Friday, May 20, 2011

Peace Quote of the Day - excerpts from the Bruderhof Covenant

“As light cannot share space with darkness, so good and evil cannot coexist, and we must, therefore, decide which side we will take.”

Bruderhof Communities Covenant (excerpts):
We declare war against
all irreverence toward the childlike spirit of Jesus.
We declare war against
all emotional or physical cruelty toward children.
We declare war against
the search for power over the souls of others.
We declare war against
all human greatness and all forms of vanity.
We declare war against
all false pride, including collective pride.
We declare war against
the spirit of unforgiveness, envy, and hatred.
We declare war against
all cruelty to anyone, even if he or she has sinned.
 in Johann Christoph Arnold, Seeking Peace: Notes and Conversations Along the Way

One of the things I like about Arnold's emphasis (which seems to be the emphasis of the Bruderhof Community), is that the focus on peace is comprehensive - they are not narrow, and are not superficial. They try to identify everything in life that is the absence of or contrary to peace (comprehensively defined), and then to work against all of that.

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