George Weigel (click here for a bio) has just written an article on the White Rose for the First Things website. The White Rose was a small group of German university students in Munich who wrote some of the truths about WW II for the German people during the days when Hitler was in power. They wrote what they realized about Hitler in 6 leaflets that were distributed by the group to many parts of Germany. Weigel wrote this article because of the time proximity of now with the 75th anniversary of the execution of the White Rose's 3 most famous members: Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christopher Probst. He also wrote the article to emphasize the role that religious influence had on some of the members of the White Rose and the role of conscience in one's life (click here for the article and click there for a fuller history of the White Rose).
The influences on the members of the White Rose, which Weigel believes are not given due attention, are the teachings of Archbishop Clemons von Galen and John Henry Newman. From Archbishop von Galen, members of the White Rose learned that actions must come after reflection. From Newman comes the White Rose's claim to be the 'bad consciences' of the Third Reich which appeared in the 4th leaflet. According to Weigel, Sophie Scholl passed along Newman's works onto her boyfriend who was fighting on the Russian Front. He responded by writing to her about how one's conscience enables us to distinguish between right and wrong. And during her trial, she, in part, attributed her decision to participate in the writing and spreading of the leaflets to her conscience.
What else did the White Rose learn from the conscience? According Weigel, they learned that consciences can neither be 'ignored' nor 'manipulated.' In addition, God uses our consciences to give a choice between life and death. And they learned that submission to one's conscience allows us to experience the 'deepest meaning of human freedom.' Thus, for the most part, Weigel focused on the effects that Newman's writings on the conscience had on the members of the White Rose and, possibly on us if we follow his lead.
This article by Weigel is important because of the combination of the subject and today's news. The subject, being the White Rose, is about students trying to lead a nonviolent resistance against a brutal and insane dictator who was spreading death and destruction throughout all Europe. From the White Rose, we saw a courageous group of students who resisted that dictator by speaking out because their other choice was to be complicit in what their government and nation were doing.
From today's news, we see an even younger set of students who are speaking out imploring our government to change the gun laws so that there are fewer mass shootings. And the reaction to that speaking out by conservative authoritarians, note that there are authoritarians among liberals and leftists as well, is to try to discredit kids' message. They don't want to see the gun laws become more restrictive because such violates the traditional conservative approach to the individual's access to guns. Thus, they pass along messages telling the kids that there are bigger fish to fry in the sea than gun violence or that gun violence is not due to guns but to people misusing guns. In the end, what they are telling today's students is that, unlike the members of the White Rose, they should be silent despite the carnage that either they or their peers have witnessed. It would be one thing to disagree with these students but encourage them to speak out anyway. But that isn't the response from many conservative authoritarians to the protests against today's gun laws.
So I am thankful to Weigel for writing this article and reminding us of the story of the White Rose. But a note of caution should be added. Our consciences are not infallible. For some, their consciences are too lax while for others, their consciences are overbearing. At the same time, even when our consciences are not correctly aligned, they can still sometimes help us distinguish between right and wrong at times. And we should note that the fallibility of the conscience is due its multiple influences. Our consciences are influenced by the people around us, by how we have responded to consciences before, by what we have witnessed in life, and by God speaking to us. For us Christians, the Scriptures are the guide to our consciences.
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