I grew up in the Bruderhof, but a generation before Chuck, sort of. So he experienced it somewhat differently than I. It's changed a lot in the 40 years (this year) since I left it. Some things are good changes. Some, I'm not so sure about.
Good interview. When Arnold was researching the basis of a Church he learnt of the Anabaptists (Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite) and the Hutterites were the group he most wanted his Church to be like - in 1930 he traveled to the States and Canada, visited all 33 colonies, and was ordained a Hutterite pastor. In his diary Arnold wrote of the Hutterites: 'Community is so totally supreme that the salvation of the individual member ... is seen solely in terms of obedient yielding and surrender to the community, of joyfully and unconditionally placing the community above the individual.' Arnold felt he had much to learn from the Hutterites, and he incorporated much that he saw in North America into his own community in Germany. He cherished the Hutterite _Lehren_ , for example, and copied dozens of sermons for his own library. Twice the Bruderhof entered fellowship with the Hutterites and twice it failed. (This is a painful chapter for both the Bruderhof and the Hutterites.) If you know Hutterite surnames you'll find several in the Bruderhof; about 20% of Bruderhof members have a Hutterite background, whether they themselves or one's forebears. Additional growth came from other communal groups, religious-based or not, that had failed, were failing, or were convulsed with internal dissent. For example, the majority of the members of the Macedonia Cooperative Community in Georgia, numerous Quakers, and a significant number of members from Midwestern congregations of the Church of the Brethren joined the Bruderhof in the late '50s and '60s. Members also came from Celo, Kingwood, Koinonia, and several other small communes. The Bruderhof picked up their wooden toy making expertise and contracts with FAO Schwarz from Macedonia members who joined them after their commune collapsed due to the conflict between those who advocated more internal cohesion versus proponents of individualism. I think it's easier for people who have experienced communal life to adjust to the Bruderhof than for those who have lived a typical nuclear-family life in a modern, capitalist country. People have invested a lot of time and effort to attain their material prosperity and security. Giving up those worldly attachments has to be daunting. 'What if I make the wrong choice?' You'll be left without the security of Bruderhof life as well as the home and other possessions you relinquished before joining. Then there is the vow of obedience - though they try to reach consensus, the Bruderhof is not a democracy and you don't get a veto. It's also not a tyranny led by a charismatic and paranoid leader preaching about imminent apocalypse. The demands of the community are far more than what a non-member experiences in regular life. Those who join and find it works for them say: 'I gave up everything, only to find that I lack nothing.' Of the Anabaptists, the Bruderhof, the Beachy Amish (Mennonites), and several more liberal Mennonite groups do mission work; they are open to all - of this group only the Bruderhof are communal. The Beachy Amish still use a German dialect in both worship and daily life, so this may make it difficult to attract new members. The Bruderhof use an English language bible (in Anglophone countries) and speak the language of the nation where a Bruderhof community exists - Spanish, English, German, and Korean. Members are asked to relocate both domestically and overseas to help grow new communities. Will the Bruderhof continue to grow? Likely so, but they have their constraints. They have a lower birth rate than the Amish and the Hutterites, who double in size every 20 years, and this growth is from within. The Bruderhof number about 3000 after 100 years, and a very large number of members came from outside the Church - there are not as many communes today as there once was, so growth in recent years has been from birth. They're not as financially secure as the Hutterites, and they create new communes with fewer members than do the Hutterites, so making a go of it is tricky, but they readily engage with the outside world, even having urban missions, and have been able to resist temptation's forceful allure. Further, many members pursue advanced education, often in subjects needed by the community, such as healthcare. Perhaps the biggest challenge for Anabaptists in the US is the high cost of healthcare - a community can bear $1 million-plus medical expenses for a member only so many times. If Bruderhof (and Hutterites, 75% of whom live in Canada) are able to identify a US-based member with a medical condition early enough, they may be able to send the member overseas to live in a community that has access to the national health system.
Furthermore, there were North American Hutterite brothers visiting the Bruderhof in Germany in 1937 when the Gestapo invaded the Hof for a second time and ordered them disbanded, and all sent home to their families. However, because of the North American Hutterites being there, and because the Nazis still cared about what other nations thought of them, they changed the order and allowed all but two of the leaders to leave Germany and go to either Liechtenstein (where they had started a new Bruderhof for their school aged children and draft-aged men, to keep them away from Nazi-mandated teachers and the military draft respectively) or to their fledgling hof in England, which had just been founded in response to the interest being demonstrated by young people in the UK, like Chuck's grandparents. Anyhow, everyone ended up going to England and the hof there flourished and exploded in size for a couple years. But when war was declared against the Nazis, the UK government felt they would have to intern the German members, no matter that they were refugees from the Nazis. As long as they stayed ON the hof, they were allowed to remain so. Brothers from the Bruderhof came to the US first and tried to use contact with Eberhard Arnold's distant cousin there, and Quakers and Mennonites, etc., to get permission to bring everyone to the US. However, just like they did with that boatload of Jewish refugees in 1937, the Bruderhof was turned away at that time. But, like Chuck says in this interview, the contact with the Mennonites connected them to a Mennonite colony in Paraguay that was willing to sponsor them.
BTW, about the two leaders in Germany who were incarcerated by the Nazis: They were two of the young Swiss brothers who had joined the hof. Back in 1937, not every prison official was a Nazi. So one weekend, when all the Nazi officials were away for a big Nazi rally, one of the non-Nazi officials let the two brothers go, and they were able to escape across the border into Holland, and thence to England. They were both married with young children.
Is you guys going to be telling more about this Bruderhoff community? I would subscribe, but I'm interested in knowing more about this community is why I ask. I already have many subscriptions, so I ask.
Thanks for the question! I think we will circle back to speaking about the Bruderhof again, but if you're interested in Christian intentional communities, you can find a couple other similar videos about other groups too.
Only those who truly love God and are pursuing Christlike holiness will find a home at Bruderhof. It is not a sanctuary for the selfish, egotistical, material person. Once one becomes possessed by the Holy Spirit, one neither wants or needs much because joy is found in continuous conscious communion with the indwelling Christ. The genuine God-devotee finds the barest necessities (food, clothing, shelter---and even these quite simple please) sufficient. The materialistic life of the God-unconscious majority in secular society is insanely competitive, stressful, polarized, and actually quite ABNORMAL AND NOT CONDUCIVE TO A CHRIST-CENTERED SPIRITUAL LIFE. Bruderhof, I feel, is the answer for the true devotees of our Lord God.
The real beauty of holding property in common (communal ownership/sharing) is that this selfless lifestyle automatically screens out the ungodly minions. 🦋 Mastery in servitude for the love of God and the brethren
@@MysticRevelator That's a pretty harsh commentary about non-Bruderhof living. On the flip side, I could say, that those who don't want to be responsible for managing their resources or raise their own children according to God's way, but surrender that right to others, find a pleasant escape from those responsibilities on the hof. My observations, having lived both on and off the hof, is that there are Godly people both on and off the hof, as well as ungodly people both on and off the hof. This is true of every church I've ever been in, and it behooves us to closely examine our own hearts to be sure that it is focused on Christ and not on a system, denomination, or specific group of people as the source of our redemption and focus of our praise.
Its a monastic community, that is how they all are built whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic or Protestant Catholic Christian. Done well monastic communities are very peaceful. The only drawback is you cannot laze about for a handout.
Question. When one arrives at a Bruderhof community to live and please excuse the analogy but is it like a prison orientation where one hands over all their clothes and possessions then is issued a set of clothes? Can one arrive with books and personal possessions but with the understanding that they are to be given to the community? Can one bring their iPad if they have all their books on storage or the cloud or owning a personal iPad is not accepted? What about if one receives government pensions? Are they redirected to the community? How is that accomplished? What about immigration? If I was accepted for community living would Bruderhof arrange my immigration visa? These are a few of the questions I could not seem to find throughout the various you tube vlogs although very informative.
All gets turned over to the community. You keep nothing, including inheritance, pension, etc. Personally I think it’s a cult. That being said, all religions are cults, it just depends on what cult you’re in you may think differently.
Based on my experience (I left there 40 years ago, having grown up in the system), people would come as guests and visit a bunch of times, then for a longer time, and not make a commitment until they were sure they could commit their lives to that way of life [something I never did]. When I was living there, they were very tied to the Hutterite church, so wore very similar clothing and styles to the Schmiedeleut branch of the Hutterites (in fact, I have a sister-in-law who grew up as a Hutterite). But now their styles are less prescriptive. If you came wearing modest dress, they'd probably not mind you wearing that as long as you were a guest and not a member.
Do all the men have to have buzz cuts? I have seen old pictures (from a youtube video on their history) like from 1970s and 80s and the men didn’t have buzz cuts. Now it seems they all do.
Just like "out in the world", styles and fashions come and go. In the 70's and 80's they considered themselves Hutterites, so followed the "styles and fashions" of the Hutterite colonies (that the time I was coming of age on the Bruderhof).
He's not a professor at Duke, but runs a ministry for students and operates the house, which is owned by the Bruderhof, not the university. But you're right, I think Duke professors make good money. The Bruderhof people though don't really have any of their own possessions, including clothes, phones, books etc. It was pretty interesting to speak with somebody living that differently from the rest of us.
@@DavidLarson100 they do own books. They also own art, music, and even some toys. I've been personally to several New York communities. I've had friendships in the Bruderhof for over 15 years. They are beautiful people
I grew up in the Bruderhof, but a generation before Chuck, sort of. So he experienced it somewhat differently than I. It's changed a lot in the 40 years (this year) since I left it. Some things are good changes. Some, I'm not so sure about.
This is one of the better interviews I’ve seen with the Bruderhof. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing, Chuck! It's very interesting to learn about your life and your commitment to community.
Nice to get know more about Bruderhof community.
Good interview. When Arnold was researching the basis of a Church he learnt of the Anabaptists (Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite) and the Hutterites were the group he most wanted his Church to be like - in 1930 he traveled to the States and Canada, visited all 33 colonies, and was ordained a Hutterite pastor. In his diary Arnold wrote of the Hutterites: 'Community is so totally supreme that the salvation of the individual member ... is seen solely in terms of obedient yielding and surrender to the community, of joyfully and unconditionally placing the community above the individual.' Arnold felt he had much to learn from the Hutterites, and he incorporated much that he saw in North America into his own community in Germany. He cherished the Hutterite _Lehren_ , for example, and copied dozens of sermons for his own library.
Twice the Bruderhof entered fellowship with the Hutterites and twice it failed. (This is a painful chapter for both the Bruderhof and the Hutterites.) If you know Hutterite surnames you'll find several in the Bruderhof; about 20% of Bruderhof members have a Hutterite background, whether they themselves or one's forebears. Additional growth came from other communal groups, religious-based or not, that had failed, were failing, or were convulsed with internal dissent. For example, the majority of the members of the Macedonia Cooperative Community in Georgia, numerous Quakers, and a significant number of members from Midwestern congregations of the Church of the Brethren joined the Bruderhof in the late '50s and '60s. Members also came from Celo, Kingwood, Koinonia, and several other small communes. The Bruderhof picked up their wooden toy making expertise and contracts with FAO Schwarz from Macedonia members who joined them after their commune collapsed due to the conflict between those who advocated more internal cohesion versus proponents of individualism.
I think it's easier for people who have experienced communal life to adjust to the Bruderhof than for those who have lived a typical nuclear-family life in a modern, capitalist country. People have invested a lot of time and effort to attain their material prosperity and security. Giving up those worldly attachments has to be daunting. 'What if I make the wrong choice?' You'll be left without the security of Bruderhof life as well as the home and other possessions you relinquished before joining. Then there is the vow of obedience - though they try to reach consensus, the Bruderhof is not a democracy and you don't get a veto. It's also not a tyranny led by a charismatic and paranoid leader preaching about imminent apocalypse. The demands of the community are far more than what a non-member experiences in regular life.
Those who join and find it works for them say: 'I gave up everything, only to find that I lack nothing.'
Of the Anabaptists, the Bruderhof, the Beachy Amish (Mennonites), and several more liberal Mennonite groups do mission work; they are open to all - of this group only the Bruderhof are communal. The Beachy Amish still use a German dialect in both worship and daily life, so this may make it difficult to attract new members. The Bruderhof use an English language bible (in Anglophone countries) and speak the language of the nation where a Bruderhof community exists - Spanish, English, German, and Korean. Members are asked to relocate both domestically and overseas to help grow new communities.
Will the Bruderhof continue to grow? Likely so, but they have their constraints. They have a lower birth rate than the Amish and the Hutterites, who double in size every 20 years, and this growth is from within. The Bruderhof number about 3000 after 100 years, and a very large number of members came from outside the Church - there are not as many communes today as there once was, so growth in recent years has been from birth. They're not as financially secure as the Hutterites, and they create new communes with fewer members than do the Hutterites, so making a go of it is tricky, but they readily engage with the outside world, even having urban missions, and have been able to resist temptation's forceful allure. Further, many members pursue advanced education, often in subjects needed by the community, such as healthcare. Perhaps the biggest challenge for Anabaptists in the US is the high cost of healthcare - a community can bear $1 million-plus medical expenses for a member only so many times. If Bruderhof (and Hutterites, 75% of whom live in Canada) are able to identify a US-based member with a medical condition early enough, they may be able to send the member overseas to live in a community that has access to the national health system.
What thorough, informative and interesting comment. Thank you for sharing all of that.
Furthermore, there were North American Hutterite brothers visiting the Bruderhof in Germany in 1937 when the Gestapo invaded the Hof for a second time and ordered them disbanded, and all sent home to their families. However, because of the North American Hutterites being there, and because the Nazis still cared about what other nations thought of them, they changed the order and allowed all but two of the leaders to leave Germany and go to either Liechtenstein (where they had started a new Bruderhof for their school aged children and draft-aged men, to keep them away from Nazi-mandated teachers and the military draft respectively) or to their fledgling hof in England, which had just been founded in response to the interest being demonstrated by young people in the UK, like Chuck's grandparents. Anyhow, everyone ended up going to England and the hof there flourished and exploded in size for a couple years. But when war was declared against the Nazis, the UK government felt they would have to intern the German members, no matter that they were refugees from the Nazis. As long as they stayed ON the hof, they were allowed to remain so. Brothers from the Bruderhof came to the US first and tried to use contact with Eberhard Arnold's distant cousin there, and Quakers and Mennonites, etc., to get permission to bring everyone to the US. However, just like they did with that boatload of Jewish refugees in 1937, the Bruderhof was turned away at that time. But, like Chuck says in this interview, the contact with the Mennonites connected them to a Mennonite colony in Paraguay that was willing to sponsor them.
BTW, about the two leaders in Germany who were incarcerated by the Nazis: They were two of the young Swiss brothers who had joined the hof. Back in 1937, not every prison official was a Nazi. So one weekend, when all the Nazi officials were away for a big Nazi rally, one of the non-Nazi officials let the two brothers go, and they were able to escape across the border into Holland, and thence to England. They were both married with young children.
Is you guys going to be telling more about this Bruderhoff community? I would subscribe, but I'm interested in knowing more about this community is why I ask. I already have many subscriptions, so I ask.
Thanks for the question! I think we will circle back to speaking about the Bruderhof again, but if you're interested in Christian intentional communities, you can find a couple other similar videos about other groups too.
Only those who truly love God and are pursuing Christlike holiness will find a home at Bruderhof. It is not a sanctuary for the selfish, egotistical, material person. Once one becomes possessed by the Holy Spirit, one neither wants or needs much because joy is found in continuous conscious communion with the indwelling Christ. The genuine God-devotee finds the barest necessities (food, clothing, shelter---and even these quite simple please) sufficient. The materialistic life of the God-unconscious majority in secular society is insanely competitive, stressful, polarized, and actually quite ABNORMAL AND NOT CONDUCIVE TO A CHRIST-CENTERED SPIRITUAL LIFE. Bruderhof, I feel, is the answer for the true devotees of our Lord God.
The real beauty of holding property in common (communal ownership/sharing) is that this selfless lifestyle automatically screens out the ungodly minions. 🦋 Mastery in servitude for the love of God and the brethren
@@MysticRevelator That's a pretty harsh commentary about non-Bruderhof living. On the flip side, I could say, that those who don't want to be responsible for managing their resources or raise their own children according to God's way, but surrender that right to others, find a pleasant escape from those responsibilities on the hof. My observations, having lived both on and off the hof, is that there are Godly people both on and off the hof, as well as ungodly people both on and off the hof. This is true of every church I've ever been in, and it behooves us to closely examine our own hearts to be sure that it is focused on Christ and not on a system, denomination, or specific group of people as the source of our redemption and focus of our praise.
It's a high control group, not allowing anyone to own anything
Its a monastic community, that is how they all are built whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic or Protestant Catholic Christian. Done well monastic communities are very peaceful. The only drawback is you cannot laze about for a handout.
Question. When one arrives at a Bruderhof community to live and please excuse the analogy but is it like a prison orientation where one hands over all their clothes and possessions then is issued a set of clothes?
Can one arrive with books and personal possessions but with the understanding that they are to be given to the community?
Can one bring their iPad if they have all their books on storage or the cloud or owning a personal iPad is not accepted?
What about if one receives government pensions? Are they redirected to the community? How is that accomplished?
What about immigration? If I was accepted for community living would Bruderhof arrange my immigration visa?
These are a few of the questions I could not seem to find throughout the various you tube vlogs although very informative.
All gets turned over to the community. You keep nothing, including inheritance, pension, etc. Personally I think it’s a cult. That being said, all religions are cults, it just depends on what cult you’re in you may think differently.
Based on my experience (I left there 40 years ago, having grown up in the system), people would come as guests and visit a bunch of times, then for a longer time, and not make a commitment until they were sure they could commit their lives to that way of life [something I never did]. When I was living there, they were very tied to the Hutterite church, so wore very similar clothing and styles to the Schmiedeleut branch of the Hutterites (in fact, I have a sister-in-law who grew up as a Hutterite). But now their styles are less prescriptive. If you came wearing modest dress, they'd probably not mind you wearing that as long as you were a guest and not a member.
No money? Barter?
Do all the men have to have buzz cuts? I have seen old pictures (from a youtube video on their history) like from 1970s and 80s and the men didn’t have buzz cuts. Now it seems they all do.
Just like "out in the world", styles and fashions come and go. In the 70's and 80's they considered themselves Hutterites, so followed the "styles and fashions" of the Hutterite colonies (that the time I was coming of age on the Bruderhof).
The word is commune. Why can't he just say that.
stylistic difference
This guy works at Duke! Don't give me this crap about living simply. He makes bank!
He's not a professor at Duke, but runs a ministry for students and operates the house, which is owned by the Bruderhof, not the university. But you're right, I think Duke professors make good money. The Bruderhof people though don't really have any of their own possessions, including clothes, phones, books etc. It was pretty interesting to speak with somebody living that differently from the rest of us.
@@DavidLarson100 they do own books. They also own art, music, and even some toys. I've been personally to several New York communities. I've had friendships in the Bruderhof for over 15 years. They are beautiful people
Tenemos amistades ahi y son gente maravillosas!