The White Rose...

In the resistance tradition of the midwives who resisted Pharoh's genocidal decree and Rahab, who hid the Isralite spies from the Jericoh police and Saul’s troops who refused to kill the priest of Nob who had sheltered and armed David...I draw your attention to "The White Rose".

They were a non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of a number of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to German dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.

The six core members of the group were arrested by the Gestapo and executed by beheading in 1943. The text of their sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to the UK, and in July 1943 copies of it were dropped over Germany by Allied planes, retitled "The Manifesto of the Students of Munich."
Monument to the "White Rose" in front of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Here are a couple quotes from "The White Rose's" writings:

"Why do German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? ... The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals....[The German] must evidence not only sympathy; no, much more: a sense of complicity in guilt....For through his apathetic behaviour he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do.... he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all! Each man wants to be exonerated ....But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!... now that we have recognized [the Nazis] for what they are, it must be the sole and first duty, the holiest duty of every German to destroy these beasts. (From Leaflet 2)

"...why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right - or rather, your moral duty - to eliminate this system? (From Leaflet 3)

I know that the gun seems so much more powerful than a stack of letters...but I'm a true believer in the transformative power of the Word. I think of Martin Luther King's sermon on Vietnam which could be preached today...just insert "Iraq or Afghanistan" instead of Vietnam. There is a lot of really great thoughts in his sermon, one of the most quoted being:

"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

And this quote seemed particularly prophetic to me:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism." -Buddhist leaders of Vietnam

or..."Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy

My focus on such people and voices; isn't done with the intent on discouraging or maligning any who are serving in the military or hold pro-war convictions. I simply offer these alternatives and ongoing dialogue in order to foster greater thought and debate among honest and thinking Christians.