church. A Christian was not to engage in political activity or in revolution to secure freedom. Harries quoted from C. J. Cadoux, a Congregational theologian in Oxford, in his book The Early Church Attitude to War. Cadoux argued that no Christian in the early church ever thought of enlisting in the army. Those who were soldiers gave up their profession on becoming Christians. Origen was quoted to support the view that Christians did not serve as soldiers or magistrates for the emperor. The church has an utterly different policy. From the time of Constantine, however, the official attitude of what Harries called “the great world churches” had been to support the state in the question of war. Small radical groups of Christians maintained the attitude of rejecting absolutely anything to do with warfare. These groups of Christians who refuse to line up with the state have often been cruelly persecuted for their witness.

The threat of nuclear war was covered in The Plough in 1956 and 1957. The first US airdrop of a thermonuclear bomb took place on May 20, 1956 and was described as “by far the most stupendous release of explosive energy on earth so far.” Britain made the decision in 1955, reaffirmed by policy and action through 1958, to manufacture its own hydrogen bomb. Derek Wardle wrote that through the series of nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean, Britain had entered the company of the atomic powers. Wardle had come into contact with the Bruderhof during the Second World War and had decided to stay. He had been aware of poverty in Britain and, regarding the Soviet Union as a socialist utopia, had hoped to address poverty through the Communist Party. However, in the Bruderhof he saw a new way of addressing social and political evil. Prominent voices had been raised against the use of nuclear weapons, but Wardle was disappointed that Christian churches had not spoken out. However, the British Council of Churches did pass a resolution to deplore nuclear tests, and this was reported in The Plough. It was passed by only three votes, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, advised against the resolution.

The theme of fellowship with other Christian communal movements in witness was again present in The Plough in 1957. Brotherhood was a vision in India, with small groups of Christians having begun to witness to the uniting power of Christ. There was exchange of publications between the Bruderhof and communities in India, and there was in particular a strong bond with K. K. Chandy, a founder member of the Christavashram community in Kerala, South India. He wrote a book on the quest for community and was editor of Arunodayam, which was the voice of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) in South Asia. Muriel Lester, from London, who with her sister Doris lived and worked in the East End of London and also had links with the Bruderhof, accompanied K. K. Chandy in travels in India representing IFOR. Another movement with which the Bruderhof felt a connection was the Moravian movement. Arthur Mettler wrote in 1957 on the way the Moravian brotherhood exhibited an innate broad-mindedness concerning denominational boundaries. He quoted Karl Barth, who saw the Moravian movement as a wonderful picture of the ecumenical church. There was a report on a conference in Germany, at which Moravians were celebrating the five-hundred-year anniversary of the founding of the movement.

Churches in America and Europe

The Bruderhof communities were growing and multiplying in the 1950s, especially in the USA. It was inevitable, therefore, that articles would cover life in the United States. Writing in autumn 1957, one contributor, Francis B. Hall, described how the religious press was “full of the spiritual awakening that is stirring in America.” Enthusiastic fingers were pointing to soaring statistics of church attendance, church building, and church giving, to the popularity of religious themes in literature and cinema, to the tens of thousands pouring out of religious campaigns, and to the wide usage of religious vocabulary in political speeches and activities. This was the period when Billy Graham had gained national prominence. But in the midst of this enthusiasm, some in theological colleges were pointing to “the danger of a nation cult in the place of a profound and prophetic Christian gospel.” Probably the thinking of Reinhold Niebuhr was in view here. The real power of Christ, the article maintained, was in his words “Follow me.” That call, the article continued, “contains but does not stop at the evangelist’s call to individual salvation.” Thirdly, it can contain but goes beyond the liberal Christian attempt to implement the teaching of Christ. “To put God above all is to put him above the nation, above the race, above the family.” This is the way to address the “temptation to identify the welfare of America with the kingdom of God.” God, the article concluded, has no chosen nation.

There was a hope that in America churches were finally coming alive to their sin against Christ in segregation and discrimination. However, Derek Wardle, also writing in autumn 1957, noted that in the Southern states of the USA segregation was “most pronounced at 11 a.m. on Sunday.” In West Germany a “Christian” political party was willing to equip its army with atomic weapons. At the time of Constantine, Wardle stated, the Christian church lost its true function and character. The functions of Christ and the state went hand in hand. A child born into a given state was baptized into a state church. This was true in the Catholic Church and “the churches of the Reformation continued the error.” Wardle did not want to speak of “the Christian West.” He referred to the Mennonite scholar Harold Bender, who had been speaking at a Mennonite conference. He had called for a rediscovery of the Anabaptist vision, something he had been advocating since the 1940s and which was to be highly influential. A Festschrift for Bender in 1957 was entitled The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision. His emphasis in his address quoted in The Plough was on the need for the Word and the Spirit.

The position of the churches in Europe was also taken up in Plough articles. Arthur Mettler was back in Switzerland after twenty years. He had met with Emil Brunner, who next to Karl Barth was the leading Swiss Protestant theologian. Brunner wrote The Misunderstanding of the Church. Mettler asked Brunner if he had found many willing to join him in seeking a new view of the true church. The answer from Brunner was that he had not, but he was “willing to bear that little humiliation for Christ’s sake.” In Brunner’s view the Episcopal churches had gone furthest from the true church, the free churches had retained a part of the original Christian life, and there were fellowships “where the spirit of love permeates all of life.” Mettler also quoted a few words from Max Huber, a Swiss representative of the Hague Peace Council. Huber had said that those opposed to the common relationship of church and state in supporting war did so from the standpoint of the absolute demands of Jesus and they had brought “a holy unrest” into the churches. Among the letters in response was one saying that Christendom had failed to lay hold on the economic implications of the kingdom gospel. It had limited itself to “so-called spiritual matters.”

Plough Print Shop in the 1960s. Bruderhof Historical Archive.

In 1958 The Plough came out in a simpler, less expensive format, calling itself The Bulletin of the Bruderhof Communities. An editorial comment explained the reason as “the need for a wider circulation,” less expensive and being issued more often. That year, the Bruderhof established a new British base in Bulstrode, a large mansion near Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. This had been owned by Sir John Frecheville Ramsden, and during World War II was used for training for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. By 1958, when Sir John died, it was in a state of bad repair. The Bruderhof set to work to renew it. From Bulstrode it was easier than it was from Wheathill to travel, and members went on missions in Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Spain. There were links with small groups, one on an island on the east coast of Sweden and another in Barcelona. It was encouraging to the Bruderhof to make connections in Germany, where the movement had started in 1920. The young people of Sinntal (a German Bruderhof that had begun in 1955) spent a weekend with the Brothers of the Common Life. Some joint conferences were held. The Bruderhof joined in the tenth European Conference of Poets at Meisenheim. The conferences that had most attraction for the Bruderhof were those that explored creative expressions of community. A theme that was ideal as a conference topic was “Brotherly Thinking.” The leader of that conference, Pastor von Schweinitz, spoke from his long and very difficult experiences of life.

Although there were encouragements in Europe, The Plough in 1959 suggested that the church in Europe would need the gospel to be brought to Europe by Chinese, Indian, or African missionaries. This was a prophetic statement, long before “reverse mission” was being talked about. Bruderhof members such as Marjory Hindley, Grace Rhoads, and Llewelyn Harris made journeys in France, Switzerland, and Germany to keep in touch with developments. They met representatives of UNESCO, the World Council of Churches, and the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey near Geneva. In France an important contact was AbbéPierre Pernot, near Paris, who was aware of many community attempts in France. He was concerned that many failed. At Sinntal, in Germany, a conference was held in 1959 entitled “Let Barriers Fall.” The main speaker was Heinz von Homeyer. His book The Radiant Mountain, published in 1957, had become well-known. He had been imprisoned four times – by the Russians, the Germans, the Nazis, and the Americans. He and his wife had stood before a firing squad. In his talks he said he was seeking to be a follower of Christ but knew how often he failed. He outlined how churches had betrayed Christ through their lust for power and politics and he argued that Christianity in the West had no forceful conviction to set against Communism. Heinz von Homeyer had resigned from the Lutheran Church in protest against a Lutheran leader who said that nuclear armament was compatible with Christian witness.

There was also coverage in The Plough of the Catholic Church. In the Autumn 1959 issue one article had the headline “Vatican Bans Worker Priests.” It seemed that this was especially about priests in France. The view was being taken by the hierarchy that these priests were doing manual work and time would be better spent in pastoral work. Also, they were taking an active part in trade unions and strikes. For the Bruderhof, the worker priest movement was an effort on the part of the church to solve the problem of the divorce of everyday working life from the life of the church. Within the Orthodox Church, there was interest in The Plough in a movement in Bulgaria which following a Bulgarian mystic, Peter Deunov. In this movement it was believed that old forms of church life would not be able to withstand the pressure of the Spirit.

Gladys Mason wrote in 1960 with the message that only in Jesus was there power to oppose violence, privilege, and self-seeking. She called for a way of life that was marked by willingness to sacrifice everything else. For her, the call to all churches was to be united in a new brotherhood, and this held out the possibility of experiencing something of God’s future for all humankind now.

Beginning The Plough Again

The publication of The Plough ceased during a time of great upheaval in the Bruderhof, from 1959 to 1961. It seemed that the movement experienced a kind of spiritual crisis. For too many, living in community had become an end in itself. There was a call from leaders, notably Heinrich Arnold (another son of Eberhard and Emmy), who was now the main leader, to come back to the centrality of life in Christ. This period saw the closing of Bruderhof communities in South America, Germany, and England (except for Bulstrode). As time went on, there was recovery from the pain of what had happened, and fresh communities were begun. In 1971 there was a new community in Darvell, East Sussex. There was a desire to issue The Plough once again. In 1974 the Bruderhof again became part of the Hutterites in North America.

The re-launch of The Plough took place in 1983. The editorial note recalled the initial vision of the Bruderhof’s founding in 1920: “The task and mission … is to proclaim living renewal … to apply Christianity publicly, to testify to God’s action in the history of our days.” It also quoted from The Plough’s 1938 mission statement: “A new order of mankind is drawing near … Old concepts of life have fallen short of solving our vast problems.” Thus the Plough magazine of 1983 was consistent with the earlier volumes. It opened with a leading article from Ronald Sider, “Response to the Threat of Nuclear War.” Ron Sider was an ordained minister in the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches. His Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (1977) was to be recognised by Christianity Today as one of the one-hundred most influential religious books of the twentieth century. He was the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, a think tank seeking to explore biblical solutions to social and economic issues. His article spoke of the twenty years that would come as the most dangerous in human history. He believed that nothing less than the greatest revival in human history would save the world from nuclear disaster.

Issues of The Plough during 1983 and 1984 included a wide variety of material: an article on Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights; a call for young men to refuse to serve in the American military; a report of a London soup run with the Salvation Army; a survey of communities’ actions; a report on homelessness; a description of an evening when inmates of federal prisons from six American states joined the Bruderhof for an evening of fellowship and song; an article on the treatment of Hutterite brothers who refused to fight in World War I; a report on a meeting held in prison on the subject of marriage and faithfulness; an article on abortion and on the ethics of the use of human organs; a portrayal of the plight of 200,000 neglected children at the US–Mexico border; suggestions about the implications of the parable of the good Samaritan; and a commentary on the life and work of Dave Wilkerson, author of The Cross and the Switchblade, which at that time had sold sixteen million copies and been translated into forty-two languages. The comment was made that after this he withdrew from stardom.

In September 1984 The Plough published details of a conversation between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hardy Arnold that had taken place fifty years previously. At the time Bonhoeffer, then aged twenty-eight, was in London, as pastor of two churches. Hardy Arnold was a student at Birmingham University. The article about the conversation explained that the Confessing Church, in which Bonhoeffer was a leader, resisted the Nazi doctrines being accepted within the German Protestant churches. In Germany the alliance of the political state and the church was the normal traditional arrangement then, and one that continued. It was unorthodox for the Confessing Church to resist. The article noted that there was a plan for Bonhoeffer to visit Gandhi for advice on how to overthrow a hostile government nonviolently and for Bonhoeffer to visit the Bruderhof. Neither of these visits took place. The Bruderhof, as an entity separate from the organized church, has had no connection with the state, and for Bonhoeffer as a Lutheran it was hard to understand this. Bonhoeffer purchased a set of the fifteen Quellen volumes (the writings of Christian thinkers through the centuries) produced by the Bruderhof at that time. He felt, said Hardy Arnold, a strong love for Christ in the Bruderhof. Bonhoeffer’s father and Hardy’s grandfather had both taught at the University of Breslau. (Later Bonhoeffer formed an underground seminary community at Finkenwalde, but the Gestapo closed it.)

The question of whether Bonhoeffer departed from an earlier commitment to pacifism was discussed in The Plough. It was well known that he had supported the conspiracy against Hitler. Several bomb-like devices were planted, but Hitler escaped. Bonhoeffer was hanged in April 1945. Hans Meier, a Bruderhof member, wrote on “Bonhoeffer’s Later Beliefs.” Hans Meier’s view was that Bonhoeffer diverged from his earlier commitment to nonviolence. He was in despair at the criminality of Hitler’s regime and the diminishing resistance of the Confessing Church. His change of mind, according to Meier, came from the same thinking as the Just War theory. For Meier, this had done much harm to the cause of peace. The authoritative biography of Bonhoeffer by his friend Eberhard Bethge raised questions. Is the death of the enemy Christ’s solution? Is the Christian martyr to die for such a cause? The conspirators with whom Bonhoeffer was working were not entirely at ease with the idea of killing, but saw it in this case as a means to further God’s kingdom of justice and peace.

Movements of Spirituality

There was considerable coverage in The Plough in the mid-1980s of movements of spirituality. It was a time when the influence of the charismatic renewal had grown and was affecting all denominations. In July 1984, Johann Christoph Arnold wrote on “The Charismatic Movement.” He was the son of Heinrich Arnold and his wife Annemarie, and had been born in the Cotswold Bruderhof in 1940. He had spent his boyhood years in Paraguay and moved, with his parents, to the United States in 1955. In 1983 Johann Christoph Arnold, in partnership with his wife Verena, was appointed to the leadership of the Bruderhof. In his examination of charismatic gifts, he outlined how the gift of speaking in tongues was given to the first Christians in a powerful way. On the day of Pentecost languages from fifteen countries were heard and understood simultaneously. He then turned to 1 Corinthians 13, which shows the notable spiritual gifts of faith, hope, and love. In the next chapter, with Paul’s teaching on tongues (1 Cor. 14:26–28), Arnold suggested a “modest” approach, with speaking in tongues mainly happening when people were alone in their rooms. For him it was “an unhealthy gospel” if the gift of tongues was made a major teaching. The gift of love, by contrast, led to community outreach and help for the poor. Although Arnold accepted that, following Pauline teaching, there could be speaking in tongues for edification and to build up the church, his view was that the charismatic movement put some Christians on a higher level than others, and this could not be tolerated in the Bruderhof. True spiritual gifts honored God, not human instruments. Finally, he argued that “Jesus did not teach us to speak in tongues,” but taught humility and unity.

More was said about spirituality in 1985. Magnus Malm, from Sweden, wrote about movements that he was observing. He spoke of Sweden, with its high standard of living, and no poor people to be seen on the street, as marked by “spiritual poverty and rootlessness.” He described the Lutheran Church, linked with the state, sanctioning rather than challenging the status quo. His own early background had been in the Salvation Army and he was then confirmed in the Methodist Church. Despite the general unpromising picture that he painted, he was encouraged that in the past fifteen years there had been “a general spiritual awakening,” He highlighted the Jesus Movement, and by contrast with Johann Christoph Arnold, he was positive about the impact of the charismatic movement. He spoke about the ecumenical magazine he edited Nytt Liv (New Life) and the attempts through writing and various involvements to address major issues, especially peace. His view was that work for peace was not undertaken by Christians “because we believe we can actually achieve world peace,” but rather “out of faithfulness to Christ.” Many interdenominational prayer groups were agents of peace and reconciliation and were deepening a sense of community, over against a Protestant Lutheran tradition centered on individualism. Later Malm led retreats for Swedish church workers. These were located at the monastery of The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Gothenburg, and introduced many to Ignatian spirituality.

In The Plough in 1986 there was greater focus on the spirituality nurtured in the early Hutterite movement in Europe in the sixteenth century. A letter from Jakob Hutter (1500–1536) was published in which he spoke of the Anabaptist community of his time as “brothers who love God and his truth,” and as “witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Anabaptists, he said, had been “driven out of many countries for the sake of God’s holy name.” Not only was there the experience of being “driven out,” there was also death. Jakob Hutter was captured and tortured. He was put into ice-cold water, then taken into a sweltering room and beaten. His captors slashed his body, poured brandy into his cuts, and then set the alcohol on fire. To stop his proclamations, they gagged him. On February 25, 1536, Jakob Hutter was burned at the stake in Innsbruck. His wife Katharina was held separately in captivity. However, security was lax – perhaps because she was pregnant – and she escaped and continued her martyred husband’s work for two more years, until she was arrested again. This time she was executed immediately, likely by a “third baptism,” as drownings of Anabaptists were dubbed.

Eberhard Arnold had been inspired by Hutter and the early Hutterites, and part of his calling was to translate Hutterite spirituality into the context of the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, a context in which there was mass persecution, militarism, rabid nationalism, and hate mongering. The established churches had responded by and large (there were exceptions such as the Confessing Church) with silence at best and outright complicity at worst. The main book Eberhard Arnold wrote on spirituality was Inner Land: A Guide into the Heart and Soul of the Bible. Although the word “inner” might suggest inwardly directed spirituality, the article in The Plough, written by John Farina, associate editor for the Catholic Paulist Press and archivist and historian for the Paulist Fathers, showed that Eberhard Arnold had a full-orbed approach. Faced with the evils of the Nazi regime and with church complicity, he uttered “an outright no.” He chose a prophetic alternative to the madness he saw all around him and his point of reference was “the radical Anabaptist approach to the church-state question,” which meant he “rejected the Nazi claims that they were God’s special agency doing his providential bidding.” In Inner Land Eberhard drew from rich sources, including Meister Eckhart, but he “did not want a passive contemplative life.” There had to be “active stillness.” John Farina, who was editor-in-chief of the Classics of Western Spirituality, noted that many great contemplatives of the Middle Ages, such as Eckhart, were very active. Farina wondered if Eberhard Arnold’s “prophetic urgency” rather than “the all too common evangelical prejudice against Catholics” meant he neglected that aspect. He also noted that Eberhard Arnold rejected a Reformed doctrine of total depravity that would minimize the power of the will as a force for good or the importance of good works.

Communal Living

The Plough also continued to follow developments in communal living. There was an article in The Plough in May–June 1986 on a community that dated back to before the Bruderhof had started in 1920. The founder was David Petander, who was born in Gothenburg in 1875. After theological study he became a pastor in the Lutheran Church in 1903. Following seven years of ministry he left and committed himself to voluntary poverty and service to the poor. For four years he drew large crowds, which was resented by the clergy. In 1914 he was called up to fight in World War I. He refused to do so, was arrested and then was court-martialed. He caught pneumonia and died aged thirty-nine. Erik Andersson took up his work, and as an itinerant preacher both proclaimed the gospel and reached out with help to those in distress and suffering. Erik Andersson testified to the life that would burst forth if people would crown Christ as their Lord and let his Word and Spirit have authority above all else. Over thirty years he gathered others and in 1939 he wrote to the Cotswold Bruderhof: “We regard our whole life as a humble beginning toward the kingdom that Christ wanted to found on earth.” He died in 1945 when the Bruderhof was in Paraguay. Later his contribution was little known.

Another connection in Sweden was through Nils and Dora Wingard. They had come to Christian faith through Baptist witness in Sweden. They then had contact with the Bruderhof and joined the community in 1931. Nils had a background in engineering and helped the Bruderhof in the 1930s with the erection of new machines in agriculture and printing. Dora also brought skills, as an infant nurse and midwife. By the 1980s Nils and Dora were making contact with a range of Swedish people who were seeking community. The May–June 1986 Plough reported that Bruderhof members had spent seven weeks in Sweden, visiting a range of locations. Sojourners magazine, produced by the Sojourners community in the USA, was being translated into Swedish and was an important factor in the response. Gradually the Bruderhof produced more literature in Swedish. The magazine Nytt Liv also wrote about the Bruderhof. Requests for more information and requests to visit came to Darvell. Those in Sweden who were disillusioned with materialism were turning to radical Christianity. Something was happening in Sweden.

Something was also happening in Catholic charismatic communities. There were varied views about this in The Plough. One article spoke about the new sense of having found a warm, outgoing community. That had happened in 1974. The acceptance of Catholic charismatic renewal owed a great deal to Cardinal Suenens, who had visited communities and who, between 1974 and 1986, collaborated with a commission made up of theologians and leaders of the renewal which produced six documents – known as the Malines Documents – as guidelines for the Catholic charismatic movement. He was Archbishop of Malines-Brussels. That period – the second half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s – was something of a golden era for the Catholic charismatic movement, which was expanding not only throughout North America but also in Latin America, Europe, and the rest of the world. But for some the initial joy in reading the Bible and being free in prayer led to a feeling of pride. It seemed that there was no awareness of sin, only of victory. However, other readers of The Plough offered a much more positive perspective. They considered that there was an emphasis within renewal on turning from sin and on servanthood. It seemed to be a danger to make judgements and generalizations. One reader said that renewal had “brought a dimension to my life more wonderful than can be described.”

Conferences on the church as community were held in 1987 and 1988. The desire was to go back to the New Testament and find new inner life as well as being involved in ministry in the world, to those who were victims of exploitation, who were homeless, who needed safe family life. Eight groups met in Prague in June 1987: the Hutterian Brethren (which then included the Bruderhof), Waldensians, Hussites, Mennonites, Quakers, Moravians, the Church of the Brethren, and the Czech Brethren. Many topics were considered in the course of the conference, much of it through discussion in small groups. There was a powerful testimony from someone from East Germany who said that in the Communist setting they had learned what it meant to be churches on the side of the powerless and poor. There was commentary from the Bruderhof that drew from Eberhard Arnold. He had faced the situation of leaving the Lutheran Church in Germany. At the time the Confessing Church, although it had a clear witness in certain respects, had also said there could be no withdrawal from the established church. Eberhard Arnold believed “that cripples every bit of initiative.” For him, if a church became godless and “ruled by demons and idolatry” it was useless to protest but remain in such a setting. A new community was needed. It is significant that in the conference in Prague there was a sharing of churches which were different in many respects but all were witness as non-state-church communities.

A New Europe

From 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ending of Communist regimes across Central and Eastern Europe, The Plough followed the events with interest. The April–May 1990 issue reported on a further conference in Prague, this time on the heritage of the Hussite Reformation and the Radical Reformation. One of the speakers with whom the Bruderhof established connection was Gyorgy Bulanyi, the leader of the Bush Movement (from the “burning bush”) in Hungary, which comprised two to three thousand people, many of them young people. They met in groups of five to fifteen. Within the movement, 20 percent of income given by members went to the Third World. Gyorgy Bulanyi was a Catholic priest who had questioned the church’s support for militarism. He had been in prison for fifteen years. After he came out, he was not permitted to preach or carry out his duties as a priest in the Catholic Church. He worked as a laborer and studied the Gospels. When he first met the Bruderhof, he was suspicious. The Bruderhof view was that there needed to be unity on all important issues. This savored too much of the Catholic view. He believed in a Christianity inspired by the Spirit and not imposed by human authority. However, he came to see that the Bruderhof were not imposing beliefs on others. Some in the Bush movement were questioning child baptism and were looking at community of goods.

The end of the division between East and West in Europe meant that communities in different places could communicate with each other much more easily. Communities in West and East Germany were among those described in 1990 in The Plough. The Franziskus Community came from the Franciscan vision and lived with a common purse. This had been set up by a married couple, Lanfranco and Susie Reitlinger, who had left their careers for community life. Susie Reitlinger was the main community leader. The community made candles and kept sheep for wool. Products were sold. Those in the community refused military service. They were also very concerned about ecology. A different kind of community was Hoffnungsthal (Valley of Hope), which had been established in 1905 by the well-known Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, as an extension of his Bethel Institution in Bielefeld. Hoffnungsthal was home to 1,200 people who had learning disabilities or in other ways needed community living and support. During the Third Reich the leaders of the community defied the Nazi euthanasia program and contended for the sanctity of life. Another ministry from the community was one of reconciliation.

Articles that focused on situations in the Eastern part of Europe were common in the 1990s. “God Does not Lord it Over Us,” written by Gyorgy Bulanyi, was a call for service and peacemaking. There is no worse contradiction, he stated, than the Christian soldier, with the gospel and a grenade. The Bruderhof was part of an interfaith delegation in 1993 which sought to learn firsthand the situation of war refugees from Bosnia. There was coverage of the general spiritual situation in the former Yugoslavia, where, in the new countries that had emerged, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Muslims all engaged in nationalistic affirmation of their own ethnic unit. There was also an interest in The Plough in the Solidarity movement in Poland. The Bruderhof conviction was that instead of being bounded by nationalist thinking, Christians should build an alternative community that lives out the values of the gospel. It was felt that evangelical groups in Eastern Europe had a better grasp than those in the West of the issues faced by Anabaptists in the sixteenth century regarding the rights of conscience and the responsibility to organize life together against a background of persecution. In the East of Europe these Christian groups were once countercultural by necessity (under Communism) but were now countercultural by choice.

A wide range of authors was quoted in The Plough from the mid–1990s onward. The link with the Hutterites, which had been in place since 1974, came to an end in 1995 and broader links were evident. Among the authors quoted were Dorothy Sayers, the Blumhardts, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, and Henri Nouwen. Dorothy Sayers’s conviction was welcomed: “I believe it is a great mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offence in it. We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus meek and mild was so stiff in his opinions and so inflammatory in his language that he was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever his peace was it was not the peace of amiable indifference.” There was resistance from some readers to the breadth in The Plough, but as a response Eberhard Arnold (from 1935) was quoted in 1995: “If we have an understanding for the Anabaptist tradition only and offer our faith to others as here you are, take it or leave it, we don’t want to have anything to do with you, you don’t share our faith, I shall not go along with it. I shall protest against it as long as I live.”

The question of how broad the Bruderhof could be in its ecumenism was addressed head on in Spring 1996 in an article: “Ecumenism Possible with Doctrinal Compromise?” The position outlined was that the Bruderhof remained “conscious of our roots and deeply grateful for them but we are also conscious of the dangers of narrowness and traditionalism. We long to follow the Spirit wherever it leads.” This did not satisfy everyone and there were objections from some readers to a meeting between Johann Christoph Arnold and Cardinal Ratzinger – the future Pope Benedict XVI. The Bruderhof welcomed the recognition by the Catholic Church that its use of violence was wrong and sinful. There was a reminder that the magisterial churches of the Reformation also used violence. There was no backing down from a welcoming approach. The Bruderhof wanted “to be ready to meet all Catholics including the pope himself as human beings and as fellow seekers. We do not consider ourselves to be in exclusive possession of biblical truth.” At Christ’s return, the question was asked, will any church or Christian escape judgement?

A considerable impact was made by the publication in 1997 of Discipleship: Living for Christ in the Daily Grind, by J. Heinrich Arnold. There was a link with the discussion about the Catholic Church since the foreword to Discipleship was written by Henri J. M. Nouwen, a Catholic priest. He called it “a prophetic book in a time in which few people dare to speak unpopular but healing words.” Nouwen had died in 1996 and a tribute in The Plough, “Remembering Henri,” spoke of how Nouwen’s writing came out of an awareness that his deepest vocation was to be a witness to the glimpses of God he had been allowed to catch. In 1997 a letter in The Plough spoke of Nouwen as someone who was “a humbling gift to us all.” In the Spring 2000 issue, a reader in the United Kingdom wrote regarding Discipleship: “It has strengthened me. I suffer from manic depression. I will probably be spending another four or five years in prison and the light of your publications has eased the torment.” Many letters were received in the early 2000s. One person in London said: “I am the only pacifist in my family. It is hard. I work in a supermarket and am hungry for something to read.” Through The Plough he wanted to say, “Your books have stirred me out of my lethargy.” The Plough could not have asked for a more telling affirmation of its work.

A Fresh Plough

Although The Plough seemed to be fulfilling a need, it again came to an end in 2002 and did not begin again until 2014, when it appeared in a high-quality fresh format, and announced as Plough Quarterly, No. 1, appearing after a hiatus of twelve years. The first issue focused on “people willing to get their hands dirty living out the Sermon on the Mount.” One article in this first issue took up a topic considered in The Plough in the mid-1980s – the question of Bonhoeffer and nonviolence. Whereas Hans Meier had argued that Bonhoeffer abandoned his early commitment to nonviolence, Charles E. Moore, a Bruderhof member, in an article titled “Was Bonhoeffer Willing to Kill?,” took the view that Bonhoeffer remained a pacifist, a nonviolent disciple of Christ. Bonhoeffer knew there were five assassination plots – and forty-two have been documented – and he conversed with the people who felt that the only way to liberate people from the Nazis was to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer was not arrested because of the assignation plot, however, but because of a scheme which involved helping fourteen Jewish men and women to escape and stopping people from doing their civic duty to fight. For Moore, Bonhoeffer’s commitment to nonviolence was absolute. There was no shift in his thinking. This article was typical of substantial contributions that the Plough was to make.

Each issue of the Plough Quarterly from 2014 onward has had a core theme. No. 2 was on “Building Justice,” exploring how to build the justice that Jesus and the Hebrew prophets called for – not as a vague ideal, but as a way of life. No. 3 was on “Childhood,” featuring prominent writers and thinkers. As before, many contributors were from outside the Bruderhof. In No. 4, on “Earth,” scientists, farmers, writers, and artists offered faith perspectives on caring for the earth. There was a focus in the next two issues on “Peacemaking” and “Witness.” Faith perspectives were offered on peacemaking between nations, in the public arena, and within churches. Some specific topics were covered, such as reconciling a divided Korea, and a peace church’s response in Nigeria to Boko Haram. Other topics included what Gandhi taught about Jesus, the welcoming of refugees, someone returning to Iraq twenty-six years after fleeing Saddam Hussein, and seeing the Creator through landscape photography. The Plough in this new period featured stunning artwork and photography.

An issue on “Mercy” highlighted ways that people of faith, by extending mercy and forgiveness, were transforming lives, and the next issue explored what it means to be a good neighbor – to a homeless person, an immigrant, a veteran, a criminal, or even an enemy. Issue No. 9, in 2016, returned to the question of community. This was followed by issues on what it is that makes human beings sacred, on “Alien Citizens,” on “Courage,” and on “Inwardness in a Distracted Age.” In this period the contributors included Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, on the shared roots of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; there was a piece from C. S. Lewis on “Possessions”; what Eberhard Arnold said on moving from property to community was reproduced; and there was an interview with Stanley Hauerwas. A seminal issue appeared in 2017, when, five-hundred years on, Luther’s 1517 stand for reform was being celebrated. Plough devoted this issue to “The Church We Need Now.” Questions related to artificial intelligence and other technological developments were examined in the next issue, and No. 16 was on Martin Luther King Jr., highlighting his call to the church, in such words as, “If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

In 2018, No. 17, “The Soul of Medicine,” there was exploration of a vision of how medicine might serve the good of the whole human person. The topics that followed in subsequent issues were “Art,” “Education,” “Food,” “Capitalism,” “Vocation,” and “Cities.” The new decade, 2020, began (No. 24) with “Faith and Politics,” followed by “Solidarity,” “Families,” “Love,” “Creatures,” and “Beyond Borders.” The Winter 2022 (No. 30) on ability and disability, was widely circulated and much appreciated. The topics that followed were “Music, “Hope,” “Vows,” “Generations,” and “Pain and Passion” (Spring 2023), another issue that was deeply thought-provoking. The rich material published in Plough in its new format since 2014 is all to be found online. The Plough has come a long way since its commencement in 1938, but its core concern to seek to enable communities of Christians to witness to Christ and follow him in authentic ways has remained throughout.