Jim Stewartson: Niemoller Nation (First they came for you)

[Dennis Donovan]

Jim Stewartson - Niemöller Nation

First they came for you

Jim Stewartson
Jan 17, 2025

Pastor Martin Niemöller was complicated. An antisemitic supporter of Hitler through the Nazi takeover of Germany, he believed that Hitler would make Germany great again, and blamed immigrants, Jews, and the weakness of the government on Weimar’s problems. Sound familiar?



But Niemöller had misgivings when the Nazis began to control Christianity, chose to speak out against Hitler, and was sent to Dachau concentration camp — which he survived. After the war he wrote a famous poem, “First they came for,” and travelled the world speaking out about the Holocaust, and encouraging Germans to take responsibility for it.

I had to tell him, “Dear brother, fellow man, Jew, before you say anything, I say to you: I acknowledge my guilt and beg you to forgive me and my people for this sin.”
– Martin Niemöller, sermon in Erlangen, Germany 1946

/snip

[keithbvadu2]

1. All OK with it until he realized that it was not just the 'others' being controlled.

Many Christians want our country to be Christian run but it must be their own version of Christianity.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Which means

They could turn on each other

[keithbvadu2]

3. Oh, yeah! See Ireland.

Billy and Franklin Graham and many other evangelicals say Catholics are not Christians.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150222160421/https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/october-2012/can-an-evangelical-christian-vote-for-a-mormon/

"We need something like what Jerry Falwell did in the 1980s. We need a “moral majority”-made up of Christians, Jews, Mormons, Catholics and many others of faith-to come together to take a stand for our religious freedoms and rights."