Salt and Light
Living the Sermon on the Mount
Eberhard Arnold
Salt and Light puts hands and feet to the demands of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the viewpoint of a writer who believes they are not only viable, but inescapable – something for us to live out today.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts aside his usual parables and speaks plainly in language anyone can understand. Yet for centuries countless scholars have dissected and analyzed these important words – and dismissed their demanding precepts as unrealistic or symbolic.
Like Francis of Assisi and others, Arnold chose to live Jesus’ words. He found new life by embracing the self-sacrificing demands of the Sermon on the Mount. This collection of talks and essays vividly describes a healing, energizing power for those burdened by the concerns of daily life. Arnold calls us to live for the Sermon’s ultimate goal: the overturning of the prevailing order of injustice and building in its place a just, peaceable society motivated by love.
Praise for Salt and Light
Thomas Merton
Has all the simple, luminous, direct vision that I’ve come to associate with Arnold’s name. It is the kind of book that stirs to repentance and renewal and it moves me deeply. I am very grateful for it.
Senator Mark Hatfield
Many will be made uncomfortable by Salt and Light, and so it is no wonder. The Sermon on the Mount is, at a minimum, challenging and controversial. It threatens the present order of society. So does Arnold’s interpretation of it.
Jürgen Moltmann
Arnold’s writings are a light of hope in an age which seems very dark. May they no longer remain hidden under a bushel, but shine out to be heeded by many.
Pitirim A. Sorokin
Harvard University
An admirable, excellent book needed by a world which has turned against the Great Teaching of Jesus.
