Living Like Jesus

They follow the teachings of Christ rather than government. For that, the Bruderhof are both praised and condemned.

"People are afraid of change," said Johann Christoph Arnold, spiritual leader for the 2,500-member society, which has six communities in Pennsylvania, New York, England, and Australia. "Anything that attacks and threatens change, they get scared."

The Bruderhof, founded in post-World War I Germany in 1920 by Arnold's grandparents, Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, was theologically influenced by the Anabaptists, Christians who rejected state churches, infant baptism, and the taking of human life. It is a pacifist, Christian community with a dress code that reflects a modest and simple life. Girls and women wear jumpers and blouses with kerchiefs on their heads. Men and boys wear shirts and trousers. There is no makeup, jewelry, or elaborate haircuts.

There is also a common purse and a common pantry. People are expected to work within the community, but Bruderhof members are not paid for their services. Instead, the community meets all their needs. That includes not only food, but clothing, a home, education, and health care. Each community shares a common meal at noon and several evenings during the week. They do not watch television but have adopted modern equipment such as cell phones and faxes for use in their businesses, which include Community Playthings, which makes furniture and toys for schools and day-care centers, Rifton Equipment, which makes mobility aids for the physically handicapped, and Plough, a book publishing company.

But for Bruderhof members, separation from a sinful world is not inconsistent with working for social justice. From the beginning, they have tried to put Christ's Sermon on the Mount into practice. They hid Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and '40s until Hitler kicked them out of the country. Once they resettled in the United States in the 1950s--after first establishing communities in England and Paraguay--they became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. "I marched with Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, and Jesse Jackson from Selma to Montgomery," said Arnold.

In the 1960s and '70s, they protested the Vietnam War. "We went to Washington, speaking to the senators," said Arnold. In latter years, they have sent representatives on humanitarian and religious missions, including such nations as Ireland, Palestine, and Mexico.

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