An Embassy Besieged - Emmy Barth

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to take our progress into our own hands, and to form it according to our own will. We think back to that day when it overcame us like a holy wind, and we hardly knew what to do with our great exultation. We think back to that time when we explored our homeland for the first time, when on a long outing a new sense of life grew in us that made us one with the Almighty.17

      But Körber also represented a certain nationalistic pride which would intensify in later years:

      I believe that the road to other nations and to a new Christian Europe runs through our Volk, that all work for a new humanity runs through the one Volk. We have been born to this destiny. God laid into our cradle the disposition and gift to grasp that nation’s silent need and yearning, its wordless soul—and to express it. He has made us Germans—not just any kind of people! What ought to make us reflect deeply is the fact that all the unrelenting champions of international fraternization are either enthusiastic zealots or intellectuals totally out of touch with reality, or they are democratic business politicians, but in any case not true interpreters of German destiny, of our nation’s fettered will and bound soul.

      When will our German Volk with all its depth and richness be given leaders again who are an expression of its better self, who will lead it back to its true self and will weld a confused mob once again into a Volk?”18

      Church Community

      After weeks of discussions and arguments, Eberhard and Emmy sold or gave away all they possessed and rented a large house in the village of Sannerz in Hesse. They were determined to put their words into practice and live in community with anyone who cared to join them. Although the house was not immediately available, they could wait no longer. In June 1920 they moved into the barn with their five children. Emmy’s sister Else and a few others joined them. The house became the Neuwerk Community, Sannerz. Emmy, who was a true partner to Eberhard, wrote of the reactions of their former friends:

      There was no financial basis of any kind, either for starting this proposed business venture or for buying the villa at Sannerz and realizing our dream of a community house. But that made no difference. We decided it was time to turn our backs on the past and start afresh in full trust. Well-meaning friends shook their heads. What an act of rash irresponsibility for a father of five little children to go into the unknown just like that! Frau Michaelis, the wife of the former chancellor of the Reich, visited me and offered to help the children and me should my husband really take this “unusual” step. After talking with me, she reported to a mutual friend: “She is even more fanatical than he is! There is nothing we can do.”19

      Eberhard and Emmy had left the Lutheran Church years earlier. During the revival in Halle at the time of their engagement, they had come to the conclusion that infant baptism, as practiced by the Catholic and Lutheran Churches, was not true baptism. At that time Eberhard had written to Emmy:

      Today I prayed a long, long time, and this hour of dedication has brought me to a momentous decision, one which will give our life a clearly defined direction, laden with suffering . . . As of today, I have been convinced by God, with quiet and sober biblical certainty, that baptism of believers alone is justified. Taking Galatians 3:26–27 as a starting point, I persisted in reflecting on Jesus with simple, honest prayer, and have come to feel that scripture recognizes only one baptism: that of those who have become believers . . . I therefore regard myself as unbaptized and hereby declare war on the existing church system.20

      On Tuesday I’ll briefly inform our parents of my conviction, according to which I must a) be baptized as a believer, since infant baptism is in opposition to what is meant biblically and is therefore not baptism; b) withdraw from the established church, since I consider it dishonest through and through and contrary to the spirit of the Bible; c) embrace as my ideal church communities of believing, baptized Christians who use church discipline and celebrate the Lord’s Supper . . .

      I can’t postpone leaving the established church any more than I can postpone the actual baptism, since I regard the church’s deceitful system as Satan’s most dangerous weapon and the most treacherous foe of apostolic Christianity. Of course, I don’t fail to recognize the uprightness of many churchmen and the fact that they are serious Christians (used by the system to disguise its shamefulness).21

      Now thirteen years later, in the budding community at Sannerz, Eberhard was developing a genuine alternative: a church community of believers. He, Emmy, Else, and the hundreds of visitors who passed through the house were overwhelmed by something beyond anything they had imagined possible, certainly not of their own making, which they could only define as the Holy Spirit. Eberhard described it in several letters.

      Our communal household takes shape more and more definitely. The faithful cell group of an early Christian house church is coming into being. Yesterday, for the first time, the Lord’s Supper was held in the circle of those firmly committed. It was a glorious and festive hour of deep resolve and clearness.22

      I wish we could describe how wonderfully our life is woven together and how many glorious high moments we find in our joy in community and in our love to one another. If we think of last Sunday, for instance, when we held the Lord’s Supper with the ten who are dedicated completely to life in community (had all been home we would have been twelve disciples), then the deep joy and unfathomable strength of this experience cannot be compared with anything we had before.23

      Georg Barth, who came to Sannerz in 1925, remembered:

      I felt at home there at once and inhaled deeply the spirit-filled air of the house. So strongly did I feel the nearness of the kingdom of God that I could physically taste it and smell it . . . The Sannerz house was filled with the atmosphere of the kingdom of God. Anyone in this house breathed a completely different air. Although I did not yet know who Jesus really was and what it meant to follow him, still I sensed this air of the kingdom powerfully.24

      In 1934 Eberhard said about this time:

      If in Berlin our activity was anchored more in literary things, in Sannerz it was anchored in something living. There was a wind that blew through our rooms. In every pore, through every wall, the lively spiritual movements penetrated. Fresh people came every day. We were prepared for this storm, and yet it was new because it brought something more alive than we had ever guessed at; it was plainer to see. Each day was lived at a high level of inner interest and suspense. Some of our meetings had no limits whatever. We met at seven o’clock in the evening, mostly until twelve, and often, too, from noon until two in the afternoon. This wasn’t because we wanted it that way, but because it was necessary inwardly in the powerful stirring of the exchanges of thought, in the explosive outward movement. Not a single day went by without the greatest agitation and excitement.25

      Confronting Anti-Semitism

      Many of the radical thinkers whom Eberhard respected after the First World War were Jews: Gustav Landauer, Rosa Luxemburg, and Kurt Eisner. In 1917, he wrote an article on the ideas of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber:

      There is a Jewish movement that is stirring the innermost heart of Judaism anew. It is made up of two currents—one religious, the other nationalistic—that are deeply united in Martin Buber, their outstanding exponent. In his essays on the Jewish movement Martin Buber puts great emphasis on the national significance of Judaism. Like the Zionists, he hopes for a gathering of the Jewish people on their own soil, for the renewal of their historical continuity, for a healthy national organism; but in his striving for this nationalistic goal Buber seeks a liberation of his people through which “the transformed Jewish spirit” can be resurrected . . .

      The expectation of the future Messiah is the sphere where the deepest encounter [between Jew and Christian] takes place. In the infinitely distant, infinitely near kingdom of the future, the Jew expects the Absolute, the tabernacle of God, the house of true life for mankind, the salvation of the world, and the redemption of man’s spirit. Martin Buber points out that early Christianity, too, in the expectation of its returning Lord, was filled with and given direction by this very idea of an absolute future. The early Christian belief in the return of Christ was not speculation or calculation; it was an inner attitude of faith, love, and hope; it was nothing less than the deep inner relationship of love to the Redeemer, through whom redemption must

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