Overview

Here for the first time in print is the story of a small group who dared to confront Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich with the love of Jesus Christ. Avoiding covert resistance on the one hand and complicity and compromise on the other, the Rhon Bruderhof, under the courageous leadership of Eberhard Arnold, boldly witnessed to the politics of the Kingdom of God in Nazi Germany. Although ""less than a gnat to an elephant,"" in Arnold's words, they believed that as God's ambassadors love could overcome hatred-even of Adolf Hitler himself. This is an amazing account of a community who stayed true to the nonviolent way of the Cross, and how, despite relentless Nazi opposition, God protected and victoriously led them along the way.

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9781608998791

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Reviews

This meticulously documented story of faith serves as a handbook of heroism for believers today. God knows, we too are besieged by forces of untruth and duplicity. May we, like the Bruderhof, be found faithful. -- Daniel Berrigan Scripture tells us that we are to be a counter-cultural community, living out the radical teachings of Christ. This book sets a pattern for those who want to live faithfully in opposition to the dictatorial consumeristic culture of our age. --Tony Campolo, Eastern University, St. Davids, PA In An Embassy Besieged, a small community of Christians courageously and graciously refuses to compromise their faith in the face of the worst human evil. Their witness has much to teach us today in a world so riddled with prejudice, so tired of militarism, so starved for grace, and so desperate for imagination. -- Shane Claiborne, author, activist Seeking to embody the Sermon on the Mount and articulating a clear Anabaptist theology of church and state, the early Bruderhof movement gives a courageous testimony to nonviolence in a harsh totalitarian state. Emmy Barth tells a compelling and well-crafted story that is hard to put down. -- Donald B. Kraybill, author, The Upside Down Kingdom This book reads like a modern Book of Acts. It is not only a fascinating and inspiring chronicle, but one of the best inside views of the rise of the Third Reich. Barth provides an invaluable account of how a community of Christians negotiated the moral and spiritual challenges of that terrible time. --Robert Ellsberg, author, Modern Spiritual Classics Emmy Barth has expertly and lovingly woven together a seamless narrative that vividly chronicles the Bruderhof community's sacrifice, heroism, faith, determination and courage. An Embassy Besieged is an inspiration to today's readers. -- Ari L. Goldman, author, The Search for God at Harvard This moving story raises profound questions: Can we deny God's presence in any enemy? What does it mean to carry out Jesus' command to love the enemy in the context of a nation carrying out demonic policies? And how should the church act today in a national security state whose weapons and policies threaten the world? Barth's depiction of the Bruderhof's life and trials in Nazi Germany offers inspiration and hope for our own, equally profound questions of Christian discipleship. -- Jim Douglass, author, JFK and the Unspeakable Arnold once said: To be an ambassador for God's kingdom is something tremendous. When we take this service upon us, we enter into mortal danger. In 1937 the Gestapo confiscated the Bruderhof's farm and dissolved their community. The few remaining members were expelled under guard, apart from three men detained in prison for alleged fraud. Their escape to freedom makes a fitting close to this lively, detailed account of one community's courageous witness to the gospel. --John Conway, author, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches

Author Information

Emmy Barth is senior archivist for and member of Church Communities International (formerly known as the Bruderhof Communities). Her earlier book No Lasting Home (2009) tells the story of the Bruderhof's first year in Paraguay when they were forced to leave Europe during World War II.

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