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Rev. Joey N. Welsh: An then they came for me Originally published in The Hart County News-Herald, September 4, 2005 -- the last in a three-part series that began with Paul Tillich on August 21, 2005and continued with Reinhold Niebuhr on August 28, 2005. This article is being reprinted here, with the author's permission, because of its relevance to a recent book review by Tom Chaney of the Horse Cave Theatre Play, "And then they came for me." ANOTHER ANGLE: the occasional musings of a Kentucky pastor By The Rev. Joey N. Welsh A GIANT IN THE REALM OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT - PART III Pastor Martin Niemoeller was a man who seemed destined to have a career path in religion that would be marked by great social success and political influence. Born in 1892, he had commanded a U-Boat in World War I. After the war he had studied theology, and he was ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1931. He became pastoral leader of a large and wealthy congregation in suburban Berlin. He was a friend and correspondent with the theologians of his day, even those in America, including Reinhold Niebuhr. All he had to do to remain popular and successful was to go with the flow and add his affirmation to the rising torrent of Nazism. Niemoeller had even written an autobiography with an afterword expressing trust that Hitler's leadership would be the dawn of a new and hopeful era in Germany. The book became a bestseller with the help of the Nazi Party. Niemoeller was poised for a life of prominence and triumph. But he quickly became disillusioned with the Nazi persecution of political dissidents, the arrest of union leaders and a series of laws targeted at persecution of German Jews. He was particularly alarmed that the new regime expected preachers to shape the Christian message toward glorification of the government and its goals. Pastor Niemoeller became a leader in a movement of Christians, the Confessing Church, who banded together to affirm that they intended to continue worshipping God and not the German state. In 1934 these dissenting folk, with the help of theologian Karl Barth, released The Theological Declaration of Barmen (Barmen was the town where the meeting took place.), an affirmation of faith that was a direct affront to the religious influence of the Nazis. He had become a target of intimidation for several years, and his phones were tapped by the Nazis in the hope that Niemoeller would be caught saying something treasonous about the government. The Nazis needn't have bothered to gather their information in secret, because Pastor Niemoeller preached his opposition loud and clear. On June 27, 1937 he preached a sermon attacking government attempts to hijack the Christian message. He knew that there would be informers in the packed sanctuary. He knew that his life was in danger, and he concluded his sermon with these words: We have no more thought of using our own powers to escape the arm of the authorities than had the apostles of old. No more are we ready to keep silent at man's behest when God commands us to speak. For it is, and must remain, the case that we must obey God rather than man.Three days later he was arrested. After eight months in a Berlin prison he was tried by a special court and sentenced to incarceration as Hitler's special prisoner. He remained in prison or concentration camps until 1945, eventually spending time in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau death camps. He was tortured but never allowed to die; he was forced to see the deaths of others and offered the chance to recant, but he never backed away from his personal convictions. Following the war he was leader of a group of German Christians who issued an open apology for their tolerance of the rise of Nazism. He died in 1984, after leading a very full post-war life, including a term as president of the World Council of Churches. During his many speaking engagements after the war he confessed his personal complicity in the slowness to react to the dangers of Nazism, and on a number of occasions he used a version of the quotation found below. He lived to see these words spread around the world, sometimes with other groups including themselves in the list of those persecuted. In Boston at the Northeast Museum of the Holocaust the stone inscribed with the words attributed to Niemoeller even includes Catholics in the list of those groups persecuted. Niemoeller never included them in his chronology, and Catholics, as a group, were never seized by the Nazis. As a matter of fact, many of the people who came to make the arrests of the others were, themselves, Catholic. What follows is the most accurate order for the retelling of this famous quote, as confirmed by Niemoeller's widow: First they came for the communists, and I did not speak outHis words are worth remembering in an era when it is easy to dismiss concerns about the rights of others because their lifestyle or their race or their religion or their opinions differ from our own. Whenever we fail to heed the insight of Paul Tillich (see the column of August 21) that an injury to anyone is a wound to all of us, let's refresh ourselves with the words of Pastor Niemoeller, words that speak clearly to us just as clearly as the good and brave pastor spoke his opposition to Nazi tyranny at his own peril. We remember these words, and we realize anew that if we allow injustice to occur to anyone, the next injustice may done to us. Rev. Joey N. Welsh is the penname based on an anagram of "John Wesley." To read more of his essays online, enter "Rev. Joey N. Welsh" in the searchbox. This story was posted on 2007-09-18 08:58:41
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Thank You: Lindsey Wilson College Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Part II - Reinhold Niebuhr Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Paul Tillich, Part one David Rosenbaum takes issue with Tom Chaney review Rev. Joey N. Welsh: A Centenary of Sparrows Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Anne Frank, a Legacy in Words An essay, a poem: We're a community when we all pull together Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Of trees and thankfulness Rev. Joey N. Welsh: When life gives you a lemon, appreciate it Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Cumberland, Sweet William, and more View even more articles in topic Commentary |
 
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