JW's, blood, and harmful religious extremism...

As Christians, we welcome you. We are but men, full of faults, and have no right to judge your position before God.

It is Jesus that will spue you from His mouth.

Revelation 3:16 - "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I (Jesus) will spue thee out of my mouth."

 

Well, he will if you can pull him away from his Talmud study...

 

Inclusive language is fine in certain circumstances Carl, but I don't think you can categorically state all other Christians want to "spew" you from their mouths.

Being "lukewarm" generally means "lacking conviction or enthusiasm." Does this really describe you, Carl?

 

I know you meant "denomination" rather than "religion."

To answer you more specifically, I am in the Restoration Movement.

However, I have great respect and admiration for the Missionary Church because of their positions on social issues.

 

Re: Re: Re: JW's, blood, and harmful religious extremism...

Which, I dare say, would also have the added benefit of making you not care quite so much about JWs and others similar... at least not 'til after the munchies set in.

Amen.

And the front 9.


Umm... just curious, Carl: Why did an entirely new thread for this subject get started again?

 

Jimmy,
That is cool - I like your emphasis on social issues. I hope you know that I'm just yanking your chain most of the time. I truly do appreciate your responses, and am more in line with what you believe and live by than may be apparent from my postings here.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: JW's, blood, and harmful religious extremism...

Ummmm.... I forget.... must be that second joint I had last night.

 

Jesus says I taste just like chicken..... and he hates chicken!

 

Part 1 of 2

Just FYI, Jimmy... did you know that the way you've quoted Niemöller (or some spell it "Niemöeller"), above, is inaccurate? You moved "the Jews" to the first position, and left out socialists altogether. But don't worry, it's a common mistake. I normally wouldn't have mentioned it except that it's a subject I happen to know and care alot about, as should be painfully obvious in a moment...

Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller's much quoted lines about moral failure in the face of the fascist’s terror; about being a mere bystander instead of a responsible actor, have been used by different speakers and writers over time to advance various causes; and has been oft altered to suit all manner of different agendas. Indeed, the quote has developed something of a life of its own over the years.

It was the American-born writer/journalist DD Guttenplan who first noted that many versions of the quote move "the Jews" to the first position. When Time Magazine first published the quote, it did that; and dropped "communists" and "socialists" altogether; and added "Catholics." Former Vice President Al Gore also once famously misquoted it by putting "the Jews" first, by leaving out "trade unionists," and by adding "the Catholics," which (Catholics) was, insensibly, also added to the version that's on the Holocaust memorial in the heavily-Catholic city of Boston. Of course, the Nazis never came for "the Catholics," and Niemöller never included them.

Chicago-based history professor Peter Novick notes that the U.S. Holocaust Museam in Washington, DC dropped "communists" for what some see as "obvious and prudent reasons"; and still other versions have variously added homosexuals, Protestants or whatever group the speaker/writer who is quoting Niemöller wishes to favor. For example, in 1968, US Congressman Henry Reuss quoted a version of Niemöller's words which he first heard quoted by Howard Samuels, and which included "the industrialists." However, since the Nazis never actually came for the industrialists, their inclusion doesn't make any historical sense. We only begin to see why Samuels added it when we realize that he was a representative at the time of the US Small Business Administration (SBA)... which, of course, has a soft spot in its heart for industrialists.

But Niemöller -- who was the founder of the protestant "Confessing Church" in Germany, which, in the 30's, opposed the pro-Nazi "German-Christian" church -- knew very well the historical sequence of Nazi persecution. He was, after all, there... and a victim of it himself. His sequence, in his words as originally uttered (in order: communists, socialists, trade unionists, and then Jews) is in synch with the historical facts. The eventual systemic murder of Nazi occupied Europe’s Jews (and others) was the culmination of the fascists singling out for detention in special camps those who could oppose them; and the Nazis worried about communists, socialists and trade unionists (in that order) first... and only then the Jews.

Interestingly, the words never actually appear in any of Niemöller's writings; and no tape recorder seems to have been running when he first uttered them, so the now-famous words have their genesis in oral tradition. It's easy to understand, therefore, how they've become so variously quoted and misquoted over the years. Niemoller's daughter (by his first marriage), Brigitte Johannesson, has been quoted in articles saying that her father first uttered them in England sometime between 1955 and 1969.

However, Sibylle Sarah Niemöller von Sell (or just Sarah Niemöller, as she later preferred to be called), Martin Niemöller's second wife to whom he was married when he died, helps to pin down the date somewhat more precisely.

"It was 1961," she told the New Jersey Jewish News in 2003. Saying that Martin, himself, had recounted the event to her more than once while they were married, she continued: "He was sitting across a table from a student who ... couldn’t imagine how it (Nazi tyranny and atrosities... the Holocaust itself) could happen, and why no one did anything."

In partial response to the student's incredulity, Martin Niemöller is said to have uttered:

• First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist;
  
  Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist;
  
  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist;
  
  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew;
  
  Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

In 1994, well-known Lutheran theologian Martin Marty wrote, in an article in Chrisitan Century (Vol. 111 Issue 36, p1207), that a more accurate version of the quote -- the "textus receptus," as he called it in the article -- is:

• First they came for the communists; but I was not a communist, so I said nothing.
  
  Then they came for the social democrats; but I was not a social democrat, so I did nothing.
  
  Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist.
  
  And then they came for the Jews; but I was not a Jew, so I did little.
  
  Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me.

Note the use of the term "social democrats" instead of "socialists"; and the missing ", so..." after "trade unionist." Note also the use of "doing nothing" (or "little," or derivatives, as appropriate) instead of "speak(ing) out" or, as shown in the version below, "standing up."

In a chapter from Jewish-Christian Enounters Over the Centuries, edited by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer (published by Peter Lang), Lehman College professor Ruth Zerner tries to get to the bottom of it. In her chapter, "Martin Niemoller, Activist as Bystander: The Oft-Quoted Reflection," Zerner cites Dr. Franklin H. Littell (a Methodist minister, college professor, and Holocaust expert) as one who has probably most often quoted Niemöller's words in his various speeches and writings, appears to be the most passionate about them, and probably knows more than most about precisely what they were.

"Franklin Littell has assured me," Zerner wrote, "that he verified his recollection of the words with an American church official who organized Niemöller's speaking engagements in the United States after the war."

Littel, in his writings, insists that the absolutely correct Niemöller quote, once and for all, is:

• First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a communist;
  
  Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist;
  
  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist;
  
  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew;
  
  Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.

And they did, in fact, come for Niemöller. A U-Boat captain during WWI, he initially supported Hitler and the Nazi party. But he later decried both, especially for their assault on the Jews. He declared that it was impossible to "point to the German [Luther] without pointing to the Jew [Christ] to which he pointed."

Niemöller was eventually arrested by the Gestapo, and "convicted" of treason in something of a kangaroo court, but his sentence was suspended... some say because of International pressure. But that respite was short-lived, and in 1937 -- on Hitler's direct orders, it is said -- Niemöller was arrested again and incarcerated ("for life," Hitler ordered) in a string of concentration camps which included the infamous Sachsenhausen and the notorius Dachau, among others.

Continued in next post...

 

Part 2 of 2

...continued from previous post.

Though it doesn't contribute to the making of my point that they eventually came for him, too, the reader probably wants to know how it all came out -- plus, it's just a nice story -- so I'll finish in précis: Niemöller survived the camps and was eventually liberated by allied forces near the end of WWII. After the war, he served as president of the World Council of Churches; and he devoted the remainder of his life to the cause of pacifism and reconciliation, eventually receiving the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967, and the West German Grand Cross of Merit in 1971.

In 1971, Martin Niemöller married his second wife, a woman 32 years his junior, and was born to aristocracy and the given name Sibylle Augusta Sophia Baroness von Sell. During the 17 years of their marriage before his death in 1984, Martin and Sibylle could communicate without speaking of their common experiences under Nazi tyranny. She had known Niemöller -- and had even played with his children from his first marriage -- in Germany many years earlier. Sibylle's father, Baron Ullrich von Sell, was a financial adviser to Emperor Wilhelm II, and her family was staunchly anti-Nazi even in the earliest days of the party’s rise to power.

In fact, her family helped plot the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler; and it was her cousin Werner von Haeften, who carried the briefcase containing a bomb into a meeting that Hitler attended on that day. The bomb was detonated, killing four men, but Hitler escaped unharmed. Von Haeften and two fellow conspirators were later executed for their roles in the plot. Soon after, Sibylle and her father were arrested, interrogated, and beaten. Although she was eventually released, her father was held in the Lehrter Strasse prison in Berlin, and was later kidnapped by the Soviets during the Battle of Berlin. In 1945 he starved to death in Russia's Jamlitz prison camp.

Sibylle emigrated to the U.S. after WWII and became a researcher for the news division of the NBC television network at its headquarters offices in New York City. After divorcing her first husband in 1969, she read in the newspaper that the father of her childhood friends, Martin Niemöller, was going to speak in the city. She contacted him and they arranged to meet in the lobby of New York's Gramercy Park Hotel.

"I had a crush on him since I was eight years old," she said, continuing: "The elevator door opened, and there stood a man with iron-gray hair. He said he would have recognized me anywhere. We fell in love almost immediately."

After the death of her famous husband, Sibylle converted to Judaism and took the name Sarah... a meaningful gesture, she said, because it is the name that was used by the Nazis as a derogatory reference to Jewish women during the Holocaust.

As should be obvious, I have long been a fan of the Niemöllers. Silly me... I guess I just hate to see Pastor Martin misquoted.

But as Niemöller fans go, I'm a decided lightweight. For a taste of Dr. Littel's passion Niemöller's words and how they've been misused and abused over the years, see this 1997 article by Littel, as originally published in Christian Ethics Today.

 

Thank you, Nosborne. I couldn't remember how the quote went and I found the version I quoted on the net.

 

I know, Carl, you're quiet (pun intended) the polemicist.

 

Just curious but does anyone know what the JW opinion of artifical blood products would be?

 

I work in healthcare administration for a large clinic in an area that has a fair amount of Jehovah's Witnesses. I should point out that the JWs are not the only faith that has an issue with blood products as part of medical care; but they certainly are the most well-known for this.

For the run of the mill competent adult patient, we make every effort to respect their wishes to not receive blood or blood products. As with most other religious beliefs, individual practitioners have a wide spectrum of belief in this regard. Some patients will accept blood or blood products in extremis, some will take volume expanders, some will accept the use of a Cell-Saver or other technologies to harvest and return blood during surgery.

Where we have a major problem with refusal of blood products is with pediatric patients or pregnant women. It is one thing for a competent adult to refuse treatment, knowing that such refusal may cause morbidity or death. For many physicians, it is quite another thing to allow someone else to let a child or a viable baby to die from refusing blood products. The ethical values of the physicians in these situations directly conflict with the ethical values of the patient or patient's guardian.

And unlike what you see on TV, where attractive attorneys can get an emergency court order in 15 minutes compelling treatment, this does not happen in real life, at least not that fast. It is a truism in healthcare that most of these situations seem to happen at 0230 hours on a Saturday. Good luck trying to find a judge. In my county, the judges are not available outside of normal business hours. The last time we got an emergency court order compelling treatment, it took three days. In a clinical emergency, you may have only minutes to respond.

So we do tell patients and guardians up front if this involves a pediatric patient or pregnant woman, we will transfuse as we see fit to save their lives. If they cannot accept that, then they need to transfer their care down to Seattle.

These are tough ethical situations for everyone, and there can be a distinct lack of black and white answers for these events.

 

It really is, isn't it. I realize it's a hijacking of the thread (though it doesn't have to be if we pretty much stop talking about it soon), but I've always found it so... well... your word is good: "Fascinating." The quote's been used so much and in so many ways wrongly that I've always liked the real story (and, frankly, liked telling it). I thought maybe others here might, too... though maybe I should have started a new thread and, if so, then I apologize for not thinking of that first.

Well... I mean... of course, that's a logical assumption. And it may well be the case. Two things may mitigate against that, however: First, while Niemöller may very well have recognized the juiciness of the quote, it appears he didn't repeat it all that much... if at all. Second, Littell is adamant that his version of the quote is accurate; and that he verified it, syllable for syllable -- including punctuation -- with the American church official who organized Niemöller's US speaking engagements. Littell insists that Niemöller both said and meant it one and only one way; and in his (Littell's) writings on the subject, he exhibits palbable irritation with what he calls the "corruption" of the quote "to promote special interests," and he expresses his fear that because of it "literally millions of school children and also adults are being taught lies about the Holocaust." He also uses strong language when he wrote about it, "Even if a corrupt text appears in print, whether published by an ignoramus or a special pleasure, the literate reader should catch the mistake." As far as Littell is concerned, there's only one version. Period.

By the way, I referred everyone here to one of Littell's writings in my earlier post, but I can see now that I screwed it up... or maybe the forum software did, I dunno. I know the forum software sometimes inserts real HTML <tag> brackets into email addresses for some weird reason, so goofing-up a link is, I suppose, possible. But I probably did it myself somehow. After all, I left the second "l" off Littell's name a time or two in that post, so I probably screwed-up the link, too. Who knows.

Either way, the correct link to the article where one may see Littell's treatment of the subject is:

http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/009/First%20They%20Came%20for%20the%20Jews%20By%20Franklin%20H%20Littell_009_29_.htm

 

Palpable.

Typos abound.

Oy.

 

Re: Re: Re: JW's, blood, and harmful religious extremism...

hmmmmmm pot....

Oh, did i type that?

 

Originally posted by Carl_Reginstein

Appropriate for whom, Carl? You? Since when do you set the standards for what is and isn't appropriate?

Who appointed you the conscience of those whom you differ theologically?

Having said that, I have to state the only time I feel it is the state's right to intervene in medical issues concerning the Witnesses, Scientists, etc., is when children are involved.

They are too young to make critical decisions regarding life and death. I oppose seat belt laws except when it comes to children, also.