2016/06/13

Bruderhof Communities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bruderhof Communities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bruderhof Communities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bruderhof Communities (/ˈbruːdərˌhɔːf/; German: place of brothers) areChristian religious communities with branches in New York, Florida, West Virginia, andPennsylvania in the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, Paraguay, and Australia. They have previously been called The Society of Brothers and were loosely affiliated withthe Hutterian Brethren. The group is also known as Church Communities International.

History

The Bruderhof was founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold, a philosophy student and intellectual inspired by the German Youth Movement in post-World War I.[1] In 1920 he rented a house in Sannerz, Germany, and founded a religious community.
When the group outgrew the house at Sannerz, they moved to the nearby Rhön Mountains. While there, Arnold discovered that the Hutterites (an Anabaptist movement he had studied with great interest) were still in existence in North America. In 1930 he traveled to meet the Hutterites and was ordained as a Hutterian minister.
With the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, the Rhön community moved its draft-age men and children to Liechtenstein around 1934 because of their conscientious refusal to serve in the armed forces and to accept Nazi teachers. This community became known as the Alm Bruderhof. Continuing pressure from the Nazi government caused others to move to England and found the Cotswold Bruderhof in 1936. On April 14, 1937, secret police surrounded the Rhön Bruderhof, confiscated the property, and gave the remaining community members forty-eight hours to flee the country. By 1938, all the Bruderhof members had reassembled in England.
While in England, the population grew to over 350 members, largely through the addition of young English members seeking an alternative to war. Even before the outbreak of World War II, the community’s German members and its pacifist stance attracted deep suspicion locally resulting in economic boycotts. When confronted with the option of either having all German members interned, or leaving England as a group, the Bruderhof chose the latter, and began to look for refuge abroad. Soon after England entered the war, the Bruderhof emigrated to Paraguay—the only country that would accept a pacifist community of mixed nationalities. This move was assisted and facilitated by the Mennonite Central Committee.[2]
During the first years in Paraguay, starting in the hostile Chaco region, then moving to the eastern part of the country, Bruderhof members founded three settlements as well as a hospital for community members and local Paraguayans. The only clinic in the area, it served tens of thousands for the next two decades. By the early 1960s, the community in Paraguay had grown significantly.
In 1954, the Bruderhof started a settlement known as the Woodcrest Bruderhof in the United States near Rifton, New York, in response to a dramatic increase in the number of American guests. Hundreds of new members joined, many from other communal groups across the country. New communities were also founded in Pennsylvania(1957) and Connecticut (1958). By 1962, all remaining members had relocated from Paraguay to the northeastern United States, or to England, in part as a result of a "crisis of leadership" whereby descendants of the group's founder took decisive control of the group and thereby created a rift among members. Some members were not satisfied with the leadership and either voluntarily left the community or were abandoned in Paraguay with very few resources. While later Bruderhof leadership apologized for these transgressions, emotional wounds remained.[2]
The Forest River colony of Schmiedeleut Hutterites in North Dakota invited Bruderhof members to join them, and about 36 members moved to North Dakota. In 1955, the Schmiedeleut group excluded the Bruderhof and placed the Forest River colony under probation. In 1973, the Bruderhof leadership apologized for the problems among the Forest River colony and in 1974 was reunited with all branches of the Hutterian Church. However, in 1990 the more conservative Dariusleut and Lehrerleut Hutterites excommunicated the Bruderhof, refusing to recognize them as Hutterites because of practices that did not conform to standard Hutterite order including sending children to public schools, the use of musical instruments, and participation in a protest march. In 1990 the Spring Valley Bruderhof was founded adjacent to the New Meadow Run Bruderhof in Farmington, Pennsylvania.
In 2002 the Bruderhof purchased the house in Sannerz, Sinntal municipality in Hesse, Germany where the movement started. It is one of two Bruderhof houses in Germany. In 2003 the Bruderhof opened a new community in Inverell, New South Wales, Australia, where they operate the sign-writing business Danthonia Designs.[3]

Beliefs

The Bruderhof's foundation is faith in Jesus, the Christ and son of God.[4] His teachings are central to Bruderhof life – particularly the command "Love your neighbor as yourself", the Sermon on the Mount, and teachings concerning nonviolence, faithfulness in marriage, and compassion for the poor. Bruderhof members share the beliefs as recorded in the Apostles' Creed and the Didache.
The Bruderhof tries to follow the practices of the first church in Jerusalem as related in the Acts of the Apostles, for example Acts 4:32–37: where the church members were of "one heart and mind, and shared all things in common". Bruderhof members do not hold private property, but rather share everything. No Bruderhof member receives a salary or has a bank account. Income from all businesses is pooled and used for the care of all members and for various communal outreach efforts.
The Bruderhof is a peace church whose members do not serve in the armed forces of any country. They claim to model a way of life that removes the social and economic divisions that bring about war. The goal of the Bruderhof is to create a new society where self-interest is yielded for the sake of the common good.
The Bruderhof movement draws inspiration and guidance from a number of historical streams including the early Christians, the Anabaptists and the German Youth Movement.[?]

Present day

Most contemporary communities have a nursery, kindergarten, school, communal kitchen, laundry, various workshops, and offices. Bruderhof life is built around the family, though there are also many single members. Children are an important part of each community and participate in most communal gatherings. Disabled and elderly members are loved and cared for within the community and participate in daily life and work as much as they are able.
Like the Hutterites, the Bruderhof members do not hold private property individually, but rather share everything in common. No Bruderhof member receives a salary or has a bank account. Income from all businesses is pooled and used for the care for all members, and for various communal outreach efforts.
Children of Bruderhof families do not automatically become members, but are encouraged to leave the community and live elsewhere before deciding on their own whether or not to join the community.[5] Numerous guests visit the Bruderhof and all communities are open to guests.[6]
They are estimated to have around 2,600 members world wide.

Businesses

Community Playthings, a line of classroom furniture and toys, was developed during the 1950s and soon became the Bruderhof’s main source of income.[7] It still provides the community with a livelihood today. Other Bruderhof businesses include Rifton Equipment, which offers mobility and rehabilitation equipment for disabled adults and children,[8] and Clean Sheen Services, which provides cleaning and property management services.
The Bruderhof's Plough Publishing House publishes books and a quarterly magazine "Plough Quarterly". Plough publishes spiritual classics, inspirational books, and children’s books, some of which are available as free downloads.[9]

Involvement in the wider community

Through the Bruderhof Foundation, a charity created to support outreach and service efforts, and through individual members, the Bruderhof remains actively involved in the neighborhoods that surround its communities,[8] and in the world at large. Bruderhof members serve on school boards, volunteer at prisons and hospitals, and work with local social service agencies to provide food and shelter for those in need of help. The Bruderhof community campaigns actively on social issues, such as the campaign in opposition to the death sentence for the activist Mumia Abu-Jamal who was convicted of murdering a Philadelphia police officer.[10]

Controversy and criticism

Former members have documented their experiences and criticisms in KIT - the Keep In Touch Newsletter (published 1989–current date). Find KIT in "Critics" section, below. Sociologist Julius Rubin, who interviewed former members for his book The Other Side of Joy: Religious Melancholy among the Bruderhof, was not allowed to visit the Bruderhof before publishing the book.[11] John A. Hostetler, the American author and anthropologist at Temple University in Philadelphia whose work focused onAnabaptist groups, was close to the Bruderhofs and wrote articles for the group's magazine, The Plough, but later said he encountered what he called a "militaristic wall of hostility" from the Bruderhof's leadership after he wrote an article that criticised them.[11]

References

  1. Mike Tyldesley (2003). No Heavenly Delusion?: A Comparative Study of Three Communal Movements. Liverpool University Press. doi:10.5949/UPO9781846313677. ISBN 978-0-85323-608-5.
  2. Christensen & Levinson, Karen & David (2003). Encyclopedia of community: from the village to the virtual world, Volume 3. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications. p. 105.ISBN 0-7619-2598-8.
  3. Richard Torbay. "Hansard Transcript: Bruderhof Community, Inverell". Parliament of New South Wales.
  4. Foundations of our Faith & Calling; The Bruderhof; The Plough Publishing House, Rifton, New York 2012
  5. Richard Weizel (1996-12-08). "Of Family, Spirituality and Power". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  6. Christopher Zimmerman (1996-12-15). "The Bruderhof, Another View". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  7. "Excerpt from A Future Perfect: The Essentials of Globalization, By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  8. Steve Levin (2000-07-21). "Bruderhof youth festival readied". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  9. "Plough.com". Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  10. Andres Tapia and Rudy Carrasco (2007-06-21). "A Christian Community Makes Waves, Not War". Christianity Today. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  11. Gerald Renner (1995-11-12). "Bruderhof Leader Defends Close-knit Community Against Outside Critics". Hartford Courant. Retrieved 2013-09-23.

Bibliography

  • Foundations of our Faith & Calling, The Bruderhof, 2012 Plough Publishing House,ISBN 978-0874868883
  • Against The Wind, Markus Baum, 1998 Plough Publishing House, ISBN 978-0874869538
  • A Joyful Pilgrimage: My Life in Community, Emmy Arnold, 2007 Plough Publishing House, ISBN 978-0874869569
  • No Lasting Home: A Year in the Paraguayan Wilderness, Emmy Barth, 2009 Plough Publishing House, ISBN 978-0874869453
  • An Embassy Besieged:The Story of a Christian Community in Nazi Germany, Emmy Barth, 2010 Cascade Books, ISBN 978-1608998791
  • Cast Out In The World by Miriam Arnold Holmes, ISBN 978-1882260126
  • Community in Paraguay: A Visit to the Bruderhof, Bob and Shirley Wagoner, ISBN 978-0874860337
  • Encyclopedia of American Religions (5th edition), J. Gordon Melton, editor, ISBN 978-0787663841
  • Free from Bondage by Nadine Moonje Pleil, ISBN 978-1882260072
  • Homage to a Broken Man:The Life of J. Heinrich Arnold, by Peter Mommsen, 2007 Plough Publishing House, ISBN 978-0874869316
  • The Other Side of Joy: Religious Melancholy Among The Bruderhof, by Julius H. Rubin, ISBN 978-0195119435
  • The Joyful Community: An account of the Bruderhof, a communal movement now in its third generation by Benjamin David Zablocki, ISBN 978-0226977492
  • Torches Extinguished: Memories of a Communal Bruderhof Childhood in Paraguay, Europe and the U. S. by Elizabeth Bohlken-Zumpe, ISBN 978-1882260010
  • Seeking for the Kingdom of God: Origins of the Bruderhof Communities, Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, ISBN 978-0874861334
  • Through Streets Broad And Narrow by Belinda Manley, ISBN 978-1882260089
  • Church community is a gift of the Holy Spirit: The spirituality of the Bruderhof community, Ian M. Randall, Regents Park College, Oxford, ISBN 978-1907600227

External links

Critics

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Ecovillage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ecovillage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Ecovillage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sieben Linden Ecovillage

An eco-house at Findhorn Ecovillage with a turf roof andsolar panels
Tallebudgera Mountain and a vegetable garden at the Currumbin Ecovillage in Queensland, 2015
Ecovillages are intentional communities whose goal is to become more socially, economically and ecologicallysustainable. Most range from a population of 50 to 150 individuals, although some are smaller, and larger ecovillages of up to 2,000 individuals exist as networks of smaller subcommunities. Certain ecovillages have grown by the addition of individuals, families, or other small groups who are not necessarily members settling on the periphery of the ecovillage and effectively participating in the ecovillage community.
Ecovillagers are united by shared ecological, social-economic and cultural-spiritual values.[1] Concretely, ecovillagers seek alternatives to ecologically destructive electrical, water, transportation, and waste-treatment systems, as well as the larger social systems that mirror and support them. Many see the breakdown of traditional forms of community, wasteful consumeristlifestyles, the destruction of natural habitat, urban sprawl, factory farming, and over-reliance on fossil fuels as trends that must be changed to avert ecological disaster and create richer and more fulfilling ways of life.
Ecovillages offer small-scale communities with minimal ecological impact or regenerative impacts as an alternative. However, such communities often cooperate with peer villages in networks of their own (see Global Ecovillage Network for an example). This model of collective action is similar to that of Ten Thousand Villages, which supports the fair trade of goods worldwide.

Definition

In 1991, Robert Gilman set out a definition of an ecovillage that became standard. Gilman defined an ecovillage as a:
"human-scale full-featured settlement in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future."[2]
In recent years, Gilman has stated that he would also add the criterion that an ecovillage must have multiple centres of initiative.[3]
Kosha Joubert, President of the Global Ecovillage Network, more recently has defined an Ecovillage as an intentional or traditional community consciously designed by its inhabitants, in which people consciously value what they have and integrate this with innovative technologies to make their lives more sustainable, and the whole process is owned by the people living there. The aim is to regenerate social and natural environments. In this view, achieving sustainability is not enough; it is vital also to regenerate the social and environmental fabric of life, and across all four dimensions of sustainability: social, environmental, economic and cultural.[4]
Eco-villages have developed in recent years as technology has improved so they have more sophisticated structures as noted by Baydoun, M. 2013.

History

The modern-day desire for community was most notably characterized by the communal movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which became more focused and organized in the cohousing and related alternative-community movements of the mid-1980s. Then, in 1991, Robert Gilman and Diane Gilman co-authored a germinal study called "Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities" for Gaia Trust, in which the ecological and communitarian themes were brought together.
The ecovillage movement began to coalesce at the annual autumn conference of Findhorn, in Scotland, in 1995. The conference was called: “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities”, and conference organizers turned away hundreds of applicants. According to Ross Jackson, "somehow they had struck a chord that resonated far and wide. The word 'ecovillage'... thus became part of the language of the Cultural Creatives."[5] After that conference, many intentional communities, including Findhorn, began calling themselves “ecovillages”, giving birth to a new movement. The Global Ecovillage Network, formed by a group of about 25 people from various countries who had attended the Findhorn conference, crystallized the event by linking hundreds of small projects from around the world, who had with similar goals but had formerly operated without knowledge of each other. Gaia Trust, Denmark, agreed to fund the network for its first five years.[5] Today, there are self-identified ecovillages in over 70 countries on six continents.[6]
Since the 1995 conference a number of the early members of the Global Ecovillage Network have tried other approaches to eco-village building in an attempt to build settlements that would be attractive to mainstream culture in order to make sustainable development more generally accepted. One of these with some degree of success is Living Villages and The Wintles where eco-houses are arranged so that social connectivity is maximised and residents have shared food growing areas, woodland and animal husbandry for greater sustainability.
The principles on which ecovillages rely can be applied to urban and rural settings, as well as to developing and developed countries. Advocates seek a sustainable lifestyle (for example, of voluntary simplicity) for inhabitants with a minimum of trade outside the local area, or ecoregion. Many advocates also seek independence from existing infrastructures, although others, particularly in more urban settings, pursue more integration with existing infrastructure. Rural ecovillages are usually based on organic farming, permaculture and other approaches which promote ecosystem function andbiodiversity.[7] Ecovillages, whether urban or rural, tend to integrate community and ecological values within a principle-based approach to sustainability, such as permaculture design.[8]
Johnathon Dawson, former president of the Global Ecovillage Network, describes five ecovillage principles in his 2006 book Ecovillages: New Frontiers for Sustainability:
  1. They are not government-sponsored projects, but grassroots initiatives.
  2. Their residents value and practice community living.
  3. Their residents are not overly dependent on government, corporate or other centralized sources for water, food, shelter, power and other basic necessities. Rather, they attempt to provide these resources themselves.
  4. Their residents have a strong sense of shared values, often characterized in spiritual terms.
  5. They often serve as research and demonstration sites, offering educational experiences for others.[6]
The imperative for alternatives to radically inefficient energy-use patterns, in particular automobile-enabled suburban sprawl, was brought into focus by the energy crises of the 1970s. The term “eco-village” was introduced by Georgia Institute of Technology Professor George Ramsey in a 1978 address, “Passive Energy Applications for the Built Environment”, to the First World Energy Conference of the Association of Energy Engineers,[9] to describe small-scale, car-free, close-in developments, including suburban infill, arguing that “the great energy waste in the United States is not in its technology; it is in its lifestyle and concept of living.”[10] Ramsey’s article includes a sketch for a “self-sufficient pedestrian solar village” by one of his students that looks very similar to eco-villages today.

Governance

Effective government is important to Eco-villages. It provides education charity for promotion in sustainable lifestyle (Cunningham and Wearing,2013). While the first generation of ecovillagers tended to adopt consensus decision-making as a governance method, some difficulties with consensus as an everyday decision-making method emerged: it can be extremely time-intensive, and decisions too often could be blocked by a few intransigent members.[11] More recently many ecovillages have moved toward sociocracy and related alternative decision-making methods.[12]
Also,Eco-village looking for alternative government which emphasis on deeper connections with ecology rather than the economic in nature.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related toEcovillage.

References

  1. Van Schyndel Kasper, D. (2008)."Redefining Community in the Ecovillage."Human Ecology Review 15:12-24. Retrieved on: 2009-08-27.
  2. Gilman, Robert (Summer, 1991). "The Eco-village Challenge". In Context. Retrieved on: 2008-04-09.
  3. Robert Gilman on "Multiple Centers of Initiative." Ecovillages Newsletter. Retrieved on: 2011-11-09.
  4. [1] Ecovillage Conference 2012. Retrieved on 2012-12-05.
  5. Jackson, Ross (Summer, 2004). "The Ecovillage Movement."Permaculture Magazine 40. Retrieved on: 2011-08-11.
  6. Taggart, Jonathan (Nov-Dec, 2009).Inside an ecovillage. bNet - CBS Interactive Business Network. Retrieved on: 2011-08-11.
  7. https://socialsciences.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D09TheSigOfTheGEM.htmlTed Trainer on ecovillages.
  8. Holmgren, David. "The Essence of Permaculture."Retrieved on: 2013-07-31
  9. George Ramsey, “Passive Energy Applications for the Built Environment”, First World Energy Conference, Association of Energy Engineers, published in Energy Engineering Technology: Proceedings of the First World Energy Engineering Congress, October 31-November 2, 1978 in Atlanta, Ga. (Fairmont Press, 1979), pp. 220-242. For the term "eco-village" itself, see pp. 229 and 239.http://www.villagehabitat.com/resources/papers/passive_energy.pdf
  10. “Passive Energy Applications for the Built Environment”, p. 230
  11. Diana Leafe Christian, “Busting-the-myth-that-consensus-with-unanimity-is-good-for-communities”,http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-20/busting-the-myth-that-consensus-with-unanimity-is-good-for-communities-part-ii)
  12. Buck, John; Villines, Sharon (2007). We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy (First edition, second printing with corrections ed.). Washington DC: Sociocracy.info Press. pp. 31, 39. ISBN 978-0-9792827-0-6(pbk)
Kellogg, W. Keating, W. (2011), “Cleveland’s Ecovillage: green and affordable housing through a network alliance”, Housing Policy Debate, 21 (1), pp. 69–91
Cunningham, Paul A. and Wearing, Stephen L.(2013).The Politics of Consensus: An Exploration of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Ireland.[electronic version].Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.5(2) pp. 1–28

Further reading

Books
  • Christian, D. 2003. Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities New Society Publishers. ISBN 0-86571-471-1
  • Dawson, Jonathan (2006) Ecovillages: Angelica Buenaventura for Sustainability.Green Books. ISBN 1-903998-77-8
  • Hill, R. and Dunbar, R. 2002. "Social Network Size in Humans." Human Nature, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 53–72.
  • Jackson, H. and Svensson, K. 2002. Ecovillage Living: Restoring the Earth and Her People. Green Books. ISBN 1-903998-16-6
  • Walker, Liz. 2005 EcoVillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture. New Society Publishers ISBN 0-86571-524-6
  • Sunarti, Euis (eds.) 2009. Model of Ecovillage Development: Development of Rural Areas in Order To Improve Quality of Life for Rural Residents, Indonesia. ISBN 978-979-19278-5-7
Articles

External links

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