NOT BREAKING NEWS! Overdosed on “Breaking News,” which in the case of religion usually means news of clerical sex scandals, parochial embezzlements, or stories of some Evangelicals acting unevangelically, Sightings sometimes likes to train its sights on religious stories that do not “break,” but focus on what serves the citizenry in largely unobserved ways. This week we observe a long-longtime favorite of ours, the Bruderhof. Recently we sighted the “Benedict Option,” which sets out to serve the faithful by retreating from the world. The Bruderhof, by contrast, would serve the faithful and others by gathering (and publishing) in order to advance into the world in distinctive ways.
The Bruderhof is probably not a household word, so let it explain itself: “an international community of people seeking to follow Jesus together… committed to a way of radical discipleship in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount” and in the tradition of the first Christian community (Acts 1 and 2). There are tiny settlements in the U.S. and in four other countries. Census-takers, pollsters, pundits, and statisticians would not notice them, but Sightings readers can find out more via their website (see Resources below). They publish our favorite religious quarterly, Plough Quarterly, whose Winter issue is what prompts this notice.
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