Eberhard Arnold on Friedrich Nietzsche: Bruderhof Museum
Eberhard Arnold & Emmy von Hollander
I have occasionally included quotations from Friedrich Nietzsche on this site. I would like to offer those who may have a pronounced interest in Nietzsche the following PDF file and introduction to the thought of Eberhard Arnold from the Bruderhof Museum. This is an interesting site, well worth a visit, no matter what one's background or perspective:
Download full PDF version of Eberhard Arnold's doctoral thesis on Friedrich Nietzsche's religious thought.
Eberhard Arnold's doctoral thesis reveals a great deal about Friedrich Nietzsche's religious thought. But it reveals equally as much about Arnold's inner viewpoint in 1909. Nietzsche's philosophy, language, and thinking continued to concern Arnold even after he completed his doctorate. In the following years, traces of the great impression made on him by this eccentric and extraordinary thinker surfaced in his thought, speech, and action.
Arnold agreed with Nietzsche that "the church's foundation is built upon the very opposite of the Gospels"; that the church is "a terrible hodgepodge of Greek philosophy and Judaism, of asceticism, of hierarchical order, etc."
Further, he shared Nietzsche's view that originally Christianity "tolerated no connection with politics and state policies; it cannot in any way be a religion of the masses."
At times Arnold's trenchant analysis of the established churches goes even further than Nietzsche's criticisms. In the everyday life of the churches of his day, Arnold was hard-pressed to discover any argument to weaken Nietzsche's objective criticisms of Christianity. To do this he had to go back to "early Christianity, as described in the Acts of the Apostles and in the New Testament epistles."
For Arnold, Jesus is the "Übermensch," the "overman" for whom Nietzsche had sought. Jesus is "the redeeming man of great and overcoming love, the creative spirit, the noonday bell that calls for a great decision, the one who sets people's will free again, who brings the earth back to its true purpose and restores hope to humanity.". Arnold believed that a life in discipleship of Jesus Christ affirms life in a comprehensive sense.
Excerpted from the biography of Eberhard Arnold, "Against the Wind" by Markus Baum more>>
