Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8478 Plough Quarterly • Spring 2016 studies? I have a holy terror of anything abstract, as much as I also unfortunately have a weakness for it, as you well know. Well, up to now my whole theory has been a complete washout. And what besides? I truly don’t know. But please don’t think that I am about to raise my voice in lamentation and pity myself a little. It is only a somewhat unpleasant fact.  Anni Several months later, Anni visited the Bruderhof again. As she later described: I had no understanding of the Christian basis of the community. I was a Protestant by birth, but inwardly the Christian faith had no meaning for me. On the contrary, because I felt that there was so much hypocrisy, I had turned against it. But during my visit, there was a meeting that impressed me. I do not know what the meeting was about, but I can only say that something of the Holy Spirit was moving there. It gripped me, and I felt: I have to come back here! I have to stay here! Diary, June 26, 1931 When will I go to Emi-Margret’s community to stay? Nothing else seems important to me anymore. But I know that it will then be a matter of either-or. Since spring, I haven’t moved one step forward. Can I go this way? I believe that I have in some way felt the Spirit, and yet I haven’t found the courage to come to a decision. I feel embarrassed when people speak about the coming of and hope for God’s kingdom. I am ashamed of reading the Bible. I don’t understand any of it – I mean, I am not able to believe in it. Anni arrived for an extended visit to the com- munity in early January 1932. A month later, she wrote to her family. February 6, 1932 My dear Mama, Hilde, and Reinhold, It is a community of people from the most varied classes and professions, who have come out of groups with the most diverse world outlooks. They wish to live and work – and are even ready to die – for one common goal. The one and only thing to which they feel themselves bound is contained in the words of the Bible, especially the New Testament. They feel deeply gripped by and committed to what comes to us through the Bible from God, the coming of his kingdom, the sending out of his Holy Spirit, the life of Jesus, and what he requires of humankind. This compelled them to such a degree that they had to break off their former lives in order to place their entire lives and whole strength from then on into the service of discipleship to Christ. This will be especially difficult to under- stand in our time in which there are so few people willing to live and die in a manner consistent with their convictions. The commu- nity members believe in God and his Trinity as an absolute reality. He is the first and the last Truth. He is reality; there is none greater. To them, he is neither a beautiful ideal arising from the affectations of the emotional life nor an indeterminate, problematic entity. God is love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, and justice. God loves all people as his children, and no one is greater than another. That is why all people should love each other as brothers and sisters. Anni in the simple garb of the German Youth Movement