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Pendle Hill Pamphlets
Conscience
What all this adds up to is that when you read in this pamphlet about conscience, you are listening to the voice of a conscience incarnate. When next someone who is skeptical, or perhaps cynical, about nonviolence says that it may “work” in India or when you are dealing with “civilized people like the British; but what about Hitler?” you can recall that you have listened to a man who practiced nonviolence through all the years of Hitler’s regime without compromising. Nor is his pacifism a merely personal or interior attitude. The problems of the economic order, of race relations, of East-West relations, of the transformation of society and culture in the nuclear age, deeply concern him. He is one of the forerunners and earliest leaders of the nonviolent revolution which is gaining followers in many lands outside India. All of them, as well as all who as Christians may be interested in the acts of a modern apostle, should read this pamphlet.
35 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 28, 2015
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January 14, 2024
Note: This 1961 pamphlet is listed with a Kindle edition cover stating pamphlet 411 on Goodreads.
Mensching was a strong proponent of nonviolence and a Lutheran pastor in Germany during WWII.
Attributed to Mensching: “When you come into the house and the room is dark, you do not curse the darkness; you light a candle,” (p. 3)
“Conscience is a man’s inner ear for the voice which tells him what he should do and what he should leave undone, what the pattern and purpose of his life should be. Conscience is not this voice, but only the human ability to hear the voice.” (p. 6) The voice may be called the voice of God, of morality, truth, right livelihood, etc. and one does not need to belong to any particular faith to hear it. In fact, one may have to abandon their faith to live by their conscience, Mensching writes. (p. 8)
The first article of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states “All human beings are …endowed with a conscience.
A conscience is not to merely adhere to the opinions and rules current in our environment. “We have been given a conscience so that we can hear a voice which wants more than strict observance of the rules valid in our community or in any other group. We have a conscience to teach us what is right and wrong not only with others but in ourselves. …We have a conscience so that we will not let our ourselves be lulled to sleep by our environment, but will remain alert and sensitive to truth, justice, reason, morality and God.” (p. 14)
“Always and everywhere, conscience has first enlightened a few individuals so that they recognized an act of barbarism as such and could no longer be easy about it. Often the awakening of a single conscience has led to the formation of a public conscience against what had not been previously recognized as inhumanity.” (p. 22)
“If we human beings are uncertain, however, about what is good and evil, right and wrong, humane and inhumane, we have, in our conscience, the possibility of turning directly to the voice within. We possess no gift more valuable. Our sensitivity for hearing the deciding voice needs, nonetheless, careful attention. Even our conscience can be mistaken.” (p. 25)
Mensching was a strong proponent of nonviolence and a Lutheran pastor in Germany during WWII.
Attributed to Mensching: “When you come into the house and the room is dark, you do not curse the darkness; you light a candle,” (p. 3)
“Conscience is a man’s inner ear for the voice which tells him what he should do and what he should leave undone, what the pattern and purpose of his life should be. Conscience is not this voice, but only the human ability to hear the voice.” (p. 6) The voice may be called the voice of God, of morality, truth, right livelihood, etc. and one does not need to belong to any particular faith to hear it. In fact, one may have to abandon their faith to live by their conscience, Mensching writes. (p. 8)
The first article of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states “All human beings are …endowed with a conscience.
A conscience is not to merely adhere to the opinions and rules current in our environment. “We have been given a conscience so that we can hear a voice which wants more than strict observance of the rules valid in our community or in any other group. We have a conscience to teach us what is right and wrong not only with others but in ourselves. …We have a conscience so that we will not let our ourselves be lulled to sleep by our environment, but will remain alert and sensitive to truth, justice, reason, morality and God.” (p. 14)
“Always and everywhere, conscience has first enlightened a few individuals so that they recognized an act of barbarism as such and could no longer be easy about it. Often the awakening of a single conscience has led to the formation of a public conscience against what had not been previously recognized as inhumanity.” (p. 22)
“If we human beings are uncertain, however, about what is good and evil, right and wrong, humane and inhumane, we have, in our conscience, the possibility of turning directly to the voice within. We possess no gift more valuable. Our sensitivity for hearing the deciding voice needs, nonetheless, careful attention. Even our conscience can be mistaken.” (p. 25)
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