http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/narcissistleader.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/narcissistleader.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/narcissistleader.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/narcissistleader.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/narcissistleader.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOK (Word and PDF files, latest edition):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/traumatortureabuse.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/traumatortureabuse.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/traumatortureabuse.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/traumatortureabuse.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/traumatortureabuse.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOK (Word and PDF files, latest edition):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/NPDQuotes.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/NPDQuotes.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/NPDQuotes.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/NPDQuotes.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/NPDQuotes.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE EXCERPTS (Word and PDF files, latest edition):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/MSL2excerpts.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/freebooks/vaknin/MSL2excerpts.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/MSL2excerpts.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/MSL2excerpts.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/MSL2excerpts.doc
DOWNLOAD Chat Transcripts, Interviews, and Articles about Pathological Narcissism
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/NPDBibliography.zip
DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOK (Word and PDF Files, latest edition):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/development.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/development.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/development.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/development.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/development.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOK (MS-Word File, latest edition):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/psychology.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/psychology.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/psychology.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/psychology.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/psychology.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files) - 4-6 Mb:
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/philosophy.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/philosophy.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/philosophy.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/philosophy.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/philosophy.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/godfreud.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/godfreud.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/godfreud.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/godfreud.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/godfreud.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/bioethics.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/bioethics.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/bioethics.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/bioethics.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/bioethics.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ethics.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ethics.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/ethics.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/ethics.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/ethics.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/film.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/film.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/film.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/film.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/film.doc
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ATR.rtf
vhttp://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ATRWord.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/AftertheRain.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/ATRWord.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/NPDQuotes.doc
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/macedonia.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/macedonia.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/macedonia.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/macedonia.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/macedonia.doc
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/europe.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/europe.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/europe.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/europe.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/europe.doc
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/wars.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/wars.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/wars.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/wars.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/wars.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/terrorism.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/terrorism.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/terrorism.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/terrorism.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/terrorism.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/Russia.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/Russia.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/Russia.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/Russia.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/Russia.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/securities.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/securities.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/securities.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/securities.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/securities.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/capitalism.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/capitalism.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/capitalism.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/capitalism.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/capitalism.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/employment.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/employment.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/employment.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/employment.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/employment.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/corruption.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/corruption.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/corruption.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/corruption.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/corruption.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/exporter.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/exporter.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/exporter.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/exporter.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/exporter.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/smallbusiness.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/smallbusiness.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/smallbusiness.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/smallbusiness.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/smallbusiness.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/digitalcontent.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/digitalcontent.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/digitalcontent.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/digitalcontent.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/digitalcontent.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (EXE file - old edition):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ebpub11.exe
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Compressed MS-Word file):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/economicscyclopedia.zip
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files) - 6 Mb:
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/economics.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/economics.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/economics.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/economics.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/economics.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files):
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/health.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/health.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/health.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/health.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/health.doc
V. Fiction and Poetry
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files, latest edition)
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/hitler.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/hitler.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/hitler.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/hitler.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/hitler.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files)
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/shortfiction.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/shortfiction.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/shortfiction.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/shortfiction.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/shortfiction.doc
DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK (Word and PDF files, latest edition)
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/hitler.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/hitler.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/hitler.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/hitler.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/hitler.doc
VI. Miscellaneous
II. Philosophy and Ethics
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/philosophy.rtf
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/philosophy.pdf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/philosophy.rtf
http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/philosophy.pdf
http://www.authorsden.com/adstorage/161/philosophy.doc
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/philosophycyclopedia.zip
Salt and Light
Living the Sermon on the Mount
Salt and Light puts hands and feet to the demands of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the viewpoint of a writer who believes they are not only viable, but inescapable – something for us to live out today.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts aside his usual parables and speaks plainly in language anyone can understand. Yet for centuries countless scholars have dissected and analyzed these important words – and dismissed their demanding precepts as unrealistic or symbolic.
Like Francis of Assisi and others, Arnold chose to live Jesus’ words. He found new life by embracing the self-sacrificing demands of the Sermon on the Mount. This collection of talks and essays vividly describes a healing, energizing power for those burdened by the concerns of daily life. Arnold calls us to live for the Sermon’s ultimate goal: the overturning of the prevailing order of injustice and building in its place a just, peaceable society motivated by love.
Praise for Salt and Light
Has all the simple, luminous, direct vision that I’ve come to associate with Arnold’s name. It is the kind of book that stirs to repentance and renewal and it moves me deeply. I am very grateful for it.
Many will be made uncomfortable by Salt and Light, and so 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.
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.
Harvard University
An admirable, excellent book needed by a world which has turned against the Great Teaching of Jesus.
God's Revolution
Justice, Community and the Coming Kingdom
God’s Revolution, a collection of topically arranged writings from Eberhard Arnold, challenges readers to break out of the stifling complacency of conventional life and live out the uncompromising but healing truths of Christ.
Be warned: Arnold doesn’t approach discipleship as a benign route to religious fulfilment, but as revolution - a transformation that begins within, with the purging of self, and spreads outward to encompass every aspect of life. Here is the raw reality of the gospel that has the power to change the world.
This book is available in India here.
Praise for God's Revolution
Sojourners
Simple and prophetic.
Orbis Books
There is no better introduction to the thought and spirit of this twentieth century prophet.
Rabbi
There is much in this book (not everything) I want to recommend as strongly as I can - especially its absolute dedication to peace, human equality, and social justice, derived from Biblical faith.
Denver Seminary
God’s Revolution is a disturbing book, a radical book that summons us back to the revolutionary lifestyle of the New Testament.
Author, A Celebration of Discipline
The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of persons with Christ as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant…Arnold’s vision incarnates just such a community.
Author, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger
The entire church needs to hear this persuasive call to practical Christianity, costly discipleship, community, and peacemaking.
Author, The Upside Down Kingdom
This is not a collection of utopian dreams, but a composite of seasoned wisdom and spiritual counsel forged in the crucible of a concrete community…A nourishing and inspiring spiritual reservoir for all who thirst for a deeper understanding of God’s kingdom.
Author, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship
Arnold stresses that the central calling of the church is to represent here and now the charter of the Kingdom to come…Those convinced that churches should be full-fledged communities will find him inspiring.
Author, A Quiet Revolution
Will be a great help, especially to the emerging community movement around this country…
Author, Free in Obedience
This book has challenged and nourished my own thought concerning violence, property, war, the ruling authorities and assorted principalities, and especially the Christian’s eschatological expectation.
Duke University Chapel
God’s Revolution is a classic which restores obedience as the biblical way to salvation. The creation of living, breathing Christian community, according to Arnold, is always the most challenging task for Christians. Arnold lived what he believed and shows the rest of us more timid souls the way.
Pax Christi USA
An inspiring testimony to the strength and endurance to be found in a deep personal commitment to the life and teachings of Christ.
Discipleship
Perhaps the hardest thing about following Christ is translating our good intentions into deeds. Christ calls us, and we yearn to answer him, but time and again we lose resolve. Is discipleship possible amid the stresses of modern life? Can Christ bring about lasting change in our lives? How can we be centred on him, when everything seems to pull us apart?
Also available, a free Study Guide for personal or group study, and a Leader’s Guide to facilitate group discussion.
Praise for Discipleship
Author of 'Reckoning with Apocalypse'
In a masterful way, J. Heinrich Arnold brings together the evangelical offer of God’s forgiving mercy and the radical claims of Jesus for total self-giving in discipleship. Arnold writes that “the greatest gift is a burning love to Christ.” That love pervades this book.
Author of 'The Pilgrim Road
One of the best books on discipleship that has come out in years…It is filled with keen insights on what it really means to love God with your whole soul and to love your neighbour as yourself. Reads like a twentieth-century version of The Imitation of Christ.
Eastern College
Discipleship helps us to understand what spiritual goodness is all about…reading it provides a mystic nurturing of the soul that will translate into social action — action that makes for justice in the world.
Former President, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
I have found Discipleship to be an incisive and inspirational Christian guidebook. It is a clear call to higher religious ideals.
Morehouse College, Atlanta
Discipleship is the best single reference I have found outside of scripture on commitment to an authentic Christian community.
Speaker and author
I have been very impressed with Arnold’s work, and find it thoroughly scriptural and very practical—right down my alley.
Georgetown University
Anyone interested in union with God in his daily life will find Discipleship valuable. Along with The Imitation of Christ and the sacred Scriptures themselves, Arnold’s writings are a treasure from which flows a spring of living water to nourish the soul.
Jubilee Partners
Reading Discipleship is like panning for gold near the mother lode; there are nuggets everywhere…
What strikes me over and over is the sense of down-to-earth authenticity that shines through Arnold’s words. These words obviously come from a storehouse full of experiences. There is nothing tentative or theoretical about them. And they are full of love.
What strikes me over and over is the sense of down-to-earth authenticity that shines through Arnold’s words. These words obviously come from a storehouse full of experiences. There is nothing tentative or theoretical about them. And they are full of love.
I pray for all who read this book that they may come to follow Jesus more closely in their whole lives. He has not called us to be successful, but to be faithful.
L'Arche Daybreak
Discipleship is a prophetic book in a time in which few people dare to speak unpopular but truly healing words.
Archdiocese of New York
Discipleship is a clear call to greater conviction and faith. Readers who open their hearts to the witness of this book will be challenged and inspired.
Urban Family Magazine
Discipleship may contain more basic truth than some can handle. But for those who understand that following Jesus means swimming against the stream of popular culture, it will be a source of strength and sustenance.
Author, Dead Man Walking
Discipleship is not simply a book. It is a cry from the heart of a man passionately alive for God and the work of God. Arnold’s words blow on the simmering coals of our hearts and set us on fire for Christ.
The Jesus Journal
Arnold’s insights into the Gospel and into the roots of our emptiness efficiently and precisely address what is lacking in the church today…This is no high-minded treatise on the theology of “discipleship.” It is a hands-on manual for the trench warfare of the living Gospel.
Author, Pilgrims of the Common Life
Here is no smug Christian triumphalism, no cold theory…this is theology with a beating heart, a spirituality that is marked with the flowing humanity of Jesus. Arnold writes as one who has prayed, wept, and struggled through the issues of being a radical Christian today…He meets people where they are, and longs to join them together. I commend his book wholeheartedly.
Evangelicals for Social Action
Few things are more important today than the call to contemporary Christians to rediscover Jesus’ costly call to holiness, obedience, and discipleship. Only then can we resist the seductions of surrounding society. I hope and pray this book will be heard.
Pax Christi USA
Simple, challenging…merits consideration because it is rooted in real-life experience. I recommend it, especially for women and men who are willing to risk responding to the call “Come, follow me.”
BBC Radio Derby
This is one of those books which is simple to read but conveys profound and very challenging ideas.
Unlike the vast majority of marriage books, Sex, God, and Marriage digs deeper than the usual “issues” and goes to the root: our relationship with God, and the defining power of that relationship over all others in our lives. Arnold addresses the deep pain resulting from the cycle of broken relationships and the misuse of sexual intimacy. His words offer healing, a new beginning, and a sense of hope to those who have experienced discouragement or failure.
Includes chapters on sex, alternatives to dating, parenthood, singleness, homosexuality, abortion, divorce and remarriage. Sex, God and Marriage carries a foreword by Mother Teresa and was formerly titled A Plea for Purity.
This book is available in India here.
Praise for Sex, God and Marriage
Clear, incisive, and uplifting…this book should be very helpful in living the virtue of chastity, which is God’s will for all men and women.
Office of Catechetics, Archdiocese of Denver
An excellent biblical reflection on sex, marriage and God. Its message is clear, accessible and crucial. I recommend it as a good foundation for parents, teachers, catechists, couples preparing for marriage, and highschool and college students.
Author of Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants
A clear message for those who have seen the so-called freedom of sexual pleasure become a source of loneliness or pain….This book will help young people to hold on to purity.
National Council of Churches
A cogent, well-reasoned approach to today’s troubling questions. Some may disagree with this or that conclusion, but all will acknowledge Arnold’s sincerity and his contribution to these debates.
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Syracuse, NY
Arnold writes with clarity, conviction, and compassion. His detailed analysis and very practical applications underscore the Catechism’s general principles.
California Polytechnic University
A wise book…Arnold’s deep faith in Christ and the Bible shines through on every page as he faces the spiritual, emotional, and physical dimensions of marriage…Couples will find Arnold’s book a Spirit-led guide for true happiness in their life together.
Fuller Theological Seminary
Striking for its clear and penetrating presentation of simple (and yet immensely profound) biblical truths about human sexuality. I wish everyone could read this call to cut through the complications of modern life by a holy and Christ-like life.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Does a wonderful job of putting sex into the larger contexts of Creation, the church, and marriage. Not everyone will agree with all of Arnold’s specific conclusions, but every mature believer will benefit from the convictions reflected in this book.
Denver Seminary
A sensitive yet forthright articulation of the basic biblical perspective on purity in sexual conduct. I am very grateful for its unabashed emphasis on holiness in this area of life. Arnold’s message bears a clear witness and will provoke serious soul-searching.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Inspiring and challenging…suffused with a biblical reverence for human life. One does not have to agree with every stance articulated in the book to be edified by its moral vision.
Co-author, Jesus and Divorce
Sex, God and Marriage is about the Creator’s intentions for the human family….It is about loving, committed, honest relationships lived out in the midst of a world bewildered by its inability to deliver on promises of happiness….
Hunter College/CUNY
Arnold’s beautiful presentation of the great virtue of purity should be in the hands of every educator and every teenager. It is a message that is desperately needed today, and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
Taylor University
This book is a beacon in our midst, and it should make us to look at what we have become as a society in light of radical Christianity. Few will find everything in the book acceptable, but all who read it prayerfully will be challenged to purity. In a world where conviction is a rare thing, this book is a treasure in a field.
Boston College
Clear, compassionate, uncompromisingly Christian, and straight from (and to) the heart…Pretty close, I think, to what Jesus would say if he were to write a book about sex today—and probably as socially acceptable as He was.
Western Seminary
A clarion call to return to God’s high and holy standard regarding sex and marriage, and a rich resource of practical advice.
Maryknoll Magazine
Profoundly significant…While the moral demands of the book are strong and clear, the book is much more positive than negative. I found myself wishing that adults had spoken to me in such a positive vein about these matters when I was a child.
First Things
Human sexuality is here drawn fully into the life of discipleship. The result is both demanding and exhilarating, which is what disciples of Jesus should expect.
Regent College
This is the work of a very wise man with a very clear vision of God’s ideal for marriage and family… Simple and short, but deep, this is one of the best books available on handling our sexuality in a way that honors God.
Author of More Than Equals
A passionate call back to standards that, in the long run, will lead to true joy and contentment.
Duke University Chapel
Arnold writes simply, eloquently, and faithfully. Sex, God and Marriage is a relentless, biblical, call for renewed Christian commitment. Advocates of accommodated, acculturated Christianity will find little comfort in these pages; struggling disciples, however, will be much encouraged.
Center for Action & Contemplation
Some Christians might not say it in the same way, or with the same emphasis on certain issues, but the underlying values in Sex, God and Marriage are strong, needed, and consistent. I admire and support such lived faith as I find in this book.
Diocese of Pittsburgh
A marvelous exposition on the true values of family life, the beauty of marriage, and human sexuality as God intended it to be…A great resource for Catholic educators.
New York University
To advocate an ideal of sexual purity is perhaps the last American taboo. But if anything will awaken our society from its decadent slumber, it may be the spectacle of large numbers of people actually living a life of sexual virtue. This book provides a wise spiritual guide on how, and why, to lead such a life.
The author makes his plea in an uncompromising way, and there is something here to offend almost everyone. Yet no one can doubt his sincerity and consistency.
Why Forgive?
Forgiveness has become a buzzword, but people still don’t understand it. They don’t realize its rewards—or the cost of refusing to forgive. Many think forgiving means excusing, forgetting, or ignoring their pain. They view it as weakness. Why Forgive? brings together survivors of crime, betrayal, bigotry, and abuse—and ordinary men and women plagued by everyday strife. Not all are ready to forgive. But all are determined not to let anger, bitterness, and despair control their lives. Together, their stories will challenge and encourage others wherever they are on the road to healing.
In Why Forgive? Arnold lets the untidy experiences of ordinary people speak for themselves—people who have earned the right to talk about overcoming hurt, and about the peace of mind they have found in doing so.
“Hurt” is an understatement, actually, for many of these stories deal with the harrowing effects of violent crime, betrayal, abuse, bigotry, and war. But Why Forgive? examines life’s more mundane battle scars as well: the persistent hobgoblins of backbiting, gossip, strained family ties, marriages gone cold, and tensions in the workplace.
As in life, not every story has a happy ending—a fact Arnold refuses to skirt. The book also addresses the difficulty of forgiving oneself, the futility of blaming God, and the turmoil of those who simply cannot forgive, even though they try.
Praise for Why Forgive?
Arnold is thought-provoking and soul-challenging…He writes with an eye-opening simplicity that zings the heart.
This is the book I would choose to give friends who are justifiably angry. A powerful statement on the importance of forgiveness in human psychology.
Beautiful…We recognize ourselves in the poignant stories, and our recognition helps us to forgive. This is a book the whole world needs.
Against the Wind
Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof
This is the story, told in full for the first time, of Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935). A man for today’s seekers, he faced life’s essential questions head on, and once he had struggled his way through to an answer, he tried to live it.
Against the Wind (originally pubished in German) explores the forces that shaped Arnold’s life and his own influence on other spiritual leaders of his day - Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Martin Buber among them. It recounts his renunciation of private property and military service, and explains his abhorrence of conventional piety on the one hand, and his love for the early church fathers on the other.
Most of all, Against the Wind gives flesh, blood, and personality to a man whose unwavering convictions made him at once hated and admired, a man whom some called an enemy of the State and others a modern Saint Francis. Arnold walked resolutely against the prevailing winds, even as Nazism engulfed Germany. The communal movement which carries on his commitment to integrate faith and social action is a witness to his continuing legacy.
The author, Markus Baum, is a popular German journalist and radio commentator.
Praise for Against the Wind
An amazing and enlightening spiritual journey.
Engaging…Arnold is an important figure for both historians and scholars, but this first biography makes accessible and enjoyable reading for general audiences as well.
The undeniable power of Eberhard Arnold’s message lies in the fact that there is absolutely no difference between what he professed and the way he lived.
Harvard University Divinity School
A fine introduction to Eberhard Arnold and the courageous ministry of the Bruderhof. A wave of appreciation for Arnold and the Christian tradition he so forcefully and eloquently represents is long overdue.
I was edified and enlightened by this extraordinary life. I took heart, reading of Arnold’s tormented struggle and conversion to nonviolence…Pondering his witness is like holding a mirror to reality. We see there our calling, the church, the promise of a costly freedom.
Arnold’s life reads like that of a modern Saint Francis: the deep love of Jesus, the commitment to living the Gospel literally, the struggle with his parents, his going off to war, followed by a profound conversion to nonviolent love and his founding of the Bruderhof Community… Like Saint Francis, Arnold let Christ teach him what he was to do. The example of their lives challenge us to do the same.
Author, All Saints
Some claim that the Sermon on the Mount cannot be literally applied to modern life. This inspiring biography of Eberhard Arnold is a convincing rebuttal. This twentieth century apostle truly lived the Gospel; his story inspires us all to do the same.
Eberhard Arnold’s life is an example of the most precious gift we can offer others: our presence. His is a testimony that in community the Spirit, which can be found in all traditions, can enlighten us as to the real causes for social injustice. We all, Buddhist and Christian alike, need to create more such communities.
Sojourners
Arnold is a significant figure of faith in the twentieth century. His vision and commitment to discipleship, community, nonviolence, and God’s kingdom challenge all who seek to follow Jesus.
The Awakening
One Man's Battle with Darkness
When Blumhardt, a 19th-century pastor from the Black Forest, agreed to counsel a tormented woman in his parish, all hell broke loose - literally. But that was only the beginning of the drama that ensued. Zuendel’s account, available here in English for the first time, provides a rare glimpse into how the eternal fight between the forces of good and evil plays itself out in the lives of the most ordinary men and women. More than that, it reminds us that those forces still surround us today, whether we are awake to them or not. Beginning in the fall of 1841, Blumhardt was drawn into a spiritual struggle, which he referred to for the rest of his life as “the fight.” At first he tried to keep a cautious distance from it, but it soon became obvious that he would not be able to stay uninvolved.
Gottliebin Dittus, a young woman from a pious Möttlingen family who had once been Pastor Barth’s favorite pupil, was regarded in her village as a “God-fearing” member of the parish. At the same time she was known, ever since her childhood, to have suffered recurring nervous disorders and various other maladies, including inexplicable attacks not unlike epileptic seizures.
Repulsed by her peculiar behavior, Blumhardt kept his distance from her. He would come when summoned during her worst attacks, but he went reluctantly, feeling that her case was no task for him as a pastor. Village physician Dr. Späth, on the other hand, argued that Gottliebin’s disorders were beyond the scope of his medical knowledge, if not symptomatic of supernatural forces at work. It was on this account that Blumhardt finally agreed to observe the woman.
Before long he was so deeply involved in Gottliebin’s struggle that no one could hold him back. For one thing, he was ashamed at the thought of conceding power to the darkness affecting her. Moreover, he pitied her. Little did he know that he had embarked on an uncharted journey of the most bizarre kind and entered a battle so intense that it would demand all of his energies for the next two years. The Awakening tells what happened over their course, and beyond.
Praise for The Awakening
Professor of Spiritual Theology, Regent College
The witness of Blumhardt is extremely pertinent to our times. His avoidance of curiosity in dealing with powers of evil, his recognition of the unmet needs of thousands for pastoral care, his yearning to transform the “wretched state” of Christian life, and his fervent prayers for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit are all needed today.
Editor, First Things
Christians of all times and churches and communions are called to be alert to the unexpected in the often surprising movement of the Holy Spirit. This dramatic story of more than a century ago can help prepare us for similar surprises in the century ahead.
West Bowles Community Church, Littleton, CO
As the pastor of dozens of young men and women who survived the Columbine High School tragedy, I have seen that spiritual awakening can only spring from spiritual battle. I have also seen how, when evil is confronted and exposed, God can work miracles of healing and renewal. There are lessons here, and hope for every community trying to break the suffocating spell of stagnation.
Books & Culture
One of the ten best books of the year.
Eastern College
Anyone who has doubts about spiritual warfare must read this book. It rings true, and it points the way to victory.
Channel 5 News / UK
It’s easier—and cheaper—to get The Awakening than to see a psychiatrist.
BBC World
A most timely and interesting tale.
Psychiatrist, SE Alaska Regional Health Consortium
I do not know what role demonic forces play in mental illness, but I am certain that a community of faith would have healing powers regardless. Blumhardt treated the mentally ill with a kind of dignity and respect that cannot be found today, either in the churches or mental hospitals.
Offers new insights into mental illness — this new line of approach in what seemed to be a dead-end street has been most welcome.
In “Varieties of Religious Experience”
Cures by special miracle have at all times been recognized within the church’s pale, almost all the great saints having more or less performed them…. An extremely pure faculty of healing after confession and conversion on the patient’s part, and prayer on the priest’s, was quite spontaneously developed in the German pastor, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, in the early 1840s and exerted during nearly thirty years. Zuendel gives a pretty full account of his healing activity, which he invariably ascribed to direct divine interposition. Blumhardt was a singularly pure, simple, and non-fanatical character, and in this part of his work followed no previous model.
No Lasting Home
A Year in the Paraguayan Wilderness
It is summer, 1940. As Hitler’s armies turn mainland Europe into a mass graveyard, his feared Luftwaffe rain bombs on England. Meanwhile, amid the green hills of the Cotswolds, a nest of “enemy aliens” has been discovered: the Bruderhof, a Christian commune made up of German, Dutch, and Swiss refugees, and growing numbers of English pacifists.
Having fled Nazi Germany to escape persecution, the Bruderhof had at first been welcomed in England. Now, at the height of the Battle of Britain, it is feared. Curfews and travel restrictions are imposed; nasty newspaper articles appear, and local patriots initiate a boycott. Debates over whether the community should be allowed to exist go all the way to Parliament.
Determined to remain together as a witness for peace in a war-torn world, the little group of 300 – half of them babies and young children – looks for a new home. No country in Europe will allow them to stay, and Canada and the United States refuse to take them. Where should the refugees try to resettle next? This is their story.
Action in Waiting
Christoph Blumhardt
Ours is a time of intense searching. Few of us are satisfied with what the church and society have served up. The honest among us will readily admit we lead fractured lives - with a disembodied spirituality on one side, and a soulless daily existence on the other. We are desperate for something more, for a faith with the power to transform both ourselves and our world.
Enter Christoph Blumhardt. With unabashed clarity of focus, Blumhardt’s words cut through the clutter of our post-modern existence. He offers a concrete vision that inspires even the most disillusioned. His enthusiasm rekindles our passion to live a life of purpose.
Action in Waiting is not abstract theology - it’s too blunt, too earthy, too real. These seventeen essays reflect the gripping reality of the living Christ. They give us a fresh look at the spiritual life as one of “active expectation” of God’s kingdom breaking into this world. Blumhardt shows us that the object of our hope is no longer relegated to some afterlife, but takes effect today.
Blumhardt tells us how we can experience the future Christ promised now, in such a way that death and human misery are overcome. In his life, he experienced God’s saving actions every day. Demons were cast out, sick were healed, and sinners turned from evil. Action in Waiting shatters the walls of institutional Christianity. Having been both a pastor and a politician himself, Blumhardt was qualified to say, “State and church are no soil for the fire of God.” All human institutions stand in the way of God’s kingdom. “Nothing is more dangerous than a religion: for that is what makes us heathens…God does not care a fig for our religion.”
Praise for Action in Waiting
Theologian and writer
Blumhardt can do something very few of us can do: represent God’s cause in the world yet not wage war on the world, love the world and yet be completely faithful to God.
Author, Wellsprings of Renewal
The modern church needs to hear this social prophet. Here is a summons to act in confidence and courage in the firm expectation that God’s kingdom is at hand.
Author, Biblical Pacifism
Blumhardt represents a wonderful union of eschatology and ethics with his focus on the coming and breaking in of the kingdom of righteousness, justice, love and peace.
Author, A Peculiar People
Pulse-quickening…In plain but vibrant language, Blumhardt reminds us that personal peace is merely the wrapping paper of a greater, even more magnificent gift: confidence in the coming of the kingdom.
Author, Let the Earth Rejoice
Reading Chrisoph Blumhardt is like drinking from a pure, cold mountain stream. It is just the tonic we frantic postmoderns need…I always knew what an impact Blumhardt had made on Karl Barth, but after reading him I know why.
Author, Christian Anarchy
Blumhardt believes that God can make “all” things new. He challenges us to participate in this newness and devote ourselves to it.
Author, Resident Aliens
That Barth saw Blumhardt’s significance is surely not accidental. Who else, besides Barth, is so unrelenting in their attack on religion? Who else reminds us that Christianity is about the worship and service of a strange God indeed? Who else uses the language of faith so straightforwardly and without apology? The fact that Plough has now made Blumhardt’s work available is itself, as Barth would have put it, “a hastening that waits.”
Mennonite Quarterly Review
One feels these words were shaped for the hour in which we are all living. We have scholars and theologians, but we are almost totally lacking in authentic witnesses to the coming of God’s kingdom.
Author, Subversive Spirituality
On a landscape increasingly (and depressingly) eroded by world-accommodating strategies and programs, Blumhardt stands as a stark and commanding figure on the horizon. His life and writings are adrenaline for faltering and compromised followers of Jesus.
Author, The Flame of Love
Blumhardt is filled with hope about the power of God to transform the world in concrete ways…His is a holy optimism grounded not in human prowess but in the triumphant grace of God.
Be Not Afraid
Overcoming the Fear of Death
In Be Not Afraid, Arnold addresses fears that every person faces – fear of illness, aging, death and loss, fear of vulnerability, and fear of suffering.
A pastor who has worked with the dying for three decades, Arnold knows that each of us must meet death in our own unique way. Yet through stories of people he has known and counselled as a pastor, relative, or friend, he shows how all suffering can be given meaning, and despair overcome. These real-life stories offer sure proof that even today, in our culture of isolation and death, there is reason for hope.
Based on his popular 1997 book I Tell You a Mystery, this new version has been broadened in scope to include discussion of contemporary issues such as AIDS, suicide, and euthanasia.
Praise for Be Not Afraid
Author, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants
I have read many books about dying, but this is the one I would give to someone approaching death or facing bereavement. From start to finish it shines with hope. I want a copy beside my bed when my time comes.
Author, Ordinary Resurrections
This is a beautiful book of surpassing dignity and tenderness…I hope it will be widely read, not only by those who call themselves religious. Although written with great simplicity of style, it is nonetheless a work of moral mystery…a small treasure, unpretentious and transcendent.
Founder, St. Christopher’s Hospice, London
There are many books available by people bereaved of someone they loved, but this one has a special strength.
Christoph Blumhardt and his Message
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842-1919) was an original. He was at home nowhere – he belonged neither to church circles nor to secular ones. He was an embarrassment to Christians and non-Christians alike. He seemed to challenge and disconcert everyone. And yet he possessed a strange confidence in God’s history; a confidence that inspired hope in many, and continues to do so even today. In this newly revised volume, Lejuene gives a short summary of Blumhardt’s life followed by nineteen of his thought-provoking sermons.
Praise for Christoph Blumhardt and his Message
Blumhardt can do something which most of us cannot do: represent God’s cause in the world yet not wage war on the world, love the world and yet be completely faithful to God, suffer with the world and speak a frank word about its need while simultaneously going beyond this to speak the redemptive word about the help it awaits.
Concerning The Sword
Cries from the Heart
Stories of Struggle and Hope
Cries from the Heart answers a specific hunger millions share - a longing for a personal connection to the divine. In times of crisis, all of us reach for someone,or something, greater than ourselves. Some call it prayer. Others just do it. For many, it’s often like talking to a wall. People are looking for assurance that someone hears them when they cry out in their despair, loneliness, or frustration. The last thing they need is another book telling them how to pray or what to say, holding out religion like a good-luck charm.
So instead of theorizing or preaching, Johann Christoph Arnold tells stories about real men and real women dealing with adversity. Their difficulties - which range from extreme to quite ordinary and universal - resonate with readers, offering a challenge, but also comfort and encouragement. People will see themselves in these glimpses of anguish, triumph, and peace.
Praise for Cries from the Heart
Director, The Human Kindness Foundation
Even in the worst imaginable circumstances, each of us can choose to turn to God in sincere prayer and suffer together with Him rather than alone. Arnold does not pander to our desire to escape suffering, but rather helps us to mine the spiritual gold within the depths of it
Archbishop of Seattle
Cries from the Heart offers the reader a wonderful insight into the compassion and sensitivity that are the hallmarks of the Christian faith tradition. Many of the anecdotal materials discovered in the book will find an echo in the hearts of its readers.
S.O.A Watch
An excellent resource to inspire us all as we work for peace and justice in our world and in our hearts.
Author, Shelter for the Spiritually Homeless
Cries from the Heart is written by someone who knows heartache—and what life is like on the other side. By teaching us to pray, and how to trust prayer, Arnold embraces our despair and restores our confidence.
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Cries from the Heart takes us deep into the inner recesses of life the spiritual struggle of prayer and faith.
Arnold chronicles the humanity and the divinity in each of us with stories of real people who have experienced the gamut of life’s challenges. He allows their own words to fully describe their journey and how they, through faith in God and prayer, persevered to reach an inner peace.
Author, Breakfast for the Heart
I love a riveting story that won’t go away. That’s exactly the type of word picture that Johann Arnold paints, from dark to light, from despair to courage, from pain to joy, from doubt to faith. But always—ALWAYS—Arnold points our crying to the light.
First Things
Arnold’s message is demanding and exhilarating, which is what disciples of Jesus should expect.
Arnold is thought-provoking and soul-challenging…He writes with an eye-opening simplicity that zings the heart.
Arnold is clear, compassionate, uncompromising…He writes straight from (and to) the heart.
Drained
Stories of People Who Wanted More
Gerald had an affair. And an illegitimate child. He carried these secrets for decades, doing his best to blot them from memory. He failed–but he achieved something far greater…
Ann finally had everything she ever wanted: a loving spouse, a home to call her own, financial security, beautiful kids. Everything, that is, except happiness. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Until she stopped trying to outrun the ghosts of her abused childhood…
Mick and Bridie’s only son was gunned down in Northern Ireland, and they wanted blood. So they tried suicide. But something stopped them…
Ashley worked the runways of Paris and Milan, modelling for the likes of Giorgio Armani. Drugged up and sexed out, he flirted with despair. Then a friend offered him a book that changed the course of his life forever…
In Drained, Arnold tells their stories and those of many others who overcame their greatest obstacles. He builds his book on the premise that the longing for peace lies deep within every person. Drained makes no attempt to present a cure-all for life’s problems, but for those ready to go beyond quick-fix “remedies,” it offers stepping stones to a fulfilled life.
This book is available in India here.
Praise for Drained
A gem of a book…Captures a mood of disillusionment among many people struggling to find fulfillment.
A fast-paced page-turner – about slowing down and living! Arnold shows that, in the most fundamental sense, we’re all the same: everyone wants peace. Drained made me reevaluate the course I had been charting, and forced me to ask difficult but rewarding questions of myself.
A most interesting book… Drained explores the roots of stressed-out Britons’ ennui.
Stories to sustain hope…
The Early Christians
In Their Own Words
What did Christianity look like before it became an institution? In these firsthand accounts of the early church, the spirit of Pentecost burns with prophetic force through the fog that envelops the modern church. A clear and vibrant faith lives on in these writings, providing a guide for Christians today. Its stark simplicity and revolutionary fervor will stun those lulled by conventional Christianity.
The Early Christians is a topically arranged collection of primary sources. It includes extra-biblical sayings of Jesus and excerpts from Origen, Tertullian, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Equally revealing material from pagan contemporaries — critics, detractors and persecutors — is included as well.
Praise for The Early Christians
Harvard Divinity School
A compelling, fascinating, and direct account of one of the most important periods in the history of modern man.
Emory University
This unique selection will not only help readers understand early Christianity intellectually; it will also challenge them to seek to live more fully, abundantly, and even radically. If any proof were needed of the enduring power of Christianity, the fact that these ancient texts speak so directly to our situation almost two thousand years later would more than suffice.
Yale University
If you hold, like Arnold does, that Christianity is no longer Christianity if it departs too radically from its beginnings, then you must read this book.
Ministers Book Club
As an anthology of early Christian writings, this book will become invaluable for those who use it as a resource for preaching, worship, teaching, and their own devotional life.
Bethany Seminary
Arnold’s work calls back to those days when Christian love was free flowing and socially radical…A fine volume in a field which has few comparable productions.
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Arnold’s selection of texts suggests the richness and diversity of early Christian faith, and stands as a yardstick with which to measure the poverty of our own spiritual life…A Christianity as yet unspoiled by ecclesiastical or philosophical structures, marked by longing for the end, pledged to love and sharing of worldly good, unencumbered as yet by high-placed or highly educated members, free of prohibital crafts, trades or professions—this is the golden age from which Arnold takes inspiration.
Eberhard Arnold — Writings Selected
Introduction by Johann Christoph Arnold
If you’ve never read any of Eberhard Arnold’s writings before, this collection is a good choice. For those already familiar with the author, Writings might be described as the Portable Arnold – a collection of the strongest and best of his prolific output.
Arnold is best known for his emphasis on living out Christ’s message in community with others, but Writings shows him to be equally at home in other spheres. Whether assailing the hypocrisy of conventional church life or pointing out the pitfalls of a purely social gospel, whether celebrating the spirit of childlikeness or defending his unyielding refusal to allow that warfare can ever be just, this writer has surprises in store for even the most jaded reader.
Widely sought after as a writer and lecturer in his day, Eberhard Arnold remains largely unknown to modern readers. Small but growing numbers of readers, however, are discovering the relevance of his work, which Thomas Merton said “stirs to repentance and renewal.”
Much more than a writer, philosopher, and theologian, he was loved most of all for his humility, his fatherly friendship, and his deep faith. Born in 1883 into a long line of academics, his life was hardly conventional. In a time and place where church and state were anything but separate, he threw away what might have been a brilliant career as a theologian when he left the state church at age twenty-five. By thirty-seven, he had abandoned middle-class life altogether. He spent his last fifteen years at a religious community, but remained active in traveling, lecturing and writing until his death in 1935.
Little of what he wrote is available to readers today: only a small number of the thousands of talks, essays, and letters he left behind have ever been published in English. In a certain way, however, this would cause him no dismay: especially toward the end of his life, he spoke often of his own inadequacies, pointing instead to the working of the Holy Spirit. And yet his witness, however small, cannot be left unrecognized. His insights into the human condition are as relevant today as they were in the early twenties, and his call to discipleship rings as true now as it did then.
Praise for Eberhard Arnold — Writings Selected
The witness of Eberhard Arnold is a much needed corrective to an American church that has lost the vital, biblical connection between belief and obedience.
Arnold’s writings has all the simple, luminous, direct vision into things that I have come to associate with his name. It has the authentic ring of a truly evangelical Christianity and moves me deeply. It stirs to repentance and renewal. I am deeply grateful for it.
Arnold’s life is a testimony that in community the Spirit, which can be found in all traditions, can reveal to us the real causes of social injustice.
Key selections from a prophetic voice – the contemporary church needs to wrestle with Arnold.
Mennonite Historical Bulletin
The situation in the world today only enhances the relevance of Eberhard Arnold to the contemporary world.
Endangered
Your Child in a Hostile World
A book for everyone who cares about children, Endangered will renew your confidence that no matter how great the odds, the love we give children is still the most decisive factor.
Every parent and educator wants to be more effective. Endangered shows them how, not by offering child-rearing tips, but by transforming the way they view children and empowering them to act on the innate wisdom they already possess.
For parents who try to do “the right thing” but feel frustrated at every turn, or for teachers and caregivers who worry that no matter what they do, it is not enough, Arnold offers the reassurance that no deed of love is ever wasted, and that even the smallest sacrifice has lasting value and significance.
Arnold concedes that bringing up children in the 21st century is going to demand everything of us. But he insists that as long as we raise them with the reverence that lets them know they count, we will win their confidence and their trust. And in the end, he says, if we are willing to put them first, they will give us “more than we can ever give them.”
Praise for Endangered
Author, Ordinary Resurrections
Beautiful. . . It is Arnold’s reverence for children that I love.
Author, The Underground History of American Education
Endangered is a work of great good sense with a message all of us need to hear. I love the quiet authority of this author’s words.
Author, Nurturing a Child’s Soul
In our hard-charging culture, children often get pushed to the edges of our crowded schedules. Arnold understands such pressures, but he points to another way. Profound but practical, this book reminds us to make room for children. With its compelling stories and engaging commentary, it inspires us to welcome them with compassion and grace.
Prof. of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine
Brushing aside the polarizing arguments of children’s vs. parents’ rights, Arnold surprises us at every turn. Endangered is a stunning tribute to family life.
Seton High School, Cincinnati
Superb…Arnold’s passion for putting children first, and his belief that the sacrifice involved is well worth the price, makes this a book that parents, teachers, clergy, and others from all walks of life will want to read…As a gang mediator, guidance counselor, and priest, I applaud this author’s insights.
Author, Let Justice Roll Down
This book could well be a spark to ignite a new passion, a new commitment to children.
St. Monica’s Church, Blackpool, England
Beautifully, disarmingly simple…Arnold writes with warmth, passion, and respect for those who struggle. This book deserves the widest possible audience.
The Word Among Us
In Endangered Arnold has again written with compassion and love. Even where I disagree with him, I must read and re-read his words, because his points are so compelling and his convictions so heartfelt.
Singer/songwriter
Arnold suggests solutions that get to the heart of issues…This is a great inspiration for anyone who seeks God’s answers to the challenges of raising the next generation.
Producer, Teen Talk Radio, WNYE-FM New York
Endangered challenged my self-image as a parent and an educator…Endangered makes you go deep. This is a book to read and then discuss with as many caring adults as possible.
Escape Routes
For People Who Feel Trapped in Life’s Hells
After decades of listening to people, Johann Christoph Arnold still marvels at our capacity to make life miserable for ourselves and one another. Escape Routes, his tenth book, aims to show the only sure way out of these self-made hells.
In contrast to the makeovers and quick fixes hawked by popular culture, Escape Routes offers a tougher prescription. Using real-life stories, Arnold exposes the common seeds of loneliness, frustration, alienation, and despair, and gives us tools to uproot them from our lives. The choices he presents are clear: “to be selfish or selfless to forgive or to hate to burn with lust or with love to defend your personal power, or dismantle it.”
Why stake your hopes on some eternal hereafter, Arnold asks, when you can taste heaven right here and now? No matter your problems, or who you are, this book will help you on your way, provided you’re ready to take its medicine.
Praise for Escape Routes
Re:generation Quarterly
Not many authors pack as much wisdom, and as little fluff, into a page as Arnold. If you’re wondering who you want to be when you grow up, Escape Routes offers a road map to real life. If you’re already grown up and wondering if you missed something, this book offers a hard but real path to rebirth.
Columbia University
Beautiful…Arnold does not give us a magic formula for coping with life’s hells–there is none–but gently reminds us that the first step begins with ourselves. Drawing on the wisdom of men and women of many faiths, this book is one that can be appreciated by all.
National Foundation for Jewish Culture
Escape Routes is a gem of a book from an infinitely wise pen–a lucid, poetic, and pragmatic companion for “people who feel trapped in life’s hells.” Though rooted in the author’s personal faith, it transcends religious boundaries and has universal, ecumenical appeal.
St. Bede’s Anglican Chuch, Birmingham, AL
The honest directness, the unblushing face of life as it is–that’s what this book offers, and I am impressed by it.
St. Anne’s Church, Bristol, CT
Very moving and convicting. I will read it more than once.”
OCD, Beacon, NY
The stories in this book are priceless and compelling. And if we find their message unwelcome, it is only because we all tend to resist grace.
A humble and thoughtful offering…with stories and personal anecdotes that gently urge readers to a more meaningful life.
Arnold dispenses much practical advice while exposing the roots of such human perennials as loneliness, frustration, alienation, and despair. Sometimes his medicine is Zen-like in its common sense.
Freedom from Sinful Thoughts
We don’t talk about them, but all of us have them – private jealousies, resentments, fantasies, and temptations. For over two decades, Arnold’s sensitive wisdom has helped thousands of readers battle these unwanted thoughts. Now his quiet but steady-selling little classic is available to a new generation in an expanded and revised new edition. Arnold assures us that tempting thoughts are not sinful in and of themselves. It’s what we do with them that matters. He offers concrete steps we can take to turn away from them and toward God. Drawing on the words of Jesus, and on his own experience as a pastor, Arnold guides the reader from frustration, guilt and self-doubt to single-minded freedom and joy in Christ.
Freedom from Sinful Thoughts has proved itself invaluable for new believers, pastors, counselors, youth ministers, and anyone seeking a closer relationship with God.
Praise for Freedom from Sinful Thoughts
Concise, straightforward…from the heart. Arnold sounds a warning to the self-oriented, therapeutic tendencies of our day: “The goal…should always be liberation…We want to find Jesus, not ourselves.”
Univ. of Dubuque Theol. Seminary
A welcome discourse on the spiritual life…contains much biblical wisdom.
Renovaré
Freedom from Sinful Thoughts…is an excellent little book.
Baptist Theological Seminary
Reminds me of Kierkegaard’s great classic, Purity of Heart. Both force you to look deep within your own life and to realize that only God’s love manifest in the Cross of Jesus Christ is sufficient. A caution: once you start this wonderful book, you may not be able to put it down until you finish it.
St. John’s Seminary
This is a book I can heartily recommend to friends and seminarians for their lectio divina—their daily spiritual reading. I’m amazed that no one (no one I know of, anyway) has addressed this topic before. After all, it is as close to us as any other issue in the universe.
George Fox University
“Temptation itself is not sin.” This is part of the good news Arnold brings in this small volume. But he also warns that he is writing for those who want to be free…not for those who deliberately bring temptations on themselves or wallow in them when they come…Loving and sensitive, Arnold makes his readers feel encouraged rather than judged. Here are nuggets of practical wisdom which deserve to be read, pondered, and treasured.
St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church (Allentown PA)
Arnold outlines aspects of an important topic from a psychological perspective, then calls us to a deep awareness of the power of faith in Christ to overcome the evil in us. His brevity makes this a book for your bedside table, where you can read it again and again.
Assoc. Menn. Biblical Seminaries
The insights of this little book are excellent. Especially valuable is its emphasis upon daring in Christ to have the courage to believe that one can have victory when temptations come. Here Christ is fully human—not just fully divine.
Author, The Spirit of the Disciplines
With deep insight into the workings of the mind, Arnold brings us towards deliverance by union with Christ.
The Gospel in Dostoyevsky
Selections from his Works
An excellent introduction to one of the world’s most important authors, this volume vividly reveals – as none of his novels can on their own – the common thread of the great God-haunted Russian’s questioning faith. Drawn from The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, and The Adolescent, the seventeen selections are each prefaced by an explanatory note.
Newcomers will find in these pages a rich, accessible sampling. Dostoyevsky devotees will be pleased to find some of the writer’s deepest, most compelling passages in one volume.
Praise for The Gospel in Dostoyevsky
Publishers Weekly
One of the best-conceived, most succinct and most useful Dostoyevsky readers…
Christianity Today
Grab it. Read it. And be careful: you may find yourself – as I did – scouring used bookstores for every obscure work of this incomparable writer. 
If you are assailed by doubt, even total rejection of God, try Dostoyevsky. And don’t be daunted by the fact that most of his books are fat. Start with this volume of power-laden excerpts.
The Hidden Christ
Taking the Gospel into the World
These letters from Blumhardt to his son-in-law, a missionary in China, turn the traditional concept of Christian mission on its head.
For Blumhardt, the gospel of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with religion. There is no need to bring Christianity to people. What they need is the good news Jesus promised–liberty for the oppressed and help for the poor.
In fact, as Blumhardt sees it, the “unchurched” and the “heathen,” and especially the oppressed, already belong to Christ, and he is at work in their hearts before we arrive. Jesus did not come to found churches, but to set in motion a movement of the Spirit that will encompass nations and lead to peace and social justice. “No longer religion against religion, but justice against sin, life against death.”
Blumhardt writes from a passionately moved heart, hastily jotting down thoughts with little regard for the choice of words or the skillful marshalling of ideas. It is not a matter of theology, but of daring something in faith, of experimenting, and of finding new ways for God’s kingdom to advance.
Homage to a Broken Man
The Life of J. Heinrich Arnold
Without your wounds where would you be?
The very angels themselves cannot persuade
the wretched and blundering children of earth
as can one human being broken in the wheels of living.
— Thornton Wilder
The very angels themselves cannot persuade
the wretched and blundering children of earth
as can one human being broken in the wheels of living.
— Thornton Wilder
People who knew J. Heinrich Arnold (1913-1982) say they never met another person like him. Some speak of his humility, sensitivity, and compassion; others of his frankness and earthy humor. In his presence, complete strangers poured out their darkest secrets and left transformed. Others wanted him dead.
Writer Henri Nouwen called him a “prophetic voice” and wrote of how his words “touched me as a double-edged sword, calling me to choose between truth and lies, selflessness and selfishness…Here was no pious, sentimental guide; every word came from his experience.”
Few knew Arnold’s past, or could have imagined the crucibles he had endured. Until now.
Peter Mommsen sets out to uncover the story of his grandfather’s life. This is what he finds: A boy who faced down Nazis and hunger, growing up on potatoes and radical ideas. The son of a famous intellectual, determined to drop out of school and take to the road. A young lover fleeing his homeland. A new father losing his first child. An unlikely pioneer in the heart of South America.
There, in the jungles of Paraguay, the religious community his parents had founded was twisted by legalism and power-hungry leaders into a cold and lifeless caricature. Arnold was betrayed by those he trusted most, separated from his wife and children, and exiled to a leper colony.
Often his life hung on a knife’s edge. But he couldn’t die yet, because he hadn’t fulfilled his calling, or the promise he had made as a child….
Homage to a Broken Man is a remarkable story of betrayal and forgiveness. Read it, and you’ll never look at your own life the same way again.
Praise for Homage to a Broken Man
Columbia University, author of Being Jewish
What goes through the hearts and minds of great men? In this wise and sensitive volume, Peter Mommsen brings the life of J. Heinrich Arnold into clear and penetrating focus. It is a book full of vital lessons about leadership, patience, sacrifice and forgiveness.
Author of The Upside-Down Kingdom
With candor and honesty, Mommsen shares the joy and pathos, suffering and love, deceit and forgiveness of a Christian community. It is a breathtaking story, and reads like a novel. I couldn’t put it down.
Founder and president, Shira Dicker Media International
One of the most moving books I have read – and one of the most instructive. For all those concerned with living a life of meaning and integrity, it ought to be required reading.
Editor-in-Chief, Orbis Books
This inspiring biography does more than simply recount the story of a fascinating life. It describes an adventure that challenges the reader to ask, “What would my life look like if I lived as if the Gospel were really true?”
The Individual and World Need
Timeless yet as timely as ever, this short book explores the relationship of the individual to world suffering and points clearly to a solution. Enlivened by a wide variety of anecdotes–from the ancient myth of Prometheus to the expressionist Franz Werfel–Eberhard Arnold’s message is simple but revolutionary: only by overcoming the cancer of individualism can we begin to address the need of the world.
Arnold’s essential diagnosis of what is wrong in the world–fragmentation, alienation, lust for power and wealth–is as precise today as when he penned this essay in the 1920s. The agony he has us confront is so grim, it could lead one to despair. But instead he faces despair head on, grapples with it, and emerges writing about joy. How is this possible?
Readers solely interested in personal salvation may not like this essay. Arnold calls for a commitment that may seem too demanding to some. Yet without that commitment the world will remain as it is, full of illusions about self and material things and unable to see the consequences. Arnold believes that this state of affairs does not have to be. It can be transcended by the faith that moves mountains.
Praise for The Individual and World Need
A timely challenge to a world where millions claim the title “born again,” yet where more and more of God’s children sleep in alleys, are enslaved to drugs, are locked away in prison, grow up without a father, or struggle to survive in dangerously deteriorating ghettos. Arnold powerfully calls us to a whole new relationship with the poor, lest the credibility of our love for God be called into question.
A profound and compelling apologetic for the Gospel, Arnold’s book is more relevent now than it was then. It was a privilege and a blessing, a challenging blessing, to read.
Inner Words
For Every Day of the Year
These passages were selected by Emmy Arnold, drawing from the writings of her husband Eberhard Arnold, as well as those of Augustine, Blumhardt, Bodelschwingh, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Meister Eckhart, Hermann Loens, Martin Luther, Thomas a Kempis, Hudson Taylor and others.
As Emmy Arnold writes, “We need voices of our time which speak to people’s hearts. It has been important to me in choosing these words that they come from people who have not only expressed their faith in words, but who have actually lived what they thought and wrote and believed.”
Innerland
A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel
It is hard to exaggerate the significance of Innerland, either for Eberhard Arnold or his readers. It absorbed his energies off and on for most of his adult life – from World War I, when he published the first chapter under the title War: A Call to Inwardness, to 1935, the last year of his life. The fruit of this long labor of love was not only a book, but a wellspring of remarkable depth.
Packed in metal boxes and buried at night for safekeeping from the Nazis, who raided the author’s study a year before his death (and again a year after it), Innerland was not openly critical of Hitler’s regime. Nevertheless, it attacked the spirits that animated German society: its murderous strains of racism and bigotry, its heady nationalistic fervor, its mindless mass hysteria, and its vulgar materialism. In this sense Innerland stands as starkly opposed to the zeitgeist of our own day as to that of the author’s.
At a glance, the focus of Innerland seems to be the cultivation of the spiritual life as an end in itself. Nothing could be more misleading. In fact, to Eberhard Arnold the very thought of encouraging the sort of selfish solitude whereby people seek their own private peace by shutting out the noise and rush of public life around them is anathema. Thus he writes in the section “The Inner Life”:
These are times of distress. We cannot retreat, willfully blind to the overwhelming urgency of the tasks pressing on society. We cannot look for inner detachment in an inner and outer isolation…The only justification for withdrawing into the inner self to escape today’s confusing, hectic whirl would be that fruitfulness is enriched by it. It is a question of gaining within, through unity with eternal powers, a strength of character ready to be tested in the stream of the world.
Innerland, then, calls us not to passivity, but to action. It invites us to discover the abundance of a life lived for God. It opens our eyes to the possibilities of that “inner land of the invisible where our spirit can find the roots of its strength and thus enable us to press on to the mastery of life we are called to by God.” Only there, says Eberhard Arnold, can our life be placed under the illuminating light of the eternal and seen for what it is. Only there will we find the clarity of vision we need to win the daily battle that is life, and the inner anchor without which we will lose our moorings.
Praise for Innerland
Southwestern Journal of Theology
…looks beyond the extremities of institutional Christianity into the depths of the life of discipleship…It is simple in language, yet complex in thought and message…It will challenge the serious reader to the core of their commitment and relationship to God and the church.
Powell’s Books
Innerland is a bold and challenging invitation to the path of discipleship, and speaks to both the terrors and the hopes of our time. Along with the likes of John Woolman, Thomas Kelly, and Dorothy Day, its author is one of the great secrets of radical Christianity. The reprinting of this masterpiece is truly a gift.
Innerland calls men and women to a life of such trust in God that their attitudes toward his kingdom, other people, material wealth, and earthly power are transformed.
Arnold’s writing is simple, luminous, direct…it has the authentic ring of a truly evangelical Christianity, and moves me deeply. It stirs to repentance and renewal.
Sojourners
The witness of Eberhard Arnold is a much needed corrective to a contemporary church that has lost the vital connection between belief and obedience.
A treasure trove of remarkable depth, there is not a page that fails to prick the conscience or enkindle the spirit.
Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution
André Trocmé (1901-1971) is famous for his role in saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis, as pastor of the French village of Le Chambon. But his bold deeds did not spring from a void. They were rooted in his understanding of Jesus’ way of nonviolence and the social implications of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God on earth.
In this book, you’ll encounter a Jesus you may have never met before–a Jesus who not only calls for spiritual transformation, but for practical changes that answer the most perplexing political, economic, and social problems of our time.
Newly revised and expanded, this edition includes a concise biography of André Trocmé, and extensive notes on how contemporary thinkers have grappled with his ideas.
Praise for Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution
Duke Divinity School
This book–and especially this newly expanded edition–deserves to be more widely known, and not only because it was so influential on John Howard Yoder…Trocmé’s focus saves any account of salvation from pietistic distortion…His comparison of Gandhi and Jesus is also extremely important.
Auburn Theological Seminary
Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution is one of the most important writings on nonviolence ever penned. Andre Trocme not only lays out his principles with astonishing clarity, but he lived them out at great risk. I can think of no better place to begin the study of this timely subject.
Re:generation Quarterly
Andre Trocme brings a ground-breaking historical clarity to Jesus’ life and teachings. The result is a vision for Jesus’ followers that is unsettling, exhilarating, and–most amazing of all–possible.
Author, Jesus the Rebel
Gandhi once said that Jesus was the greatest practitioner of nonviolence in history and that the only people who do not know that Jesus was nonviolent are Christians. Now more than ever, we need to study and imitate the nonviolent Jesus. This classic text by a legendary Christian peacemaker is a must for anyone who is concerned not only about the world’s wars and violence, but who wants to know what Jesus would do. It is a great source of inspiration and encouragement.
Denver Seminary
Andre Trocme has been one of my heroes for years. He was an outstanding model of reconciling grace, and his book, like few others, sets forth an amazingly convincing case for biblical peacemaking.
Author, The Upside-Down Kingdom
Andre Trocme has the prophetic gift of bypassing doctrinal fluff and cutting to the heart of Jesus’ message: a stark call for repentance, love and socio-economic change. A prophet for the 21st century, Trocme speaks in plain and simple words we can understand but may not want to hear. Read him with caution: this book may change your life.
Author, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?
Trocme pioneered territory where many of us now dwell, and opened doors we seek still to pass through…It is wonderful that a new generation might come to know this book: it represents a continuing light in our darkness.
Author, The Transformation of Culture
In this new edition of Andre Trocme’s classic work, the genius of a pastor-revolutionary shines through once more, magnified under the light of notes that reinforce his startling conception of witness and hope.
Fuller Theological Seminary
In a time when the church is being seduced by the concentration of power and violence, this book gives us the ethic we need to remain faithful. Almost all the major themes on which John Howard Yoder later based his classic Politics of Jesus are here—in briefer and highly readable form.
Eastern Seminary
Trocmé’s courage in the face of Nazi oppression is reason enough to give him a fresh hearing in a world of continuing injustice and rising ethnic hatreds. One need not agree with every point to learn from his vision of justice—a vision to which we often give lip-service while neglecting its challenge in our daily lives.
Jesus Is the Victor
A controversial German pastor, Christoph Blumhardt (1842-1919) didn’t care much for religion. His critique of Christianity touched a nerve that is still raw today. For him faith was a matter of fighting for God’s kingdom, the victory of Christ over all injustice and suffering here on earth. Throughout his life, “Jesus is the victor!” was his battle cry.
Compiled from Blumhardt’s talks, sermons and writings, Jesus Is the Victor reveals his unconventional understanding of this battle and victory, which ought to define the life of every follower of Christ.
For Blumhardt, Jesus’ triumph over sin and death wasn’t an abstraction, but something that he experienced as a reality in his life and the lives of those around him. Sick were healed, sinners forgiven, relationships restored. When the miraculous healings caused too much of a sensation, Blumhardt retired from preaching and entered politics, sensing Christ at work in movements for social justice. But he soon left that as well, saying, “State and church are no soil for the fire of God.”
If you ever doubt that Jesus has power to change the world, or despair of seeing his victory come to fruition in your own personal life, you should read this book.
A Joyful Pilgrimage
Not many people talk about “joy” these days. Emmy Arnold’s memoir radiates just that – an enthusiasm for life and an unflagging optimism grounded in faith. In a genre awash in sordid sex and dysfunctional relationships, she offers a refreshing account of a hard life lived victoriously, of people brought together, despite their own weakness and turbulent times, to experience new levels of freedom, trust, and unity.
The setting is the tumultuous aftermath of World War I, when thousands of young Germans defied the social mores of their parents – and the constricting influence of the churches – in search of freedom, social equality, nature, and community. Hiking clubs were formed and work camps organized, and hundreds of rural communes sprang up across the country. In the 1930s Nazism swallowed this so-called Youth Movement virtually whole.
A Joyful Pilgrimage is the story of a remnant that survived: a community movement that began when Emmy Arnold and her husband Eberhard, a well-known writer and lecturer, abandoned their affluent Berlin suburb to live a completely different life. It is her own story, candidly told, of a venture dared and realized, in spite of poverty, persecution, skepticism, and trust betrayed. Through it all Arnold clung to her belief that we can break free from the structures of power, greed, and injustice that divide us.
Praise for A Joyful Pilgrimage
Very moving…A simple and direct account of a Christian life stripped to the essentials.
Arnold’s portrait of communal life is brutally honest.
Lift Thine Eyes
Evening Prayers for Every Day of the Year
Children the world over are taught to say prayers at bedtime – but how many adults take time to turn to God at the end of the day? This collection of prayers is one of the few daily devotionals especially intended for use in the evening.
In Lift Thine Eyes, the faith of a man who recognized human despair but refused to give in to it offers a wellspring of hope to turn to again and again. Blumhardt’s prayers (and the corresponding Bible passages he has chosen for them) bespeak a certainty in God’s nearness the peace that flows from them comes from an unshakable conviction that God’s kingdom is indeed on the way. In turbulent times like our own, most people need this reassurance frequently, if not daily.
Blumhardt’s prayers flow out of his feeling for the suffering of the whole world. They all point in the same direction – to the prayer that God’s kingdom shall come, that the Savior shall come. If we pray, all suffering and need can only strengthen our faith in the certainty of God’s promise that he will complete his work and bring an end to all affliction.
Praise for Lift Thine Eyes
Currents
These are prayers of one who is at once saddened by the suffering of the world and yet empowered by the message of the Gospel. They breathe the spirit of hilaritas, bold confidence and joy before God.
Harvard Divinity School
“The writings of Blumhardt are a tonic many weary souls need.”
Blumhardt’s message is a most spontaneous and penetrating word of God, and it speaks right into the need of the world.
Bangor Theological Seminary
Not unlike Bonhoeffer, Blumhardt sees the light of Christ in the midst of the world, even when the world does not know it or understand it.
Evangelicals for Social Action
Blumhardt reminds us that personal peace is merely the wrapping paper of a more magnificent gift: confidence in the coming of God’s kingdom.
Author, Water My Soul
This small book of prayers is a treasure, a precious pearl…may others discover its riches, as I have.
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Hopeful Parenting in a Confused World
Parenting was never easy. In these times of cultural decline and moral confusion, it has only gotten harder. But what if parenthood is not just a duty but a privilege, and what if our children can draw us closer to God and each other?
Johann Christoph Arnold offers down-to-earth insights every parent can apply. His prose is simple, straight to the heart, and filled with wisdom. Topics include fatherhood, motherhood, spoiling your child, discipline, adoption, special needs, building character, academics, sports and play, sex education, the role of grandparents, media consumption, and homeschooling.
Praise for A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Author, Amazing Grace
Beautiful…It is the reverence for children that I love.
Author, Pain: the Gift Nobody Wants
Probably the best book of its size and scope that I have read on this subject.
Children’s Defense Fund
Those of us who are parents know the crucial role we play in the lives of our children. Arnold conveys the seriousness of this commitment we have undertaken and reminds us what we are about.
President, Taylor University
Reading Arnold is like discovering the “pure strain” of Christ’s teachings before the “yes/but” rationalizations of modernity corrupted them…This is a book about children as God intended.
Author, The Empty Child
Even where we differ, I am glad to hear what this author has to say–and I love the quiet authority in his words.
Author, All God’s Children
This book should stand beside the likes of Spock and Brazleton as a “must read” for every parent. It not only gives sound advice but teaches us the value, reverence and preciousness of each child.
The Vatican
The moral and educational statements in this book agree completely with what the Pope is tirelessly teaching. I am happy that this book is written simply so we can all understand it. It is indeed very beautiful.
Minirth Meier New Life Clincs
A powerful book…Provides a wealth of information in a small space.
Musician, author
This book belongs in every new home.
Church of the Savior
A gift to the heart…Reminds us that children are to be revered as teachers because they teach us as no one else can how to unlearn the lessons that keep us from being children.
Love Letters
Everyone’s looking for true love, but few people seem willing to work at making it last. With separation and divorce so commonplace that most people see them as inevitable, it seems the very idea of marital commitment is fast becoming a foreign one. What’s gone wrong?
On Good Friday 1907, in the German university town of Halle, a young couple sealed their secret engagement with a kiss – and a vow to follow God wherever he led them. They were passionately in love, yet they rejected romance as the basis of their relationship, building instead on the promise of Jesus’ words, “Seek first the kingdom of God.” Circumstance (and scandalised parents) kept them separated for most of the next three years. But that separation bore its own fruit: an intense exchange of letters.
Praise for Love Letters
Eastern University
More than love letters. They show how a man and a woman can nurture each other toward spiritual maturity.
Author of 'The Lost Gospel of Mary'
These letters disclose the writers’ burning commitment to the Lord above all else, and demonstrate how it became the foundation of the commitment they bore to each other. Such clarity and passion are rarely seen these days.
S.M. Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
A rare find. It is a privilege to be invited into such an intimate conversation.
Oxford University
Here are letters of both immense intensity and the deepest intimacy, almost too sacred for publication. They witness to a deeply based love nurtured in the context of an absolute commitment to Christ.
The University of Notre Dame
These inspiring letters interweave a profound love for Jesus Christ with a deep love between two young people, as well as an utterly transparent search to do God’s will.
General Secretary, Baptist World Alliance
For modern secular humanity these Love Letters of Eberhard and Emmy Arnold must seem from another planet! But for Christian believers these letters are a powerful reminder of God’s transformation of ordinary human relationships into divine grace and the mystery of God’s love. Love Letters portrays the depth of human emotions that can be kindled by expressing through the written word the meaning and purpose of Christ’s love.
With enthusiasm I commend reading these letters for one’s own spiritual growth. In so doing one will also gain a greater appreciation for the tremendous spiritual movement that renewed the Church universal at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. This renewal raised up a generation of young men and women completely dedicated to Christ and the evangelisation of the world in their generation. The love story of Eberhard and Emmy is a thrilling testimony of what complete commitment and obedience to Christ can do. Read it, pray about it, and your marriage will take on new life and joy!
Love is Like Fire
The Confession of an Anabaptist Prisoner
Peter Riedemann (1506-1556) wrote this confession as a 23-year-old while imprisoned in Austria on account of his faith. At the time, the Anabaptists were being drowned, beheaded, and burned at the stake as heretics by the thousand for their commitment to baptism of believers, economic sharing, nonviolence, and the restoration of a New Testament Christianity free from state control and institutional hierarchy.
In addition to the confession are two important supplements: How We Should Build the House of God and The Seven Pillars of This House. These meditations, like the confession, are of a deeply spiritual character.
From the book:
Love is like fire –
When it is first kindled in a man,
small troubles and temptations smother
and hinder it; but when it really burns,
having kindled the man’s eagerness for God,
the more temptations and tribulations meet it,
the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes
all injustice and wickedness.
When it is first kindled in a man,
small troubles and temptations smother
and hinder it; but when it really burns,
having kindled the man’s eagerness for God,
the more temptations and tribulations meet it,
the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes
all injustice and wickedness.
Praise for Love is Like Fire
Much of the teaching of the Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians of the sixteenth century is today unreal and irrelevant, but what the Anabaptists taught about mutual aid, peace, discipline, religious liberty, and lay witness is as fresh and important as it was fifteen generations ago.
Alderson-Broaddus College
For Riedemann, Christian discipleship was an incendiary fellowship between the believer and his Lord. Love like a fire burned within him… Love begets love, it must “show itself in active work, serving all men and doing good.”
My Search
In a world that is increasingly torn by violence, hatred, injustice and war, is there an answer to the need of humanity? Here is the story of one man who grappled with this question in an intensely personal way: growing up in Germany in a Jewish family under the shadow of the Nazis, forced into exile in Siberia, barely escaping with his life from starvation and disease in southern Asia, he finally made it to the land of Israel.
Faced with the horror of the Holocaust, he was determined to fight for the independence of his new homeland. But the inhumanity of war continued to pursue him, along with the question: why cannot men and women live together in peace?
This is a fascinating account of survival against all odds, but it is more than that – the story of one man’s search for the answers to the questions that in one way or other face us all.
Praise for My Search
I.C.S.A.
One of the book’s virtues … is that it pulls you along without commentary or long-winded descriptions. It makes for absorbing reading, hard to put down and harder to forget.
No One Can Stem the Tide
Selected Poems 1931-1991
Though most of Jane Tyson Clement’s poems remained hidden in private notebooks during her lifetime, the few that travelled beyond her hands were widely admired and drew critical acclaim. Now, with this first comprehensive anthology of her work, the public can at last discover this gifted poet and give her the audience she deserves.
Evoking comparisons to such better-known contemporaries as Jane Kenyon, Wendell Berry, and Denise Levertov, Clement is direct and understated. Even when technically sophisticated, her poetry speaks with a familiar voice and draws on accessible images from the natural world.
Still, these are no mere “nature poems.” In exploring the varied emotions of life – of love, longing, and loss; memory, sacrifice, and desire; struggle and frustration, joy and resolve – they reveal the tireless seeking of a generous and honest heart and beckon the reader down new avenues of seeing and hearing.
Praise for No One Can Stem the Tide
An amazing breadth of subject matter…Clement demonstrates an unusual ability to speak to the reader on varying levels.
Beautiful…offers quietude in the midst of cacophony and literary cynicism.
Now Is Eternity
Comfort and Wisdom for Difficult Hours
Bad days are one thing – everyone has them now and then. But what about the darker clouds that settle over a life for weeks or even months at a time? What about separation and divorce, prolonged illness and hospitalization? What about the loss of a friend or a parent, the absence of a child or a spouse?
For the friend or family member who just isn’t coping, no matter what you say, the sturdy simplicity of this little volume offers something most well-meaning sympathy cards forget: a gentle insistence that there is still a God who watches over all, and a stubborn faith that the worst trials of life’s “difficult hours” will one day be overshadowed by his comfort and peace.
In reminding us of the power conferred by hope, Now Is Eternity is a source of daily strength. Given the understated beauty and brevity of its texts, it is one the thirsty reader will surely come back to again and again.
Christoph F. Blumhardt (1842-1919) influenced a whole generation of Europeans, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Emil Brunner, Oscar Cullman, and Karl Barth. His father, Johann C. Blumhardt (1805-1880) was a Swabian pastor and is regarded by many as the father of German pietism.
Praise for Now Is Eternity
The little book is indeed a gem – comforting in the sense of strengthening. Thank you.
Blumhardt’s message is a most spontaneous and penetrating word of God, and it speaks right into the need of the world.
Evangelicals for Social Action
Blumhardt reminds us that personal peace is merely the wrapping paper of a more magnificent gift: confidence in the coming of God’s kingdom.
Perfect for consultation in the most diverse moments – for meditation in the quiet of my church, and even when I visit the pub in town (for just one half-pint of bitter)!
Poems and Rhymed Prayers
Eberhard Arnold published most of his essays during his lifetime, but almost none of his poems. It might have been shyness: many are love poems, and others reveal private struggles. But if they open a window on a man’s inmost thoughts, they also show him at his most essential and Christ-centered.
A few days after Eberhard’s death, his wife Emmy approached a neighbor with a folder of his unpublished poems in hand: “They are not mine anymore…I want to share them.” Belated as it might be, this volume is a fruit of her generosity.
The Prayer God Answers
Why should I pray? What should I pray for? Why has God not answered my prayers? What if everything we prayed for came true? Would I be ready? In this essay, Eberhard Arnold describes the kind of prayer that pleases God, and the power of prayer to transform our lives and our world.
First published in German in 1913, The Prayer God Answers has been revised and expanded in this ebook to include important insights from Arnold’s other talks and writings on the importance of prayer for individuals and the church. Arnold explores the teachings of Jesus, as well as the example of the Hebrew prophets and the early Christians, and challenges us to rediscover the prayer that shakes the world.
From the book:
Do we have the faith that through our prayer the status quo can be shattered? Can we believe that at our call Christ will come among us to judge and save? When we ask for the Holy Spirit, are we ready for God to strike us like a burst of flaming lightning, so that at last we experience Pentecost? Do we really believe that God’s kingdom is imminent? Are we capable of believing that through our pleading, this kingdom will break in? Are we able to believe that as a result of our prayer the entire history of the world will be turned topsy-turvy?
Let us come to God in the absolute certainty that Jesus’ words are true: “The kingdom of God has drawn near!” and, “If you have faith, nothing will be impossible for you.” Wonders will take place, mountains will be torn from their place, and the whole situation as it is on earth will be changed. Mighty things will happen when we have faith.
Provocations
Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard
There are few authors as repeatedly quoted and consistently unread as Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard himself is partly to blame for this: his style is dense, his thoughts complex. And yet embedded within his writings and journals are metaphors and truths so deep and vivid, they can overwhelm you with an almost blinding clarity.
Editor Charles E. Moore has done us an invaluable service by putting together arguably the most accessible and complete Kierkegaard volume to be published in decades. Here is a book for anyone who takes the search for authenticity seriously.
Divided into six sections, Provocations contains a little of everything from Kierkegaard’s prodigious output, including his wryly humorous attacks on what he calls the “mediocre shell” of conventional Christianity, his brilliantly pithy parables, his amazing insights on the human condition, and his incisive attempts to dig through the fluff of theological jargon and clear a way for the basics: decisiveness, obedience, passion, and recognition of the truth.
Provocations is a must for every serious seeker. Indeed, the wealth of sayings and aphorisms collected in its final section is reason enough to download the e-book.
Praise for Provocations
Provocations is more of a health farm than a holiday. At the very least it shows that we are not the first generation to find the Church disappointing, the mind and spirit in tension, and God wonderfully paradoxical.
Author, The Divine Conspiracy
Kierkegaard is one of the few disciples of Jesus whose words open the world of his Master to the seeking soul in the contemporary world. Provocations is a fine selection from his writings, excellently arranged to make the demanding insights of Kierkegaard accessible to any thoughtful reader.
Fuller Theological Seminary
Kierkegaard’s writings seem to get more “contemporary” every year. He was an extremely insightful Christian prophet who anticipated many of the dilemmas and motifs of our “post-modern” culture. This well-selected collection of writings should be read and re-read by everyone who is attempting to minister to our present generation.
Duke University Chapel
Charles Moore has done us a great service in sifting through Kierkegaard and giving us his essential writings. Here is a book to be savored, enjoyed, and yes, provoked by.
Author
Kierkegaard has taught me, moved me, perplexed me, and always provoked my thinking in new directions. I’m delighted to see his work in such an accessible form.
Author, Faith Beyond Reason
A wonderful introduction to Kierkegaard. Christians and others who are spiritual seekers will find here a treasure chest of powerful insights couched in glittering and provocative prose.
Author, The Crisis of Piety
An important and helpful guide to Kierkegaard’s spirituality.
Author, All Saints
Few writers have so ably distinguished the challenge of real Christianity from its many counterfeit versions. After reading these selections from Kierkegaard it becomes harder to mistake a “half-way” gospel for the real thing.
North Park University
This book serves a real need in American Christendom. Moore’s introduction and collection retrieve the passion that animates Kierkegaard himself. That passion, with all its force, still addresses the reflective reader.
Chancellor, Denver Seminary
Provocations is an excellent selection from the vast Kierkegaard corpus…this book is an outstanding addition to Kierkegaard publications. It will influence readers to become enthusiastic students of his Christ-centered thought.
Rachoff
A True Story
Meet an upstart who disarms his wealthy parents by taking in a homeless man (he is robbed, of course); who receives accolades for teaching illiterates to read and write but gets run out of town for telling them about Jesus as well. Meet a revolutionary who spends his last savings on a night at the opera, only to disrupt the performance; a zealot whose habit of exposing hypocrisy in high places lands him behind bars. Meet a visionary who inspires ardour but refuses to accept followers; a counsellor who turns souls toward Christ by turning lives upside down. He’s a failure by most standards, and yet his memory still challenges and inspires. Meet Rachoff.
The Secret Flower
And Other Stories
In an age when cleverness often counts more than substance, the writer of these stories (and poems) offers a break from all the noise. Clement, a teacher, mother and poet, writes with a measured beauty that recalls Tolstoy and Tolkien. There is nothing heavy or stilted about these tales, which rely less on plot devices than on allegorical symbols and the evocation of moods. But there is the thrill of expectancy, a sense that something new is on the way, and the belief that the Someone for whom humanity longs and waits is seeking us, just as we seek Him.
Praise for The Secret Flower
Stories of real distinction.
Clement writes with simplicity and directness, a gentle, probing insistence, and conviction. One lays down the book in thought, and with thankful heart.
Beautiful…offers quietude in the midst of cacophony and literary cynicism.
Seeking Peace
Notes and Conversations along the Way
Everyone’s seeking peace, but few seem to find it. Why? Arnold says most people are looking in the wrong direction.
For anyone sick of the spiritual soup filling so many bookstore shelves these days, Seeking Peace is sure to satisfy a deep hunger. Arnold offers no easy solutions, but also no unrealistic promises. He spells out what peace demands. “There is a peace greater than self-fulfillment,” he writes. But you won’t find it if you go looking for it. It is waiting for everyone ready to sacrifice the search for individual peace, everyone ready to “die to self.”
Praise for Seeking Peace
A reader
Seeking Peace is the most important book I have ever read besides the Bible. I have given copies to so many friends I can’t count the number I’ve purchased.
St. John’s Seminary
Seeking Peace is a gem. The candor, simplicity, and humanity of the whole text, and especially of the anecdotes, should recommend it to an exceedingly wide reading public.
Author, The Lessons of St. Francis
Peace builds on justice and the mercy of forgiveness. It also begins by being peace. These simple truths are manifested by this beautiful and compelling book…This book has something to say to those of all faiths, and further, to believer and non-believer alike.
Author, Virtues of an Authentic Life
This book is a thoughtful and attractive vision of a truly dedicated Christian life and a convincing testimony to a truly ecumenical spirit. Readers will be grateful for the depth and insights of this outstanding author.
Plowshares
Seeking Peace has a lucidity and power completely comprehensible to the Christian, or any person of good will. Peace is the central characteristic of the Gospel, and it is too often avoided or ignored.
This newest volume from Johann Christoph Arnold is an incisive gospel book on the critical reality of seeking peace. May it help Christians regain their lost heritage of justice and peace.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Seeking Peace inspires each of us to seek peace within our own hearts. To do this we need to humbly admit our brokenness…find wholeness, happiness, and harmony, which is after all the fulfillment of God’s plan for humanity.
The Islamic Cultural Center of New York
Arnold’s newest book is an excellent work and aids in promoting ideas I fully support. Seeking Peace is the very essence of what we are all about.”
Author, When the Well Runs Dry
Seeking Peace is solidly rooted in the Christian–and even Jewish and Buddhist–tradition. As Arnold reminds us, Jesus’ peace has nothing to do with passivity, nor is it for the spineless or self-absorbed. It demands deeds of love.
Albany Medical College Dept. of Psychiatry
Seeking Peace is a delight to read. It is measured and well balanced, and as in Arnold’s previous books, the rich human stories make for compelling reading… I will enthusiastically recommend this book to my family, friends, and colleagues. It is another support for me and my work.
A Testimony to Church Community
The Life and Writings of Eberhard Arnold
For a concise, readable introduction to a man who, in his search for Christ, spent his life turning conventional Christianity on its head, this is a good place to start. Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935) is relatively unknown today, yet his life’s work continues to bear fruit today as few lives have.
In 1920, venturing into an unknown future—and leaving wealth, security, and a public speaking career—he moved with his wife Emmy from Berlin to a tiny village, where they started a small community on the basis of early church practices as described in the Book of Acts.
A Testimony to Church Community contains a biographical sketch, selections from his most important works, and brief memoirs by friends and colleagues.
Praise for A Testimony to Church Community
Arnold’s writing is simple, luminous, direct…it has the authentic ring of a truly evangelical Christianity, and moves me deeply. It stirs to repentance and renewal.
Sojourners
The witness of Eberhard Arnold is a much needed corrective to a contemporary church that has lost the vital connection between belief and obedience.
Tübingen University
Arnold’s writings are a light of hope in an age that seems very dark. May they no longer remain hidden under a bushel, but shine out to be heeded by many.
New Oxford Review
The undeniable power of Eberhard Arnold’s writing owes to the fact that there is absolutely no difference between what he professed to believe and the way he lived.
Mennonite Historical Bulletin
A commendable introduction to Eberhard Arnold and his views of Scripture and history, which are seldom found otheriwse. A radical view of church renewal—but Christendom will be unfaithful to the gospel if it neglects to give this message serious consideration.
A Third Testament
A Modern Pilgrim Explores the Spiritual Wanderings of Augustine, Blake, Pascal, Tolstoy, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky
Based on an acclaimed TV series, this illuminating collection of portraits brings to life seven men in search of God–seven maverick thinkers whose spiritual wanderings make for unforgettable reading.
Saint Augustine, a headstrong young hedonist and speechwriter who turned his back on money and prestige in order to serve Christ…
Blaise Pascal, a brilliant scientist who warned people against thinking they could live without God…
William Blake, a magnificent artist and poet who pled passionately for the life of the spirit and foresaw the plight that materialism would usher in…
Soren Kierkegaard, a renegade philosopher who spent most of his life at odds with the church, and insisted that every person must find his own way to God…
Fyodor Dostoevsky, a debt-ridden writer and sometime prisoner who found, in the midst of squalor and political turmoil, the still small voice of God…
Leo Tolstoy, a grand old novelist who swung between idealism and depression, loneliness and fame–and a dual awareness of his sinfulness and God’s grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor whose writings–and agonized involvement in a plot to kill Hitler–cost him his life, but continue to inspire millions.
The Author
Often compared to G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, British writer and television commentator Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990) is best known for having introduced Mother Teresa to the English-speaking world through his classic biography Something Beautiful for God. A tart-tongued agnostic for most of his life, Muggeridge converted to Catholicism at 80. But he never stopped asking questions, which surely explains his enduring appeal.
Praise for A Third Testament
Muggeridge is a witty, sharp-eyed, skeptical observer…He can be amusing, trenchant, exasperating, unfair or absurd…What he can apparently never be is dull.
Boston College
After Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien, there is no one I would rather read than Muggeridge. A Johnny-come-lately convert to Christianity, he is also a great wordsmith.
Muggeridge was a most eloquent lay apostle of Christianity …and a journalist with few, if any, peers.
St. John’s Seminary
Both a wag and a shrewd observer of history and humbug, Muggeridge brings alive seven colossi of the Western intellectual tradition–and shows that the majority of them, ironically, are in fact quite counter-traditional.
First Things
A Third Testament reveals the gifts that made “St. Mug” such an effective apologist for the Christian way in his latter days. This scintillating little book continues to provoke, charm, and persuade.
New York University
In times like these, that try our souls, everybody needs a book like this: it is readable, stimulating, and substantive. It leaves you with the same feeling you have after a wonderful meal–though in this case, of course, the feeling lasts longer.
Author
God has always written his stories in the lives of those who love him, even those whose love is marked by struggle. In this marvelous short book we encounter seven of those incarnate stories, written by an eight.
Prison Fellowship
This classic occupies a spot on my shelf of favorite books.
Author
Muggeridge was a true prophet of the 20th century…a voice crying in the wilderness.
Thoughts on Children
It is sometimes said that each child is a thought in the mind of God. But even if we believe this, and approach the children entrusted to us with reverence, we may often feel helpless-whether in the face of a two-year-old’s tantrum or a teenager’s silence.
In this little book, two fathers (themselves a father and son) share their thoughts on the essence of bringing up children, as well as some helpful practical advice. Both lived in Germany more than a hundred years ago, in an era when parents and teachers tended to be overly strict; today most tend to be very lenient. All the same, there is plenty in what they say that is timeless.
The Authors
Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805-1880) had eight children, his son Christoph Friedrich Bumhardt (1842-1919) had eleven.
Thy Kingdom Come
A Blumhardt Reader
Christians the world over pray “Thy kingdom come” daily, but do they know what they are asking for? These short selections will spark a burning expectation for this kingdom to break into this world, here and now.
Meet Johann Christoph Blumhardt and Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, two German pastors who experienced this kingdom as a daily reality, through this compilation of excerpts from their sermons and discussions. This book is not intended to be an analysis of the Blumhardts’ thought, rather an opportunity for the Blumhardts to introduce their thoughts for themselves. “If their own words fail to inform, enlighten, or move the reader,” writes Eller, “there are no words of mine that could reverse that situation.”
From the book:
Jesus sees every person as abnormal but gives up no one as lost. If people were not as they are, they would have no need of Salvation. So, in the next place, Jesus allows all to come to him as they are: sinners and righteous, poor and rich, healthy and sick. Jesus gives himself to each person as he is; and people ought not play up their own piety and put down that of others.
Signs and wonders are all right as legitimate proof that one has to do with our dear God; but they cannot truly help us. What helps us is justice and truth; and a hundred thousand miracles are of little use in comparison to one word of truth, or one command of truth through which God makes something straight that was crooked.
The capacity to hope is extremely important both for the kingdom of God and for our own development, because something very real and powerful has been laid in our hearts with this hope. One might say that we have been given a power that corresponds to the power of God. A power goes forth from God to make something of us; and from us there goes forth a hope that we shall become something. And this power of God and our hope go together hand in hand, as in a marriage, walking together. We in hope and God in his power, we belong together so that we can follow a purpose, the good purpose of God.
Praise for Thy Kingdom Come
Atlantic School of Theology
Vernard Eller’s book manifests the intuition for what those unusual outsiders – the Blumhardts – really wanted. Skillful selection and imaginative arrangement of both excerpts and full texts bring a rich and complete overview of their creative insights which, as is more widely recognized now, shaped determinative theologians and ecclesial movements of our times. A real need in historical theology, in homiletics and in pastoral care is being met with this work. One cheers at its appearance.
The Violence of Love
From the stirring foreword by Henri Nouwen to the last page of Romero’s text, this powerful little volume of eloquent, simple meditations never wastes a word. Yet the real depth of Romero’s message lies not in his words themselves, poetic as they are. It lies in the life they give witness to: the hard life of a man who was martyred for his faith. Thus The Violence of Love gives more insight, perhaps, than any biographical account of his life.
During his three years as archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero became known as a fearless defender of the poor and suffering. His work on behalf of the oppressed earned him the admiration and love of the peasants he served, a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, honorary degrees from abroad – and finally, an assassin’s bullet on account of his outspokenness.
Romero was martyred for his insistence that following Christ cannot be relegated to the spiritual realm. He did not die in vain the people of Central America say his spirit lives on in them. As their struggle for justice and dignity intensifies, his words take on renewed urgency.
Praise for The Violence of Love
The excerpts gathered in this volume have a luminous power…It is the power of preaching fed by love for God, church, friend, and foe.
Passionate, unpretentious, and deeply moving, The Violence of Love is a manual for the Christian life.
It is not eloquence that suffuses [Romero's words] with passion. It is not high office that mandates attention to them. It is not even martyrdom that clothes them with significance. It is a rare combination of two factors, mercilessly penetrating layers of human complacency.
Walk in the Light
And Twenty-Three Tales
Long hailed as one of the western world’s greatest writers, Leo Tolstoy is best known for his epic War and Peace and his novel Anna Karenina. Yet the undiminished popularity of his shorter works – including the two dozen collected here – attests to his equal prowess as a master of the short story.
Uncluttered by the complexities of plot and character that daunt so many readers of the longer Russian masterpieces, Tolstoy’s tales illumine eternal truths with forceful brevity. While inspired by a sense of spiritual certainty, their narrative quality, subtle humor, and visionary power lift them far above the common run of “religious” literature. Moralists purport to tell us what our lives should mean, and how we should live them. Tolstoy, on the other hand, has an uncanny gift for simply conveying what it means to be truly alive.
From “Walk in the Light,” a parable-like piece that reflects Tolstoy’s fascination with the early Christians, to beloved tales such as “Ivan the Fool,” “A Prisoner in the Caucasus,” and “What Men Live By,” the stories in this volume have stood the test of time for over a century. Together they form a rare treasure-trove you will want to return to often.
Praise for Walk in the Light
Inspirational…Short stories and essays that explore the spiritual hunger of humankind…stand side by side with lovely little tales.
There is only one problem with this book: once you start reading, you can’t stop! It should be in every library. It would be an excellent gift for people who like to tell or read stories to others.
Glorious…Here are stories to illuminate the darkness and the searching soul.
War: A Call to Inner Life
Words of Hope for Uncertain Times
We live in a time of war. From Baghdad, New York, and London, to Buenos Aires, Tokyo, and Kabul, the fabric of human society is being torn apart by hatred and greed, and almost everyone is nervous about something – if not droughts or floods, then the stock market, or another terrorist attack.
That’s why we put together this ebook: as an antidote to fear, and to the isolation and mistrust it breeds. The passages in this e-book were selected by readers. (If they told us why they chose a particular quote, we included their comments.) Some passages pertain to the events of September 11, 2001; others to escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Still others address the broader themes of suffering, injustice, retribution, forgiveness, peace, and the eternal battle between evil and good.
Directly or indirectly, all of them sound a common note: our faith that though there will be war and rumors of war, God ultimately directs the course of history and holds us in his hands. And he is not a God of fear, but of hope.
When the Time Was Fulfilled
Christmas Meditations
The meditations in this collection are written by three seekers who struggled hard and long to find, in the words of Søren Kierkegaard, “the contemporary Christ.” They witness to the fact that the birth of Jesus is more than history – it is a reality – but only for those who feel their need and are personally ready to come to the manger.
A revised and expanded edition of an old favourite, the 40 short, pithy readings in this book will not leave you sitting comfortably this Christmas.
This book is available in India here.
From the book
Christmas did not come after a great horde of people had completed something good, or because of the successful result of any human effort. No, it came as a miracle, as the child that comes when his time is fulfilled, as a gift of the Father which he lays into those arms that are stretched out in longing. This is how the first Christmas came; in this way it always comes anew, both to us as individuals and to the whole world.
Eberhard Arnold
How many of us, in our good-hearted way, have ridden past the stable on the high horse of our opinions and convictions, leaving the Child behind, not realizing he was there? How many of us have stood up for what we believed, even in defiance, but were not awake to the fact that we were riding past a miracle – the miracle of life and love?
Alfred Delp
The star of hope has to appear again, but it will come only when our hearts seek it, when there is a passion for it – a sighing, striving, and aching for the great mercy to come. Yes, the star will return, and then it will shine not just for a few, but it will quickly spread its brilliance over the whole world.
Christoph Blumhardt
Why We Live in Community
Everyone’s talking about “community” these days, but in this classic manifesto, Arnold argues that it can be lived. Discussing the pillars of real community–self-sacrificial love, honest relationships, and the joy and unity that arises from both–he does not prescribe step-by-step solutions or offer easy “answers.” But he does describe the great “adventure of faith” shared by those who are willing to trade isolation for companionship, and he will further inspire those who are already traveling the road of community.
Wisdom of the Sadhu
Teachings of Sundar Singh
0 comments:
Post a Comment