Freedom from Sinful Thoughts by J. Heinrich Arnold
The Plough Publishing House ISBN
0-87486-094-6
Some books are like a marathon race. Their sheer size
threatens us and we wonder how we will ever get to the end. The challenge of
this book is not in its length but in its content. It is a book of practical holiness and a
statement of the Gospel.
Recently I had been reading the early chapters in Acts. I
was impressed by the way the early church gave itself to communal sharing and living.
How would that work in the 21st century? A casual visit to the Hospice book shop
brought this book, “Freedom from Sinful Thoughts” to my notice. The authoris
amember of a 20th century attempt to live by Acts 2 communal
principles, the Bruderhof which has communities in Germany as well as the
United States and the United Kingdom. It is no monastic movement. Family folk
are included. The author’s theological position can be deduced from the
reviewers who wrote with approval of this book. They include, Henri Nouwen,
Richard Foster and Dallas Wiilard.
The book consists of eighteen brief chapters and extends
just over a hundred short pages. Quotations abound from the 13th
century German mystic, Meister Eckhardt, the Swiss French psychiatrist Charles
Baudouin, the founder of Bruderhof, Eberhard Arnold and above all the Bible. I
found myself reading a chapter of “Freedom from Sinful Thoughts” a day.
The earlier part of the book dealt with how we are and then moved
to a crescendo in the last chapters dealing with the Cross. Practical hints
abound but always there is the admission of our total dependence upon God.
There is a movement of thought through the psychological, the mystical and the
biblical but it is the Calvary of the Scriptures that eclipses all.
This book fed me and I commend it.
Peter M. Grinham 10th
May 2015.
