Latest / Thinking Class / #147 - Bernard Hibbs - No Wealth, No Career & No Phone: Inside The Radical Christian Community Hiding In The English Countryside

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#147 - Bernard Hibbs - No Wealth, No Career & No Phone: Inside The Radical Christian Community Hiding In The English Countryside · Thinking Class

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm John Gillam and today I'm speaking to Bernard Hibbs.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Bernard is a member of the Buddha Hoof, an intentional Christian community in East Sussex, England, where 300 people live without money and without mortgages, and indeed without personal possessions.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is held in common.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, Bernard and I think out loud about how 300 people actually live without money and why nobody worries about losing their job, the extraordinary story of the community's founding in 1920s Germany, and its expulsion from the country at gunpoint by the SS, how the Bruderhof raises children in a world without consumer pressure, how every single child has two parents at home, what it means to make lifetime vows and a disposable culture frightened of commitment, and whether ordinary families living in the secular world can learn anything from people who gave up everything and say they are happier for it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is brought to you by Aquinas Tuition, bespoke academic tutoring informed by classical liberal arts principles.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whether your child needs support with TTSEs, A levels, or university entrants, Aquinas pairs every student with a tutor who cares about formation, not just grades, visit AquinasTuition.co.uk.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am also the founder of the Albion Institute, which is an institution for the formation of nationally minded leaders and an informed public through the preservation, transmission, and renewal of the intellectual and cultural inheritance of the English speaking pupils.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Lord Nigel Bigger has joined Albion as advisory board chair.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to learn more or register your interest, visit Albion Institute.org.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't already, go and watch The Call of England, my six-part documentary series following H.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: V.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Morton's 1927 journey through England.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The link is in the description.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show, classmates.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And now, Bernard Hibbs.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: There are 300 people living in a village in Sussex in England who do not earn money.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: They don't pay mortgages, they don't receive bills, they don't own anything personally.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is held in common, and if they need something new, they ask and they receive it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: They've lived this way for over 100 years, and it's not just in Sussex, there are places all over the world, and they are called the Bruderhof.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: They say they're happy, and I want to find out whether all of this is true and whether there's anything that most of us living in the secular world can learn from them.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Today I welcome Bernard Hibbs, a member of the Bruderhof.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bernard, welcome to Thinking Class.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining me.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to be on it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lovely introduction you gave right there.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's covered most of the issues already.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not going to wrap things up right now, let you off too easily.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure people want to hear much more than my canned intro.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Bernard, most people watching this will never have heard of the Boudoe.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there'll be people in Sussex who probably don't even know you exist, even if you're around the corner.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can you describe in plain terms what it is and what the visitor would see if they drove through the gates of your community this afternoon?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's good.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with the practicalities.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if you uh if you drive down, we're on a beautiful um Sussex, East Sussex estate here.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's about 200 acres, so it's quite a big, big property um out in the countryside.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh near uh, it's just up from Hastings, so near a near a um in a village called Robertsbridge.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if you came down, you would see 300 people living in what looks like a little village.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have a school on site, we have a workshop, um, we have accommodation, and uh we're just a group of people who are trying to live out what we see as the Sermon on the Mount, live out the the will of Christ um here in sort of our modern modern age.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you would see people eating meals together, working together, um, looking after each other, caring for older people, educating our children, and uh it all looks quite normal apart from the fact that no one's being paid for the work that they do.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: No one earns anything, no one has any pocket money.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we live a a life of complete complete sharing.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so far it works reasonably well.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that will be one of the biggest questions people have.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: For most people who are beholden to the monthly salary, that we call them the P A Y E pigs, uh, who have uh direct debit, they're standing orders, they're w rushing around to make ends meet.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: They'll have many questions about how the economics actually works.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So how does it work?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Who decides, who pays, where does all the money come from?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's dive in because that's actually it's actually the most important bit.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's not only the most distinctive bit, but it is the most important part, I would say, of our community is the complete um community of goods, as we call it, uh sharing everything.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and maybe we can dig into some of those issues in in a bit.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But in simple terms, we're a we're a charity in the UK.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a board, um, we have accountants, but we have people who are assigned who are responsible for finances within the community.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, lots of things are dealt with as like on sort of a department level.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if I need uh a new shirt, for instance, I wouldn't buy one.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I would just write to like the clothing department and I would just say, hey, look, this is my size.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any shirts on the on the rack?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: They might have some, they might buy me one.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh it's actually really nice.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I know some people love shopping, I hate shopping.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but sometimes like the uh, you know, society gives us so much choice these days, it can become really fatiguing.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's something nice just to be able to say, look, hey, can I have a pair of trousers, can I have a shirt, can have a new pair of shoes, and not be overly concerned about what brand it is, what variety.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I um and uh I I really like I really like that aspect of it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there's not just one person who's making decisions about finances, there's there's a bunch of different people.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but ultimately there is somebody who decides, you know, what the community should be spending money on or not.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like that's micromanaged.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, when I'm traveling, I have a company credit card essentially, I account for the expenses I make.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not asking for approval on, you know, whether I get the the Sainsbury's uh meal deal or can I you know afford the Marks and Spencer's one?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um the, you know, that's so that sort of decision level is not not happening at all.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, certainly on bigger purchases, there would be a team of people and and and uh all decision making is and maybe we'll get on to other decision making as well, um, is uh the general principle is that we should work together.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's much more important that I work together with a group of people to make a good decision rather than I come up with a brilliant idea and and implement that by myself.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we're very much uh very much about working together and in that way generally pretty you know, pretty good decisions are made.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Occasionally we make some really bad ones, but uh you can normally correct those.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Don't we all uh you you've you've referenced a few times the uh the fact that all of your economic activity and the outputs or shall I say the um the fruits of your economic activity uh come from on site.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what what what are the the specific economic engines?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do you what do you make?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we make um we make children's toys and furniture for the nursery market.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have a brand called Community Playthings.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you go into most decent nurseries, schools across the UK um and in Europe, um you will see our our furniture.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yes, we make wooden handmade furniture.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so we have two factories in the UK because we have two communities in the UK.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we make one product line together, and that generates all of the income we need to actually run the community.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else we do um just costs money.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're probably one of the few corporations let's refer to you as just because you're a corporate body of people in this respect, rather than um thinking about multinationals who still or or that still places an emphasis on artisanal um uh qualities and uh and capabilities.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh how would you how how how is that transmitted through time?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something that since the beginning of Bruderhoff uh there has been a focus on making things with your hands and it's something that is is passed through the community rather than going out on external courses to learn how to do joinery or carpentry or what have you?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm we're not at all against that, and and certainly people do go off and they you know study machining, machine building, study woodwork, uh things like that, furniture making.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it we do have a long tradition in making making furniture for the early years market.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've been doing it since uh since the 1950s.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'd say that the importance of working with our hands is is uh it's very much there.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't want to become sort of just a managerial class um and live off other people's other people's work.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Producing actual real goods yourself is is important, it's fun, it's rewarding.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and for our customers, it gives us total control over what they receive.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing about the businesses that we've run um and do run now across all of our communities is we tend to make very high quality um things.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um we it is a big factory, like we we do make commercial equipment.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite, you know, people imagine sort of monks chiseling away on workbenches.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite like that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have some big machines and things like that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we do make the best quality furniture that you can buy um in the early years sector.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it lasts for almost forever.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we want that to be that.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: We want you know the ethos um of our community to come through in the work we do.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't we wouldn't want to be sort of running a, I don't know, a dodgy secondhand you know, car selling outfit or something like that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not meaning to offend anyone out there who's watching this and sells dodgy secondhand cars.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Delboy Trotter, for example.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I was very intrigued to hear you mention the managerial class there because as someone who has found myself uh rubbing shoulders with the managerial class, indeed becoming a part of it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am well aware of the detachment from everyday life, reality, people who actually make things, the people who make the real economy work actually go around.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh a big problem, I think, that so many of us are making our living through spreadsheet work.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think even just because of the detachment, because you make decisions about things you don't really understand and you become pilots of industry almost, but also it's just not very good for you as a human, is the more I learned.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when I met you, Bernard, back in June, you described community life, and yeah, everyone works hard, but you also have lots of family time, you have lots of leisure time, you uh work with your hands, you uh actually see the fruits of your labour in a way that most of us who are busying around in our Outlook calendars, we start to laptops all day, we get much less time outside.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh then that reduces the amount of our leisure time, and then we're all running around paying all the many bills and subscriptions that we have.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I thought it'd be a good conversation to have with you because I know there are probably lots of people sitting there going, Is this it?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is this all there is?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can get yourself caught in a trap.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you, within the Broodhoof community, but perhaps you personally, uh, view from the outsides looking in at how most of modern Britain, but indeed people across the West now live?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a view on that?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you generally keep an insular view on what it is that you do?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, it's uh obviously I have view I have views on other people, whether or not I should or not.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that um I think something very wholesome about doing real work.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I also think this is becoming it's actually becoming sort of a almost a topic itself because with the rise of AI, suddenly we're seeing that those classes, um, which we've called managerial classes.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know if that's a real word or not, but uh, I guess it is.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, full disclaimer, I spend most of my day sitting in office.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just thinking that my colleagues might watch this one day and be thinking, like, hang on, Bernard's setting himself up as some sort of like woodworker man.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um but no, no, I do spend most of my day sitting behind a computer.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but with the rise of AI, you're seeing those are the jobs that are being impacted.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And people with real skills, people who can build things, who can make things, people who are plumbers, people who are electricians.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly we've realized that those are the skills that actually are desirable.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think just, you know, there's something about work product.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, often at the end of my day, um, I deal with sort of corporate and legal issues for the community and public relations and, you know, school management, because we have a couple of schools we run.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Often at the end of the day, at the end of even a successful day, there is nothing to see uh from the work that I've done.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas like last night, so once a week, normally um we'll go down with the whole community to our workshop and work all together.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um at the moment, we've got lots and lots of orders to get out, and so uh we can't keep up with the normal workforce.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so we go down.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like instead of having a worship meeting, we'd go down to the workshop and all the adults would work together.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll get, you know, uh 80, 80, 100 people turn up for that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in that hour and a half, you can actually see, like I was making what are called sand and water tables, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: We made about 25 of them.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see them rolling down the line, you can screw them together, you can and there's something very satisfying about actually seeing the output of what you've done.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably why people love gardening and you know, activities like that.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I would love to see, you know, an industrial sort of renaissance in our in our countries again.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one of the things that I know governments are now thinking about is how do we actually bring some of those jobs back that we got rid of um a while ago.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it would be great to live in a country that actually, you know, soars its own timber and makes steel and stuff like that.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe it's a it might be a fantasy, and there's lots of bad things about those industries as well.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and working them is not necessarily that pleasant.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I still I do think that in the you know, in the coming years, more and more will value uh work done with the hands.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think yes, you'll have people thinking about economic policy, trade imbalances, all the rest of it, who go, well, from a spreadsheet perspective, we need to bring this back.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: But as you've just described, there is something rewarding, even just about work itself.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: No one actually wants to be sitting idle, and it is true that we use all of the things that we now have peoples across the world making for us, and we have lots and lots of people either sitting on their hands or entrapped by welfare or rising living costs and all the rest of it.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um the the direction taken hasn't been good for many people on a spiritual and moral level, let alone uh the the national uh economic level.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So um maybe not a pipe dream.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are countries in the in the Western world that are starting to to reshore, so to speak, and uh maybe one day we will, too.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, there's a rise.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I think the American data shows there's a rise in those sort of trades because they're being used to build data centers, which I guess is uh I guess is an interesting sort of twist on the tail is that uh you know, we need a lot of electricians and plumbers and stuff to build enormous computing centers.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's uh it's uh ironic, uh a small irony maybe in this.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it does go to um, you know, you were saying that uh like a lot of the consumer goods that we buy are made overseas.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's become part of this uh cycle that I think is actually the, you know, one of the one of the best things about the Bruder Hope is it maybe frees you from the sort of the consumer trap where people are told from very, very young on that happiness comes in by having a lot of things and by buying those things and by earning enough money so you can afford those things.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it would be great to have a revolution where we actually decide, well, maybe we don't need all those things, in which case maybe I don't need to earn so much money, which maybe means I could actually spend some more time with my family.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh as a nation, maybe, or as as churches, or as individuals, uh realize that that sort of striving after after consumer goods um can be incredibly unhealthy.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's lots of people out there who will say, I'd love to spend more time with my family.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But how many people are there out there who will actually turn down a job rise, you know, a pay increase when they know that also means they're gonna have to give a bit more time to the company they're working for?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think there are many more people really starting to ask those questions about is this a worthwhile way of spending time, whether it's our attention on digital devices, digital media, uh, and spending all of our disposable income on either entertainment or those consumer goods.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's certainly not spreading like wildfire that there's a silent revolution taking place, but I do think more and more people wonder whether this is uh an appropriate way to spend our lives, people searching.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um but perhaps we can get to Bruderhof, its beginnings, and then hear a little bit about your uh time in the Bruderhof and when you arrived.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so let's go back to the start.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is the Bruderhof?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when was it founded and and why?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh great question.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um 1920 is the founding of the Brudehof.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was uh part of a movement of young people across Germany.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: There was the sort of the youth movement.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were sort of post-World War I, people trying to break away from the structures of society that were pretty rigid, the structures of religion.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a uh a theology student um and uh I mean, he got his PhD as well in theology or philosophy.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um his name was Eberhard Arnold, and him, together with his family and a few other friends, had this vision that there was uh going around talking about God's coming kingdom as a future construct wasn't good enough.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: That people should be trying to put hands and feet to it now, even if we knew it would be imperfect.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he decided that one of the first steps towards that would be a life of shared possessions.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so moved from a pretty, you know, a pretty comfortable existence in Berlin in 1920, moved to a little village called Zanitz, um, just about an hour north of Frankfurt, um, and started to live in full community of goods with a handful of people, maybe seven or eight.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's something that really captured the imagination.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: There was lots of, there was lots of similar things going on, lots of societal upheaval going on in Germany at the time.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, people started joining.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people started coming, visiting, deciding to stay.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty chaotic at times.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the community had no sort of formalized doctrine or or rationale for living together.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Abrahard had done lots of thinking and and uh and writing about it, uh, but that wasn't necessarily enough to actually sort of found, you know, a very uh a complicated society in a way.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think it was pretty chaotic and there was lots of very colorful characters.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the community started to grow, um, went through some ups and downs, um, and eventually grew to about 200 people.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh we purchased another property.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then National Socialism uh, you know, rose to power.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Hitler came to power, and um Eberhardt and other leaders within the community decided that the right thing to do was to stand up against um his policies.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and very respectfully they even wrote to him directly, which was a uh definitely a risky move.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there was a plebiscite, a famous plebiscite uh where everyone was asked to sign off on the Nazi policies, which our members wrote a statement of faith on instead, um, to basically said we couldn't go along with it.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um that triggered the first um SS raid on our community, um, where a lot of our property was was confiscated, we were accused of financial mismanagement and other things like that that they couldn't actually prove.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then finally, um the community was expelled at gunpoint, um, essentially given 48 hours to leave Germany.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: We'd already created an exit path.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'd already moved the children out of Germany, we'd move the young male of military age out to Liechtenstein.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they tried to make us have a Nazi school teacher, so we moved the children out.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so eventually the whole community was just disbanded, um, everyone fled um and uh made our way down from Liechtenstein into Holland and then across into England where we were given um asylum.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um we had quite a few English members at that point, um, and England welcomed us as a group of mixed English, German, some Jewish people, Swiss people, even when the tensions in the world were pretty high, welcomed us in.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we we started a little community in the cosmult.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And there it started to grow as well.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because World War I had ended.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people had signed up to things like the Peace Pledge Union, where they decided that they never wanted to go to war again.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because they'd seen the horrors of what had happened.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then pretty quickly on, you know, we could see Europe going back into another, what looked like a massive war and what turned out to be an enormous war.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so many, many people came and joined our community as an active way to oppose the spirit of war.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so the community started to grow very rapidly.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And not everyone liked us in the Cotswolds.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we had German members there, and England by that point was actually at war with Germany.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there were various accusations about us being spies and things like that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: We actually, there was a lake on our property.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's up in the gravel, in the gravel pit areas in the middle of the Cotswolds.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lovely rumor that we were building a U-boat in one of our ponds.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: How the U-boat gets out of the pond to somewhere useful, I don't think it was ever really discussed.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, so we did face a bit of local persecution.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: But then decided that we need to leave the country to a place that would be safer where there was definitely like, you know, more pressure about conscription, and we were pacifists, as I said.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we moved as an entire community down to Paraguay in South America.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um went on boats essentially down there, pretty dangerous voyage during wartime.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and lived for 20 years essentially in the jungle.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of people fled to Paraguay.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's still a pretty good place to go if you want to get away from everything.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so yeah, we lived in in Paraguay.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then from there, 1950s moved up into North America, and then from North America back around the world into England, first of all, and now we have communities all over the world.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that's essentially our bit of our canned history of the beginning of our community.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know people within your community who are directly descended from those who've traveled around as they fled for?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's still people who are maybe fifth generation now within the community who would have known those people at the beginning, some of our very oldest members would have been children at the time when our community was expelled.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so there is still that direct lineage and history that our children can learn.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it really is, it's a it's a it's a miraculous um, you know, our escape from Germany was miraculous.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was um, we were probably meant to be sent to a concentration camp, but on the day that the community was raided, there were some Canadians from a branch of of people called the Hutterites.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: There was uh a couple of Hutterites visiting um the community on that day.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was enough to sort of um to worry the the SS um and ended up with our community then being expelled by force as opposed to, you know, maybe taken off or or shot or um so um that was a that was a miracle and and all members managed to make it out of Germany and uh down to Paraguay.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean to England then to Paraguay without a single you know loss of life from war or violence.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we had people who had to escape properly, there was people who were imprisoned by the Nazis who had to then uh escape from prison um and then travel on foot across Europe to re you know join up with the community again, and everyone, thanks to God, was uh was was safe.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's quite a story.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hypothetical.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: If, for example, modern Britain decided it was going to war with Russia, there have been voices both in the uh amongst the grandees of the Tory Party, like Jacob Rees Mogg and the those who are advisers to Labour, talking about potentially needing to go down the route of conscription.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: If all of that came to a head, country goes to war, conscription starts to happen, would the Bruderhof up sticks again?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Are you prepared for that?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, I mean, absolutely we would if if that was deemed necessary.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously we'd prefer to stay, and most countries have reasonably good provision for conscious objection.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh in some places like uh Germany used to have um a conscription system, and so when we had a commute a larger community in Germany, young young men there used to have to do alternative service.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so yeah, we felt we've dealt with that in various countries um that we've we've lived in.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, you always hope that we would have a uh an objective system like that.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um if not, we're either prepared to make a witness.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh but we we don't you know we don't see that war is is right or worth pursuing.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, uh that's a personal decision that I've made and we've made as a community.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that um, you know, it's it's understandable why countries go to war with each other.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there are definitely wars that look um like they're I don't know, not righteous is not the right word, but you can understand why the war happened, or you can understand why a country feels its need to defend umselves.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet, you know, what has actually been achieved in the world through war and what's been achieved through peace, um, I would I would think that we should give peace more of a chance.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it is one of the worrying things about our you know modern, very recent age is that the sort of the drums of war are sort of beating again, it's becoming easier, it seems, for countries to go into conflict.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet the suffering that brings is you know horrendous and something that needs more attention.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just so we don't end up getting into just war theory and all the rest of it, uh that's a conversation for another day.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we talk about your your experience at Bruhov.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: As I understand it, your parents actually joined while you were still young, so you weren't born in Brudov.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what do you remember of that transition from ordinary English life to now?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and do you do you have any uh moments that you realized the shift, the difference?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I think I I realized it right away on my very first day.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'd probably just say that my so my parents were were new Christians.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were living in um in Farnborough in Hasting uh in Hampshire.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh we were on holiday in the area um and drove by the end of the driveway and saw the sign.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we were driving on to Rudyard Kipling's house, I think, but it was too expensive.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so my parents were like, well, why not go back and look at that other place, which is pretty unlike them.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're fairly reserved British types.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet so we decided to go and have a look down someone else's drive.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it is quite a big drive and it's got quite an inviting sign.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we drove down and got to the car park, and someone came out and said, Hello, would you like to come have a look around?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents thought, well, why not?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're on holiday.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they never thought about you know, a Christian community.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: It never, they were just part of a very normal charismatic church.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh and they were struck right there and then on that first visit that here were people actually putting into practice what was talked about and read about in our church on Sundays, but not really put into place the rest of the week.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they were really just bowled over it.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and we actually we actually sort of stopped our holiday and then just came to the Bruder Hoof for the next three days, I think, left of our holiday.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: For me as a kid, I was six years old.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I still remember my first day on the Bruder Hoof.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: I remember who I played with, I'm still friends with him.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um that happened about, you know, I I remember playing about 50 meters away from where I'm sitting at the moment.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh the the Bruda Hof is an amazing place for children to be.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was it was then and it is now.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously I've raised my own children here now.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I grew up here and it is an existence that is uh really money can't buy.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have our own school on the premises, we have a beautiful property.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, we have a lake, we have football fields, kids have friends around.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a wonderful place to be a child.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so like I experienced that as a child.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, trading up from a a normal, you know, two-bed, three-bed house in Farnborough um to this was you know, I couldn't wait for my parents to join.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: It took them three years to make the decision.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh but eventually they did, and I followed suit when I was about 19 years old.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you touched on it being a very um conducive, or it is a very conducive place to uh flourishing children and uh uh a life well lived.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what does uh the average life look like?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose what I mean by that, thinking about courtship between people, marriage, and then even children's relationship to the community as they grow up and get ready to leave.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I know, for instance, if we were to look across the pond at the Amish, for example, there's the um the the right of passage that they're they're allowed to have.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: There they can go off for a year and go and live amongst normal modern society and then make the choice whether they're going to leave for good or come back, and many choose to go back.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what does what does the linking up with other people in the Bruderhof, falling in love, marriage, all the rest of it look like, and and how do how do children tend to um tend to find uh the community and their relationship to it once they have come of age and they're able to use their agency to do what they want with their lives?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so children grow up, well, obviously within the community, we have our own schools, um, on almost all of our communities, occasionally on a on a very small community, children might go to um go to a public school.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but mostly we'll strive to have our own schools.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh those run all the way up through to 18.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so both in the US and the UK, we run um high schools.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then 18 young people often take a gap year.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's not uh it's not quite the the Amish rumspringer.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh it's a chance for them to, you know, step out of education for a little bit and go and do something different.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be uh it could be living on one of our other communities.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a young person has an interest in being a teacher, in which case they might, you know, go to a country that they don't have never lived in and teach in our school or student teach in our school for a year to see if they really want to actually spend every day of their life teaching children.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh then we have a variety of different positions around the world, sort of not within the community, that young people can take up.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a quite a big project in Thailand on the Thai Myanmar border, teaching English and American GED to uh refugees from Myanmar.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so quite a few young people every year go down and do that for a year.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a really brilliant experience.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in that year, it's a good chance for them to start to figure out the relationship between um themselves and the community.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily the right time to make a decision.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Some do, uh, they're still quite young.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that, lots will go on to college or to university or maybe study the trades or uh maybe just get involved in work, um, depending on what's right for them.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they can do that within the community, obviously.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not so living on the community is not necessarily whether you're part of the community or not.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we have young people who live up in London, they're very much part of our community.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're just it's more convenient for them to live in a rented house in London and while they're studying up there or working up there, but they're very much part of the community still.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or a young person may decide, now's the time for me to leave, in which case that they'll sort of they'll move out of the community, we'll support them in getting set up, getting a job, or getting into college.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they make the decision for a variety of reasons.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's not by any means compulsory to stay.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh lots of young people leave, lots of young people stay, luckily, um and keep our communities going.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a decision they have to make.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: No one can make a membership commitment until they're 21, um, anyway.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so to give them enough years to really, you know, consider that that properly.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um if they do decide to join, it's a lifetime membership.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um they take a set of vows, and after that, um, you know, to talk about marriage, they would be free to sort of find a marriage partner.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's done probably in a bit of an old-fashioned way.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: We still work together very much with the ministers on that, um, to see because we have pastoral leadership within the community, people who are appointed to that leadership role, um, who are there to guide, um, you know, really make sure that a young person who wants to get married is is spiritually mature enough to do that.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then to help that couple, you know, through to a point where they're ready to make a life commitment to each other.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that is a beautiful thing that's celebrated within our community.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, fortunately the community's got a very good track record of marriages staying together.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh we don't believe that divorce is ever right.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so uh, you know, almost every marriage within the community lasts for a lifetime, and the and the knock-on effect of that is we see greater stability in our children.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the school that we run here on our site, every single child um in that school has got two parents at home.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's not to look down on on children or on single mothers and things like that.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's just we know the social science says, um, and our daily lived experience says that having two parents at home who love you and who love each other is one of the most important things in a child's life.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's part of the privilege, I think, of growing up here as a child is that sort of stability you get in your life.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know even from my, you know, even though I only spent, well, my parents joined when I was nine, first visited when I was six.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: I even know from them, like this the strain and stress of life I could experience even as a small child.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my dad lost his job at one point.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we had to sell stuff to like our musical instruments to try and actually make it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um my parents were, you know, they weren't necessarily poor people, they had decent jobs.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: My mother was a nurse, my dad worked in the in an office.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet one of the things that society does badly is is insulate people from sort of personal disaster like that.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't take much, right?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: You could lose your job, you know, maybe you get sick, maybe a relative gets sick, and all of a sudden people are very close to uh to what looks like failure in society.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that never happens within the community.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I never have to worry that like what would what would I do if my parents got sick, or if I couldn't look after them anymore, or what would I do if I lost my job, or like I spend zero hours of my day ever worrying about those things.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: That spurred a question in my mind, which is your relationship with state provision.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I remember rightly, I think you told me when we met in June that actually you do have doctors and nurses on site to look after the infirm, and it's for very specialist treatment.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think you might have to go to the NHS or or what have you.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um is that right or have I got that wrong?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, we we have doctors and nurses, and it's not that we don't use their the NHS, you know, people still wind up, unfortunately, in the emergency room occasionally with broken bones and things like that.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our our medical capacity here is limited.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that we can provide really excellent care for you know older people.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um people aren't having to like trudge in and out of hospital for really minor things.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have you know wonderful dental care here as well.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so it's not that we live separate from society, because I think that was your question, really, is like how we how we integrate with society.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um we don't live separate from that, but we try to do as much as possible ourselves, often just because it's so it's so much more convenient and it's so much nicer for the people.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you only have to go and spend a day sitting in AE.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did it the other day.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh and there's so many people there who don't actually really need to be in a hospital.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like one of the crises or one of the things that that does doesn't work very well in our country is is things like family care.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just, I mean, we're not gonna get into it's not a medical podcast, and I'm no expert here, but there's a lot of people who end up in AE who realistically could have been treated by a family doctor.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet we know that it's very difficult to get doctor's appointments.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can get a doctor's appointment, you know, I could get one in in 15 minutes if I needed one.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, I don't need one during this podcast, but uh you never know.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, actually, uh a question on the separation and integration with national life, regional life is the next obvious one.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if I think about um national crises, which are then um uh constantly referred to in the media, whether it's the impact of foreign wars on fuel prices or uh loss of jobs due to an economic downturn or any other thing that generally hits the news cycle?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is the relationship of the Bruderhoof in the host country, so to speak?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: So are national crises felt?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do elections matter?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are are you uh do you look outwards towards that stuff?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel it?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh do election results really matter to what it is that you do in Bruderhof?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say I would say yes, uh, but only to a certain degree.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there'll certainly be there'll be people in the in the community who really don't care.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're just they're just not that interested in in politics or or things like that.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they happily live very, very productive lives here.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's other people who are much more involved, they read the media every day, they have their own views on politics.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there are things that communities like that that there are things that happen in the country or internationally that genuinely affect us, right?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Rising fuel prices is really good, it's is in the in the media today, right?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: We use a lot of diesel cars here.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm thinking, well, I hope someone buys a really big tank of diesel for us before the price gets even higher.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so things do affect us like that, but in a way, that sort of insulation I talked about before is is there, right?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: We know that, I mean, insurance works by spreading risk between a lot of different parties.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in a way, the community does that very naturally.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, so fuel prices can go up, but it's not that like one old pensioner suddenly can't afford to heat their house anymore, right?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: It may be that we all have to tighten our belt a little bit, but that is going to be spread out then between a lot of capable people so that the people who are more vulnerable actually get the help that they need.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so community is the most is like a wonderful insurance policy.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's a very, in a way, it's a very cheap insurance policy.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it happens naturally.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that you'll find if you um I mean obviously it's easy to get sort of um, you know, teary-eyed about the past, and I think that's the right expression.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh, but uh, you know, to think that the, you know, back in the days everything was wonderful, which we we know it wasn't, and there's loads of great things about modernity um that I enjoy every day, like good dental care and stuff like that.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, villages, towns, uh, extended families used to be that insurance policy.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that if someone in your extended family got sick, other people could support that person.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: But as consumerism has has sort of forced people or made it easier for people to live as more separate entities, you have more and more people who are exposed to risks than then, you know, when when bad things happen to them, they end up uh dependent on the state, um, or they end up struggling, or they end up homeless, or they like these things happen.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they happen even to people who maybe they had everything together in their lives and they're just very, very unlucky.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so the community acts like a giant insurance policy for those sorts of things.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, in a way, a lot, you know, things do affect us from politics, but but but less so, I think, than they affect most people.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's think about whether communities like this are possible without uh a centre point like Christ at its center.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I spoke with a Benedictine monk.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know you both uh have different denominations, but he uh lives in a monastic community in California.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I I asked him um whether such lives can work, um, whether intentional communities can work without without Christ at the centre or without that um sacred to cohere around.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he said uh he would like to be able to give a positive answer for those who want to live in the secular world without it, but he believes that without prayer projects would become assessed by secular, pragmatic, utilitarian terms, and they don't answer the question and meaning.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you uh over in Sussex, you're not monks, you're families, but You do pray together.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is Father Luke Disinger right?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dysinger right?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is prayer the thing that holds the community together?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think it's the structure, the economics, and the shared labour that does that?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wouldn't um I mean, obviously, different people think different things about prayer.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say that the one thing that is clear is is that uh the Christ-centeredness of the community is what holds us together.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is not, it should never be that we live in community because we think community is a great idea or you know, cheaper, or more economical, or better for our kids.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all those are all factors, but they don't hold people together.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're just those are just good ideas or ideals, maybe.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um what really holds us together is that centeredness on Christ.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I live in the community because I think it's the best way for me to be a disciple.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's, you know, 300 of us who have that same common belief.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what it does mean is that people can live together who have very diverse life experiences, um, backgrounds, views on politics, um, all those different things, those people, it's much easier to live together with that common um framework.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I think the secular communities, um, because obviously there's been lots of, there's lots of experiments around sort of communal living.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things that people have always been interested in.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it comes and goes in society.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's been lots of secular attempts to live together.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think very many ever outlived, like, you know, the founder or maybe the second generation, um, because often they are sort of cults of personality, but often the personality is a very strong part of it.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they you also find that they're quite focused on, you know, maybe smaller goals.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe you get lots of sort of like vegan, well-being type communities springing up, but they're just attractive to people who are already engaged in that lifestyle or want to be very engaged in that lifestyle.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: They don't tend to last very long.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: There are a couple of examples of long-lasting ones, so I'm not knocking that.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying it's impossible for people to live together.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would love to see more people living in a shared community.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that the daily practicalities of it, you have to have trust.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I said at the beginning, it's the sharing possessions that makes our community actually really work on a day-to-day basis.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason why I'm not out there trying to earn as much money as my as possible for my retirement is that I know that the community will take care of me when I retire.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, otherwise, I would be forced to live selfishly.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you have a, you know, if you've got to pay rent on your house, like you you have to earn that money.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it's not surprising that people are forced into that sort of consumerous way of thinking.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: The community stops me from having to think that way.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we're held together in that community by our common love for Christ.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: One of the common themes, I suppose, that we've discussed today has been about things being held in common, a shared life, and that raises questions about private property.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh clearly there's the community line.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, do you ever have people within the community whose minds wander away from those teachings and it causes friction, or is everyone on board with the the model that you've expounded?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: And presumably, if they're not, they just choose to go and live elsewhere?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I guess it depends.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's degrees there.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think if someone completely didn't want to live this way of life, they would uh then probably move out fairly soon.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I mean, there's different people, uh we we all have different things we struggle with, right?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Some people are more uh more attracted to material goods than others, right?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I've never been that attracted to material goods, and I don't I don't sort of ever suffer from the temptation to go and you know just splurge a massive amount of money on buying anything.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I never know what to buy when I go into shops.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh whereas other people maybe do suffer from that.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, and that's where working together is is such an important thing.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we don't live in a community that's got lots and lots of rules around it.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we live in a community of love where we can out of love go to each other and say, Look, you know, I I saw, you know, you've bought this stuff for your you or yourself or your family.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is that really making you happy?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is that really how we want to live together?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, living in a community where we actually have a commitment to speak directly to each other, then we can gently reprove each other and we can together find what is the right way to live for Christ.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I mean, different people have different, maybe not levels of commitment, but the ways of living that commitment out.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's also acceptable within within a community.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, the most important thing is to recognize people's, you know, the centrality of people's commitment to Christ.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that allows me, who maybe has one way of seeing the world, uh, certain sets of habits or things I find important, to live alongside someone who maybe lives completely differently, who doesn't really share some of those things.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yet if I can believe that that he or she really, really loves Christ and this is why they're living here, then surely we can find a way to live together.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's think about those who are Christian, but perhaps can't join a Bruderhof community.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they can.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they always can.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't any boundaries to that.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: But let's just say they can't.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to uproot from where they're at.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: But they want to be able to build intentional communities to preserve the faith in what is apparently a hostile culture to that.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you've probably heard of the the book that was very popular a few years ago, Rodre's Benedict Option, which effectively says that's what you ought to do if you care about it, because the culture isn't going to support you to be able to live that way.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think quite a few of my viewers are sympathetic to that ideal, but perhaps don't know where to begin.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I know you've spent your your life in in Bruderhof, and you know what it's like to live in shared communities.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: But for those people who have the mortgage careers, children in schools, but want to somehow live in a similar way, um, what do you think the the the ordinary family can learn from Bruda Hof without joining one?
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh it's a it's a great question, and it's one that we get asked a lot.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of like, can you can you step into it?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Could you take you know one step towards it and things like that?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think you can.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think the real, like I said earlier, the real benefit comes from sharing everything.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not to say that churches couldn't be much better at giving people a framework to have more shared lives together.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know lots of churches are, um, and uh there's different sort of groups out there, and uh like I think that any church that's inspired about this, any family should be talking about it with their church and finding, well, are there ways, can we get together for a shared meal once a week?
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can we for make sure that somebody with financial needs in our in our church community, can we make sure that person's taken taken care of?
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um is there something that we could do that we give up something to enable our church to be more effective in maybe our mission work or our social work or whatever it is?
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that taking steps towards it might then make people think, you know, well, maybe something even more is possible.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what would a shared life look like?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: I also think it's about education of our children.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um obviously we enjoy the ability to educate our children here.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: We run an independent school.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's inspected by Ofsted, but it's um it's fully independent.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the UK has got great provision for people to run their own schools if they want to.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the things that you know, serious Christians are often very worried about their children going to a comprehensive school and the influences they get there.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some aren't, and that's fine.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's great to have Christian children enrolled in in the local schools.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but if you know, it wouldn't take more than maybe 10 families to come together to actually register a you know a school and educate their children together.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh there are things that people can be doing.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things you can do is uh is definitely come and visit.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh our community is always open for visitors.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can come down, you can see what we're doing, you can take inspiration for your family, your church, and go and put that into action.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not at all precious, we don't think about you know that the brood of hope is the only way to do this, or you've got to come and join us.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: We won't tell you our you know all the secrets.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh you know, you can come and and take what take what you want from it.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and we'd love to see churches doing anything more to lead towards a life and community.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I know I will include links and contact details in the show notes in case anyone wants to darken your door with a visit.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Before I let you go, I'll ask you the question that I ask all of my guests, which is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it was a moral absolute, maybe it was something more quotidian in concern, and what was it that made you think differently?
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I changed my mind is reasonably easily changed, actually.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh and there's lots of things that I've changed my views on.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I used to be, I I think I used to be a bit more morally absolute on things, and I've learned that the world's maybe not quite so black and white.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh two things really, I'd say.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um one is that uh the the longevity is not really what's important.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: I used to really love the fact that I lived in the Bruderhof and it had lasted a hundred years.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I would sort of you know sit and think, well, how can we make it so it really lasts another, well, at least another 50 years or another hundred years, or um, but realistically, that's not what's important.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's important is what I do today and how I live today.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: And also like thinking about my own faith.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's not, I should, I should spend less time thinking about, well, am I going to be a Christian in 10 years' time, but how am I going to put the gospel into action today?
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's not to be narrow-minded or not to think broadly about the world or the future.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's really about action.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the gospel is a is a book of action, and um it's it's there to be put into practice.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, Jesus didn't give the Sermon on the Mount for us to ponder and, you know, have you know philosophical discussions about.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: These are action points for Christians.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they're not hard to understand.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to understand Hebrew or Greek to know what they mean.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, Jesus is Jesus' discussion and his words on sharing, sharing our possessions, for instance, on or on the on the um on the impact of mammon on our lives, they're not difficult to understand.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can just go into the Bible and read them.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think it's the daily putting into practice that's so much more important.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what I want to spend my life doing.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um another thing that's changed my mind is that it's always it's always worth getting to know someone before you make decisions about how or or come up with ideas about how they live.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been privileged enough to travel and see uh people who are living, um, often refugees, living as a result of conflict.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's very easy in the heat of sort of uh uh national dialogue on things like migrants and things too, to forget that these are actually real humans and many of them have been treated terribly.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and, you know, it seems that the it seems that in the West we've become less keen on um exporting the values, which are actually Christian values, of how, you know, the the way the West was built.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and hopefully we get to the position again where we are once more able to act with compassion towards other countries, towards people who have who have fled war.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's easy to get wrapped into a media narrative, and I guess that's the one thing I've learned is that the media is there for a purpose.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I read lots of media, I t I I teach about media in our school.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet it only ever shows one side of the story.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always worth, if you can, getting out to meet real people before you judge people.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Glennard.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Before I let you go, where can people find information about Bruderhof and anything that your community is producing?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, so we have a website.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're not we're not a technophobic community.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can find us online.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's uh bruderhof.com.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's about B-R-U-D-E-R-H-O-F.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: It means place of brothers in German.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so go to Bruderhof.com, you can see our different locations, you can read a little bit about our faith and why we live the way we do.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and certainly you can come and visit because realistically seeing it is the only way to really, you know, uh get an understanding for why more people should be living in community.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I look forward to visiting myself.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for the invite, and thanks so much for coming on the show.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Taking care of yourself and keep fighting the good fight.