Actions negate words of peace
On Nov. 20, the Herald-Standard published a Guest Commentary titled “Reactivating draft would give youth reason to think.” In reply, here are some things, which I think you need to seriously consider. The writer proposed that if mandatory military service is reinstated it would benefit young people and that it will sober our minds. How will the drafting of young people outside the Bruderhof into the armed forces sober your mind if you expect your own sect’s young people to be “allowed to perform, under the auspices of our communities, alternate service as conscientious objectors?” (Quote from an open letter to President Bush from the Bruderhof with no date).
First, conscientious objector status cannot be conferred to a group such as yours automatically because not every person’s conscience is the same, and the U.S. government can’t support group consciousness. Therefore this issue must be dealt with on an individual basis.
Second, you appear to expect special status by requesting that Bruderhof CO’s fulfill their alternate service on the Bruderhof itself, rather than performing non-combat duty, where lives are often also at risk. While this may be a good arrangement for the Bruderhof, it doesn’t look that way for other Americans.
As the child of a Bruderhof family that was sent packing in 1965, I can tell you how difficult it was to try and make a living in the real world and on top of that face the enormous obstacle of the draft and all the challenges that it presented.
I think that your advice is insincere because your actions are at odds with your words, and young people who don’t know the Bruderhof won’t find any benefit from reading it. However, I think it would be good for you to allow your young people “to test their own convictions, to assess their personal integrity and character as an individual,” because that is how they will learn about themselves and will help them anchor their own belief system.
You even had the temerity to declare that each of us knows right from wrong, but we often lack the courage to act on that knowledge. Apparently you are including yourself in that group, for you haven’t yet found the courage to right the wrongs made against your own members and ex-Bruderhofers.
Many families have been separated by the servants under your leadership, and sons and daughters may not visit their dying parents or even attend their funerals. They have been informed of the deaths after the burial. Now is that right or wrong?
So when will you do what you have been preaching, and start working on healing and peace, especially to those who have been wounded by yourself? People keep asking for just that, but you don’t respond, while still claiming to be a counselor.
Fortunately those of us who have left the Bruderhof can now enjoy freedom of, and also from, religion, and can attend the services in any church we wish. We don’t have to concern ourselves with the breaking up of families because one or the other is not in unity with the minister, as you have done.
On the other hand, we must continue to deal with the Bruderhof regarding our relatives still living there, and we are told that people who are seeking contact with family members need to first have a relationship with you before they can see each other, as was documented in Tim Domer’s account called Shell Game. This can be read on the Web at alt.support.bruderhof.
Sadly cousin, you don’t seem to know right from wrong, because your own actions call into question what you write. I wish you could understand this and to have the courage to align your actions to your public pronouncements.
Ernst Arnold
Glassville, Canada