8/3/2019 Bruderville 2020 -- An Urban Anabaptist Odyssey
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Bruderville 2020:An urban anabaptist odyssey
Picture this:
As the new millennium dawns, anabaptists do a new thing in the
city: Build a communal
neighborhood populated by tens of thousands of simple-living
sectarians.
The project is initiated by the Bruderhof and some Old Order
Amish, partly for practicalreasons: (1) the Amish and
Bruderhofpopulationexplosions, making it necessary to
continually branch out and establish new settlements; and (2)
the shortage of affordable
farmland, making it difficult to maintain a rural way of
life.
More importantly, the initiative stems from a quickening amongst
these plain
people, who realize theyve lost their ancestral impulse for
going into the marketplaces &
street corners, inviting others to become co-workers in Gods
kingdom. They also realize
geographical isolation no longer protects them against worldly
influences. So they branch
out to the Bronx, where they can influencetheworld instead.
To achieve critical mass, these city Amish and city Bruderhofers
buy a large tract
of land and buildings, then move in several thousand of their
own people. Like-minded
folks (Quakers, Brethren, Mennonites, Hutterites, Hasidim,
Hindus, Buddhists, Ghandians,
Tolstoyans, tree-huggers, cyclists, recyclists, etc.) are
invited to live and work alongside
them. Small manufacturing shops and cottage industries are set
up, with the goal of creating
a self-sustaining local economy. Fossil-fuel-burning machines
are banned. Roof-top
farms, windmills, solar panels, clotheslines, bike racks, and
hitching posts begin to dot the
streetscape.
Bruderville is dense, diverse, auto-free, and without a
steeple-house in sight. Forinstead of building religious
institutions, residents take their cues from the subversive
social
ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. No membership rolls, rituals,
creeds or dogmas. They
also draw on the hospitality house model created by Dorothy Day
and Peter Maurin of the
Catholic Worker movement. No coercion, no rejection.
As a result, the neighborhood becomesahaven for the citys
tramps, tormented souls,
and other of Gods ambassadors. All are welcome, they say. And,
as Emmy Arnold put it
in describing the early Bruderhof communities: We try to concern
ourselves with each one
who comes.
Instead of engaging in a lot of talk about the worlds needs,
Brudervillians decide tosimply do what needs to be done.
Why?Because Jesus wantsitthatway, they say.
by Charlie Kraybill([email protected])
Revised: January 2012
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